Chanute Air Force Base

Chanute Air Force Base
Part of Air Training Command (ATC)
Located in Rantoul, Illinois
Chanute AFB, 12 April 1998
Type	Air Force Base
Coordinates	40°17′40″N 088°08′35″W
Built	1917
In use	1917-1993
Controlled by	United States Air Force
Garrison	3345th Air Base Group, (1948 - 1993)

Chanute Air Force Base (1917–1993) is a former United States Air Force base located south of and adjacent to Rantoul, Illinois, about 130 miles (210 km) south of Chicago. Its primary mission throughout its existence was Air Force technical training.

Prior to its closing by BRAC in 1993, Chanute was one of the oldest facilities in the United States Air Force. At the time of its closure, Chanute AFB was the U.S. Air Force's third oldest active base and its tennant Chanute Technical Training Center the oldest technical training center in the service.

Chanute Field was initially established on 21 May 1917, being one of the initial World War I-era installations of the then-U.S. Army Air Service.

Current status

Many of the Air Force base's buildings and facilities have found new life, with purposes that range from motels, retirement communities, restaurants, a fitness center, an aerospace museum, a prominent data center and several light manufacturing facilities.^{[citation needed]} The golf course, once only available to service members and their guests, is now one of the most popular in east-central Illinois.^{[citation needed]} The housing on base, once comprising homes for airmen with families, is now occupied by civilians.^{[citation needed]} Even so, many buildings remain unoccupied and are slowly deteriorating due to lack of maintenance. Widespread use of asbestos and the discovery of toxic chemical dumps have forced the condemnation of certain parts of the former base.

Parts of Chanute AFB have been converted to civilian and other alternative uses. The Chanute AFB airfield and its associated hangars and flight line facilities have been converted into an uncontrolled general aviation airport known as the Rantoul National Aviation Center / Frank Elliott Field. The latter title is derived from the late Major General Frank W. Elliott, Jr., USAF, former Chanute Technical Center Commander and the City of Rantoul's Economic Development Consultant following closure of Chanute AFB. An aviation-centric museum, the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum, is also located on the former Chanute AFB site, commemorating much of the installation's military history as Chanute Field and Chanute AFB. Finally, a 6-month military boot camp academy program, the Lincoln's ChalleNGe Academy, is run for troubled youths, ages 16–18, by the Illinois Army National Guard and the Illinois Air National Guard in other former Chanute AFB facilities.

History

Location of Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois

Chanute AFB was named in honor of Octave Chanute (1832–1910), a pioneer aeronautical engineer and experimenter, and friend and adviser to the Wright Brothers. Chanute's biplane glider (1896) with "two arched wings held rigidly together by vertical struts and diagonal wire bracing" (the principle of the Pratt truss used in the railroad bridges which Chanute constructed) served as a prototype design for airplanes.

Major Commands

• Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, July 1917
• Division of Military Aeronautics, 29 May 1918

Redesignated: Director of Air Service

Redesignated: U.S. Army Air Service, 24 May 1918

Redesignated: U.S. Army Air Corps, 2 July 1926

• General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force, 1 March 1935
• Army Air Corps Technical Training Command, 26 March 1941

Redesignated: AAF Flying Training Command, 7 July 1943

Redesignated: AAF Training Command, 31 July 1943

• Air Training Command, 1 July 1946-30 September 1993

Base operating units

• 10th Aero Sq, 7 July 1917 - 18 April 1921
• Army Air Corps Technical School, 18 April 1921 - 1 August 1933
• 98th School Sq, 1 August 1933 - 1 September 1936
• 10th Air Base Sq (Special), 1 September 1936 - 17 February 1941
• 9th Air Base Sq (Special), 17 February 1941 - 1 May 1944
• 3502d AAF Base Unit (Technical School), 1 May 1944 - 26 August 1948
• 3345th Air Base Gp, 26 August 1948 - 1993
• 3496th Air Training Command Headquarters, 1950–1958
• Naval Technical Training Unit Chanute, UNK - 1 December 1992

Tenant operating units

• 2865th Ground Electronic Engineering-Installation Agency (GEEIA) Sq (AFLC) 1956 - 1970

Beginnings

Chanute Air Force Base Hangar Number 1.

In May 1917, Rantoul was chosen to be the site of Rantoul Aviation Field, however on 6 June 1917 the name was changed to Chanute Field. Rantoul was selected due to its proximity to the Illinois Central Railroad and the War Department’s ground school housed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During World War I, Chanute was a pilot training school for the U.S. Army Air Service. With the end of the war, the facility was closed in January 1919 and used as a storage depot for surplus war material.

In February 1921, Chanute Field was reopened as a technical training center for the Army Air Service with various types of training being transferred from Kelly Field, Texas, to Chanute. Nine steel hangars were constructed to serve as classrooms by 1924. However, diminishing funds to the Army Air Service resulted in a sharp decline in the number of students and the use of the airfield during the Great Depression of the early 1930s.

World War II and ties to Tuskegee Airmen

Chanute Air Force Base Headquarters and Administrative Building.

As the Army Air Service became the U.S. Army Air Corps, enhancmenets to Chanute Field followed. The United States Army Air Service Technical Training Command was established at Chanute Field in 1941, and as a U.S. Army Air Forces instalation during World War II, thousands of airmen were stationed there to train new recruits who cycled in and out.

On March 19, 1941, the 99th Pursuit Squadron ("Pursuit" being an early World War II synonym for "Fighter") was activated at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois. Over 250 enlisted men were trained at Chanute in aircraft ground support trades. This small number of enlisted men was to become the core of other black squadrons forming at Tuskegee Field and Maxwell Field in Alabama — the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

Post-War

After World War II, with the formation of the U.S. Air Force as an independent service in 1947, Chanute Field was renamed Chanute Air Force Base. But by 1949, Chanute AFB had become one of the worst installations in the Air Training Command according to the base commander. Buildings were in poor condition and community relations were marginal. The feeling around the military establishment was that an assignment to Chanute AFB was a dire punishment and the phrase "Don't Shoot 'em, Chanute 'em" summed up the general perception of the installation.

The North Korean invasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950 soon affected the training workload at Chanute AFB. In October 1949, the student load had been 5,235, but by 1953 almost 12,000 students were at Chanute AFB for critical training. In the 1960s, Chanute AFB became the prime training center for one of the most important missile programs in history, the LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile. Beginning in the late 1960s, Chanute AFB also trained thousands of allied airmen from Asian and the Middle Eastern nations. During the 1970s, Chanute AFB provided training for thousands of USAF airmen for service in Vietnam. The base invested heavily in quality-of-life programs, building new student dormitories and other support facilities. Due to the cessation of aircraft support requirements for Chanute's training mission, the Air Force closed the base's remaining active runway in 1971.

Chanute AFB eventually served as a major training facility for Air Force aircraft maintenance officers; Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps meteorology personnel (officer and enlisted); and enlisted technical training for Air Force aircraft maintenance, flight simulator maintenance, fuel system maintenance and ICBM missile maintenance.

Chanute AFB also contained training ICBM Launch Facility "silos" for the Minuteman ICBM maintenance personnel. These training facilities were housed at a hangar located on the flight line. After the deactivation of Chanute AFB, ICBM maintenance training was transferred to Vandenberg AFB, California.

An Air Force Technical Training Instructors Course was conducted as well. Additionally, Chanute AFB was the site for training USAF firefighters, life support specialists (ejection seat, aircrew survival equipment, aerospace ground equipment {AGE}, etc.), welders, non-destructive inspection (of materials), airframe repair and most of vehicle maintenance (general purpose, special purpose, fire truck maintenance, materiel handling equipment maintenance) technical schools.

Closure

The base was recommended for closure by the first Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission in 1988 and officially closed as an active USAF installation in 1993. Despite short-term blows to the local economy in the years leading up to and immediately after closing, the transition of Chanute Air Force Base from military to civilian use has been moderately successful.^{[citation needed]}

Post-Closure Environmental Issues

The former base has subsequently been identified by the EPA as a toxic waste Superfund site, with the discovery of asbestos, dioxins, furans, and other carcinogenic substances at hidden dumping grounds around the facility. There are several condemned areas of the former Chanute AFB that are environmental safety issues, including an area in the southeast corner of the base, Heritage Lake, which was a dumping ground, and numerous buildings containing asbestos.

In 2000, the former base was officially designated by the EPA as a Priority SuperFund site, following excavation of test pits which identified volatile organic compounds, SVOCs, dioxins and furans, pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls, and metals detected in the soil, ground water, and leachate in landfills there (see: National Priorities List, US Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Register Notice: December 1, 2000. Available at: http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/nar1615.htm)

See also

• Air Training Command
• Rantoul, Illinois
• Illinois World War II Army Airfields

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.

• Botner, John K., http://www.angelfire.com/nc/johninraleigh/Chanute.html, pictures of the base as it stand now.
• Ravenstein, Charles A., Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947-1977, Office of Air Force History, 1984
• Mueller, Robert, Air Force Bases Volume I, Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982, Office of Air Force History, 1989
• Endicott, Judy G., USAF Active Flying, Space, and Missile Squadrons as of 1 October 1995. Office of Air Force History

External links

• "The West Point Of The Air"" Popular Mechanics, June 1930
• Lincoln's ChalleNGe Academy, conducts its five and a half month resident phase at the former Chanute field.
• Chanute Air Force Base at the Legends and Lore of Illinois
• Illinois EPA
• Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress) - Survey number HABS IL-1185
• Chanute photos