LEFT: AM-1s in Building V-60 of Overhaul and Repair at Naval Air Station (NAS) Norfolk. RIGHT: A Douglas SBD Dauntless assigned to NAS Norfolk flies above the base.
On Oct. 26, 1922 Lt. Cmdr. Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier, flying an Aeromarine 39B off Cape Henry, made the first arrested landing on Langley. He had helped design and test the arresting gear at NAS Norfolk. Following this success, air station personnel began development of a catapult for launching aircraft from carriers. Lighter-than-air operations, which began at the air station soon after it was established, were suspended in 1924. Further contraction at NAS Norfolk was staved off in the mid-1920s when civilian employees of the station’s Assembly and Repair Department (the predecessor to the facility’s long standing Naval Air Depot) successfully partnered with Norfolk’s Chamber of Commerce to fight planned cessation of aircraft overhaul work. The training of naval aviators and additional research and development was carried out through the rest of the decade and into the 1930s, but the tempo at NAS Norfolk was much reduced. It wasn’t until the drums of war began to beat in the late 1930s that the air station would undergo its greatest expansion.
U.S. Navy photo
WORLD WAR II By 1938, when Bellinger returned to command the air station he helped establish 20 years earlier, NAS Norfolk was also known as Chambers Field, dedicated as such the month before his arrival. Having attained the rank of captain, Bellinger was in place to oversee the early phases of the greatest expansion in the air station’s history. But the pace had already picked up at NAS Norfolk. Advanced training in navigation, gunnery, and bombing was conducted from the air station to support air wings forming in the late 1930s as the carriers Ranger, Yorktown, Enterprise, and Wasp joined the Saratoga and Lexington in the Navy’s fleet by 1937. NAS Norfolk encompassed 236 acres at this point, including Chambers Field and West Landing Field. Both were overcrowded and encroaching on NOB activities, but relief was on the way. Following the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939,
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the National Emergency Program. Defense spending soared. Deemed vital to national security, Naval Station Norfolk and NAS Norfolk were to become the Navy’s largest installation and the biggest naval base on the planet. One of the first major moves was construction of a third airfield within the confines of the NOB. In early 1940, Congress authorized the purchase of 1,000 acres of land between the naval station’s eastern limit and Granby Street. Formerly known as East Camp, the tract had been sold by the Army at the conclusion of World War I. More than $72 million went into the construction of the new “East Field” facility. Bellinger revised and approved a plan to construct a multitude of hangars, three runways, magazine areas, warehouses, barracks, a new dispensary, and docking areas. Dredging in Willoughby Bay began in 1940 and the NAS Norfolk seaplane operating area at Breezy Point, Virginia, was constructed from reclaimed marshlands at the mouth of Mason Creek, Virginia. Two large hangars, ramps for seaplanes, barracks, officers’ quarters, and family housing were built. After the United States entered World War II in December 1941, expansion activities were redoubled. Naval planners directed that facilities be developed to operate five aircraft carrier air groups, seven to nine patrol squadrons, a fighter director school, and the Atlantic Fleet operational training program for 200 pilots prior to their fleet assignment. Requests were also made to provide training and maintenance facilities for British aircrew from HMS Illustrious and Formidable. NAS Norfolk would provide training for a wide range of allied naval air units throughout the war. As 1942 and 1943 wore on, runways were extended, parking areas were enlarged, and additional acreage was added to East Field.