Penn Field

Penn Field is a former World War I military airfield, located in Austin, Texas. It operated as a radio training field for the Air Service, United States Army between 1917 until 1919. The airfield was one of thirty-two Air Service training camps established in 1918 after the United States entry into World War I.HistoryThe field was named Penn Landing Field in memory of aviation cadet Eugene Doak Penn, an Austin flyer, who died in a training accident near Foggia, Italy, on May 20, 1918.World War IPenn Field was established in 1918 for use of the School of Military Aeronautics conducted by the University of Texas for the United States government. A perspicacious chamber of commerce, anticipating the need in Austin for an aircraft-landing field, secured an option on land just south of Austin. It included a part of the campus of St. Edwards University and some adjacent land owned by Landa, Gruene and Marbach of New Braunfels. General George O. Squire, chief signal officer of the United States Army Signal Corps, deemed 150 acres suitable for a landing field; he approved the site in September 1917.Lt. John A. McCurdy, commander of advanced cross-country and formation flying at Kelly Field, San Antonio, made a flight into the field and approved it except for the rocks and cornstalks. The chamber of commerce appointed a cleanup committee, and on four Sundays in September volunteer labor, including Boy Scouts and boys from the Deaf and Dumb Institute, picked up and hauled away 317 truckloads of rocks from the surface. The quantity of cornstalks removed is not recorded.