Eagle Mountain Lake MCAS Auxiliary (Rhome Field)

More than 6,000 United States military pilots flew gliders during World War II. Several training and auxiliary landing fields were established throughout Texas and the United States gliders were unpowered aircraft dependent on wind and lift. The brave pilots overcame treacherous odds to penetrate enemy lines and aid in the demise of the Axis Powers. Rhome Field was an outlying landing field established in late 1942 to support Eagle Mountain Lake Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS). Partly as an attempt to develop a program for amphibious troop gliders, primarily the Waco CG-4A glider plane. The base west of Aurora consisted of more than 1,200 acres with two 6,000-foot runways, barracks, a single hangar and one control tower. Construction was completed in mid-1943. The use of gliders aided many missions during the war, including the final glider mission during the invasion of Luzon in 1945. Under the command of General MacArthur, glider pilots assisted in the recapture of the northern Philippines region occupied by Japanese forces. By 1945, the glider program was cancelled. By the end of the war, the U.S. had built more than 14,000 gliders and trained more than 6,000 pilots. Eagle Mountain Lake MCAS and Rhome Field were transferred the United States Navy. The Navy used the Eagle Mountain Lake site to test an early radio-controlled drone, but the field at Aurora was abandoned. Several buildings and remnants of this historic WWII base remain today. Although brief in duration, the WWII glider program represents a significant part of military and aviation history.