You say it's your birthday?

  • Published
  • By Courtesy of 6th Air Mobility Wing History Office
  • 6th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  When was MacDill Air Force Base's birthday? In 1939? Maybe 1941? How about 1948? While that question probably wouldn't even spark a classic Leonard Hofstadter-Sheldon Cooper debate (if you don't know, ask your kids about the TV show The Big Bang Theory), it's kept at least one local historian busy lately.

"Well, actually, all of those proposals have some merit, but I have yet to see an Air Force source that officially lists one particular date as MacDill's 'birthday,'" said William Polson, the 6th Air Mobility Wing historian.

A brief list of events highlights the base's beginnings. However, any one of them could lay claim to the honorary title 'MacDill's birthday,' he said. They start with May 1939, which the Air Force lists as MacDill's "Date of Establishment"- a mildly bloviated term that basically means the date that a major command activated the base in one way or another, most likely on paper. That list then extends to January 1948, when the name of the base changed from MacDill Field to MacDill Air Force Base to reflect the Air Force's relatively new status at that time as an independent branch of the military. In between those two dates, there are a couple of others that are officially listed, and then there are a couple that are not officially listed. And, so it goes.

"Depending on what you read or who you talk with, it's easy to draw different conclusions," Mr. Polson added.

Over the past few decades, two prime contenders have emerged: 1939 and 1941. In one corner, some have used July 13, 1939 - the date that a Tampa Morning Tribune headline trumpeted "We get the big air base" as sort of an unofficial beginning for the base. Meanwhile, others have often focused on April 16, 1941, the date the base held its official dedication ceremony.

"With so many dates tossed around, it wasn't uncommon over the years for different people to latch on to any one of these dates and then claim it was MacDill's birthday," said Mr. Polson. "We wanted to put this issue to rest once and for all, and thanks to a command decision by Col. Lenny Richoux, 6th Air Mobility Wing commander, April 16, 1941, has become the official MacDill birthday."

On that date, a large crowd of people gathered with the Army Air Corps troops stationed on the land once known by local Tampans as "Catfish Point" to see the wide range of military planes, participate in the military pomp and circumstance, and formally open the nation's new Southeast Air Base - or MacDill Field as it was officially named in December 1939. At the time of the ceremony, the base still had a ways to go before completion. Only a few two-story wooden buildings and three runways (5,000 feet long and 250 feet wide) had been constructed. Although many of the troops had been in Tampa for months before the ceremony, many had bivouacked in tents at Drew Field (on the site of today's Tampa International Airport).

During the ceremony, Mrs. Marilla MacDill, widow of the base's namesake Col. Leslie MacDill, and her two daughters, Katherine and Jean, were the honored guests. Later in the afternoon, formal ceremonies were held on the flight line with the public and many others attending. Among the dignitaries were representatives from Tampa, the State of Florida, as well as the Department of War.

After the ceremony, construction would eventually add many more buildings to the base. Throughout the years, MacDill would see many units, as well as many more service members, come and go. The units that trained and flew the bombers of World War II and then the swept-wing "Stratojets" of the 1950s eventually gave way to a new era in 1964, as the fighter jets took to Tampa's skies for most of the following three decades. In the 1990s and into the new millennium, the new missions at MacDill focused on aerial refueling and providing airlift for the major military commanders, such as U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command. And, after all of this, even today's fictional Leonard and Sheldon would probably find enough common ground to say that looking back over the past 70 years, April 16 wasn't such a bad day to say "Happy Birthday MacDill!"