Name/Title
Hart NOLF FieldEntry/Object ID
2015.1.2012Tags
Jack H. King Donation CollectionDescription
Hart NOLF Field
This former airfield had an extremely short life in its original role as a military airfield.
According to Army Corps of Engineers documents, the Navy acquired 220 acres by lease for Hart Outlying Field in early 1942. The Naval Air Advanced Training Command developed the site and used it to support flight training operations in the Jacksonville area.
Only nine months later, in November 1942, the Navy terminated the lease & returned the land to the owners.
After the Navy left, the field was apparently reused as a civilian airport for several years.
George Winterling recalled, “Hart Field on Commonwealth Avenue just west of Lane Avenue...My first airplane ride was back in 1943 when I was 11 years old.
My father, Otto Winterling, drove to the 'airport', which was just a hangar & a sod field which looked like a cow pasture. I climbed into a Piper Cub & sat next to the pilot.
When he revved up the engine, I watched the fat rubber tire out the window bumping off the grassy ruts. After bouncing a few hundred yards, we smoothed out & climbed over the trees at the end of the field. We circled the field over Beaver Street (US 90) and made a 'happy landing'.”
The April 1944 US Army/Navy Directory of Airfields described Hart Field as having a 3,100' unpaved runway. It also indicated that Navy flight operations were conducted from the field, which may have been inaccurate by that point. Hart Field was depicted as a commercial or municipal airport on the February 1945 Jacksonville Sectional Chart. The 1945 AAF Airfield Directory described Hart Field as a 500-acre irregularly-shaped property having 4 sod runways, with the longest being a 3,100' northwest/southeast strip.
The field was described as having a 100' x 75' wooden hangar, to be owned & operated by private interests.
Dorothy Skinner recalled, “Hart's Airfield... when I was a child my grandparents & a few other relatives lived very near this airfield. We always referred to it as Laurie Yonge's Field simply because his name was on a metal hangar (the only one that I can remember).
Some of my older cousins would go over & sweet-talk the pilots of those little Cubs into taking them up for a ride. I don't remember if it was military or not at the time, but it was a very active field right next door to a cow pasture. I know that Laurie Yonge's Flying Service moved to the Imeson Airport many years later.”Collection
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Category 08: Communication Objects