Captain Robert M. Losey was an aeronautical meteorologist, not a combat officer. In April 1940, while observing weather conditions during the German invasion of Norway, he was killed by a Luftwaffe bomb near Dombas - becoming the first American military casualty of World War II, months before the United States formally entered the conflict. A year later, the U.S. Army Air Corps named a new airfield in southern Puerto Rico after him. Losey Field, carved out of 921 acres near Juana Diaz, began receiving fighter and bomber squadrons in early 1941. P-40 Warhawks from the 36th Fighter Group patrolled Caribbean approaches. B-18 Bolo bombers hunted submarines. The airfield served its purpose through the war, then began the long, restless process of becoming something else - a pattern that would repeat for decades, each reinvention reflecting not just military strategy but the evolving, complicated relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico.
Losey Field's wartime role was defensive. Puerto Rico sat at a strategic crossroads - the gateway to the Panama Canal, the eastern anchor of Caribbean defenses, a point from which German U-boats threatening Allied shipping could be intercepted. The 36th Fighter Group established headquarters at Losey in January 1941, with the 22nd, 23rd, and 32nd Fighter Squadrons rotating through on P-40 Warhawks. The 4th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron operated from the field for over two years, watching the sea lanes. In May 1943, the 417th Bombardment Squadron arrived with its B-18 Bolos, aging bombers pressed into anti-submarine patrol. None of this was glamorous warfare - no great aerial battles, no dramatic raids. It was the grinding, essential work of watching and waiting, keeping the Caribbean open for Allied convoys hauling fuel, food, and war material between the Americas and Europe. By 1944, with the U-boat threat diminished, the Air Corps departed and the field passed to Army ground forces.
In 1949, the airfield became Camp Losey, transferred to Army ground forces. A year later, it was renamed Fort Allen in honor of Brigadier General James Allen, a former commander of the U.S. Army Signal Corps - a name that hinted at the installation's coming purpose. During the Korean War, Fort Allen provided operational support for U.S. and NATO forces, its communications infrastructure growing in importance as the Cold War spread across the globe. In 1959, the Army's Caribbean Signal Agency took control. Four years later, the Navy arrived, redesignating the post as Naval Radio Station Fort Allen. By 1970, the Headquarters and Communications Center of Naval Communication Station Puerto Rico had relocated from San Juan to Fort Allen, making this quiet installation in southern Puerto Rico a node in the global network of military communications that kept American forces connected from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The Navy departed Fort Allen in 1980, moving its communications center to Naval Station Roosevelt Roads on Puerto Rico's eastern coast. What followed was a period of institutional improvisation. In November 1980, the installation became headquarters for the Army Reserve's 35th Expeditionary Signal Battalion. A year later, under a presidential order, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reconfigured Fort Allen as a processing center for Cuban and Haitian refugees - people fleeing political repression and economic desperation who found themselves on a former airfield in Juana Diaz, their fate decided in buildings designed for military communications. In 1983, 500 acres were officially transferred to the Puerto Rico National Guard, which began shaping the installation to serve the island's own defense forces. The Navy retained 117 acres for a Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar receiver site, built in 1997 - 34 antennas stretching between 71 and 123 feet tall, part of a surveillance network monitoring flights over more than a million square miles of South American airspace.
Today, Fort Allen operates as a Puerto Rico National Guard installation with an educational mission. The Officer Candidate School, NCO Academy, and Language Center for the Puerto Rico Army and Air National Guard are all based here. Since 1999, the National Guard Youth Challenge Program has offered a residential alternative for high school dropouts between 16 and 18 years old - participants live on base while developing the skills and discipline needed to re-enter civilian life as productive citizens. In 2011, a 55,000-square-foot Armed Forces Reserve Center was inaugurated and dedicated to Major General Salvador Padilla Escabi, the sixth Adjutant General of the Puerto Rico National Guard and founder of the Language Center at Fort Allen. The facility can accommodate 150 rotating Guard and Reserve soldiers. It is a modest operation compared to Fort Allen's wartime peak, but it represents something the base's earlier incarnations never quite achieved: a military installation primarily serving Puerto Ricans, run by Puerto Ricans, for purposes defined by Puerto Rico's own needs.
Located at 18.01°N, 66.50°W on a 921-acre facility near Juana Diaz in southern Puerto Rico. The former Losey Field airstrip may still be partially visible from altitude as a cleared runway area in the landscape. Look for the distinctive ROTHR (Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar) antenna array - 34 antennas between 71 and 123 feet tall spread across 117 acres on the eastern portion of the installation. Nearest major airport is Mercedita Airport (TJPS/PSE) in Ponce, approximately 15 km west. The base sits inland from the southern coast, between the coastal plain and the Cordillera Central foothills. The town of Juana Diaz is adjacent to the north. From altitude, the installation is identifiable by its military layout - geometric roads, cleared areas, and the ROTHR antenna field. Approach from the south for the best overview of the facility's relationship to the surrounding agricultural landscape.