Qualla: Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field

Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. The first naval aviators to land at what would become Chambers Field flew seaplanes - canvas-and-wood biplanes that were towed across the James River from Newport News in 1917 and tied to wooden stakes in the water until canvas hangars could be put up. There were three aviators, ten enlisted sailors, and seven aircraft. The new location had three things the old one lacked: sheltered water for seaplane landings, an ice-free harbor that did not freeze in winter, and supply lines that ran straight back to Naval Station Norfolk next door. A little over a hundred years later, the same patch of ground hosts the air operations of the largest naval base in the world.

Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field: Washington Irving Chambers

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. The airfield is named for Captain Washington Irving Chambers, an Annapolis graduate who did more than almost anyone else to convince the prewar Navy that aircraft would matter at sea. He arranged the first takeoff of an airplane from a U.S. Navy ship - a Curtiss pusher flown off ...

Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field: AIRLANT

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. By the summer of 1940, the station employed about 8,000 personnel, more than at any time since the end of World War I. Captain Patrick Bellinger, who had been the station's commanding officer twenty years earlier, returned to oversee its expansion. He insisted on permanent struct...

Image: Public domain

Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field: The Women Who Built the Planes

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. The Assembly and Repair Department - the depot that overhauled engines and airframes for the entire Atlantic Fleet - is a measure of how the war changed Norfolk. In 1939 the department occupied four old World War I hangars and employed 213 enlisted men and 573 civilians. By war's...

Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field: Apollo's Recovery Control

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. In 1968, the Naval Air Station took on a new responsibility - it became Recovery Control Center Atlantic for NASA's Apollo program. Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo mission, splashed down in the Atlantic on October 22, 1968. The ships and aircraft that picked up the crew of Wall...

Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field: Merger and Modernity

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. The Naval Aviation Depot at Norfolk, which had grown out of that wartime Assembly and Repair Department, closed on September 25, 1996 - the BRAC commission had recommended closure in 1993, and it took three years to wind down - ending decades of overhauling Grumman F-14 Tomcats a...

Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain