Qualla: Shaw Air Force Base

Shaw Air Force Base: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit United States Air Force, Public domain. Lieutenant Ervin David Shaw never came home. On July 9, 1918, three German aircraft caught his Bristol F.2B fighter returning from a reconnaissance run over the Western Front, and the South Carolinian who had volunteered with the Royal Canadian Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force's No. 48 Squadron - one of the first Americans to fly combat missions of the First World War - died in the air. He was a Sumter County native. Twenty-three years later, when the U.S. Army Air Corps opened a basic flying school on a stretch of South Carolina farmland west-northwest of Sumter, they named it Shaw Field in his honor. The base he never saw has now operated, in one configuration or another, for over eighty years. It is the home of the 20th Fighter Wing and a headquarters node for the modern American way of war.

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Image: United States Air Force | Public domain

Shaw Air Force Base: BT-13s and the First Class

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of Defense. American Forces Information Service. Defense Visual Information Center. 1994, Public domain. Shaw Field activated on August 30, 1941, with three 4,500-foot runways and several auxiliary fields scattered across the Sumter and Wedgefield countryside - Burnt Gin Airfield, Rembert, Monaghan, the Sumter Airfield. Cadets started training on October 22, 1941, flying the orange-...

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Image: Department of Defense. American Forces Information Service. Defense Visual Information Center. 1994 | Public domain

Shaw Air Force Base: Reconnaissance Capital

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit United States Air Force, Public domain. For four decades after the Second World War, Shaw was the Air Force's center for tactical reconnaissance training. Nearly every reconnaissance aircrew in the service was trained or stationed here. The aircraft made a parade through the decades: the Martin RB-57A Canberra, the Dou...

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Image: United States Air Force | Public domain

Shaw Air Force Base: Desert Shield, Desert Storm

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit United States Air Force, Public domain. On August 9, 1990, just a week after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the 17th and 33d Tactical Fighter Squadrons of the 363d became the first F-16 squadrons deployed to the United Arab Emirates for Operation Desert Shield. Flying from Al Dhafra Air Base alongside the 10th from Hahn, they fo...

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Image: United States Air Force | Public domain

Shaw Air Force Base: Patton Hall

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Department of Defense Current Photos Senior Airman Jensen Stidham/20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs, Public domain. On June 1, 2011, the Army opened a $100 million, 320,000-square-foot command facility on Shaw and called it Patton Hall. It became the new home of U.S. Army Central - Third Army - which moved roughly 3,000 service members, civilians, and families to the Sumter area as part of the...

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Image: U.S. Department of Defense Current Photos Senior Airman Jensen Stidham/20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs | Public domain