This region played a vital role in helping to save the United States and the Allies in World War II.  This once-sleepy backwater became important to winning the war, because Germany dominated skies over Europe when America entered the conflict in late 1941. And Japan controlled the air over much of the Pacific.

"The outcome was not guaranteed by any stretch," Matt Johnson, author and director of the IMAG History and Science Center in Fort Myers, said. "And it would require a major effort by the world, and the United States playing the largest role in that."

The military knew that America and the Allies had to take back the skies, and that meant training pilots and flexible gunners to protect bombers. Flexible gunners were the men who sat at turrets on bombers. They would swing .50-caliber machine guns all around, firing at enemy planes attacking the bomber.

Florida proved the ideal training ground for aerial training. "Very simple:   It was flat and open," Johnson said.

Page in Fort Myers already was an airfield, so the move to military training happened fast.

"They had fighters coming in, bombers and transport planes coming in," Johnson said. "And they would take them up to train the pilots." 

Johnson's book, "Buckingham Army Airfield," written with Chris Wadsworth, describes how it was carved out of swamps and forest to train flexible gunners as part of bomber crews. Barracks were far cries from the resorts that draw visitors to the region today.

"So you're talking about the middle of summer, no air conditioning, no mosquito control, living in a box with tar-paper walls, along with dozens of other people, in bunk beds," he said.

The gunnery training started simply enough.

"They would shoot shotguns with skeet, with targets,  to teach them how to lead a target," Johnson explained. "Bombers when they're flying are not nice and smooth; they are bouncing all over the place.  So they put them (gunners) in the back of a truck with a  .50-caliber machine  gun, firing that while bouncing in the back of a pick-up  truck!"

Many women were stationed at both Buckingham and Page fields during the war.   Women Airforce Service Pilots, commonly called WASPs, flew heavily-armored planes as targets for gunners, who fired plastic bullets. Women had to fly target planes, because all male pilots went overseas as soon as they finished training. Sometimes that took only two to three months.

Thousands of women who were part of the Women's Army Corps, or WACs, helped run the bases. Rick Black of Fort Myers honored them in a recent event at Buckingham, put on by the Fort Myers Amateur Radio Club.

Black said his mother, Betty, was a 17-year-old civilian working at Buckingham. She transported ammunition and other supplies to planes waiting to take off.

"I'm proud of the role she played in that, and proud of what the U.S. military did in the war," Black said.       

He added that his mother's stories about her time at Buckingham inspired him to join the Air Force.

"I think what she did is the kind of thing that enabled us to continue in our freedom," Black said.
   
The training called for bomber crews to drop 100-pound dummy bombs on uninhabited barrier islands. The bombs were filled mostly with sand and water, along with some explosive material to mark impact spots. Planes sometimes dropped live bombs on ranges, or in the Everglades.

Crashes were common, both on land and in the water.

"Up in Tampa Bay the B-26 (bomber) was known as:   'One a day in Tampa Bay', because there were so many accidents," Johnson said. "It also had the nickname of Widow-Maker." 
 
The IMAG center in Fort Myers displays the story of one bomber from Buckingham that crashed in the Gulf, about 25 miles off-shore. Six men from different states died in the crash, later determined to have been the result of mechanical failure. Two bodies were recovered at the time, and decades after the war, dive crews recovered a crumpled propeller from the plane.

Overseas the death toll in combat for pilots and crew was high.

"As many as two-thirds of them did not return from bombing runs over Germany," Johnson said. "It was not uncommon for an entire squadron to not return."

But over time American air power destroyed factories and fuel refineries in both Germany and Japan, effectively deciding the war in the Allies' favor.

"You hear the stories, not only of the bravery, but the grit, that it required," Johnson said. "It is an emotional experience when you look at the human toll and the human experience that it required."  

Page Field returned to civilian status when the war ended. Buckingham field was abandoned, but later revived as headquarters for Lee County Mosquito Control.
The old chapel at Buckingham was taken apart, brick by brick, transported to Fort Myers, and the bricks re-laid to build St. John First Missionary Baptist Church. It still stands in the Dunbar community.

People like Oscar Corbin, a Buckingham gunnery instructor, came back to the city of Fort Myers after the war. He was elected mayor, and city hall is named for Corbin.

Veteran Brian Darley organized the recent amateur radio event at Buckingham, honoring the men and women who were stationed or worked there in World War II. He said we must never forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

"It hits hard," he said. "It leaves a lump in the throat, those that trained here and did not make it back."       

The City of Fort Myers put up a statue and display in Centennial Park, reminding people of the brave men and women who helped save the land of the free.

"When people move down here they think:  this is part of the Southwest Florida story," Johnson said. "But it's also part of the American story that we continue to tell and protect."

Mike Walcher is a reporter with WGCU News, and also teaches Journalism at Florida Gulf Coast University.

WGCU's Florida 250 stories are sponsored in part by the State of Florida through the Division of Arts and Culture.