Carswell Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force (USAF) base, located northwest of Fort Worth, Texas. For most of its operational lifetime, the base's mission was to train and support heavy strategic bombing groups and wings. Carswell was a major Strategic Air Command (SAC) base during the Cold War. It was the headquarters of several SAC intercontinental bombardment wings, equipped with the latest heavy bombers from B-29 Superfortresses; B-36 Peacemakers and B-52 Stratofortresses. The west side of the airfield was home to United States Air Force Plant 4, a industrial complex occupied over the decades by Convair, General Dynamics, and now by Lockheed Martin. The bulk of the Air Force Convair B-36, B-58 Hustler, F-111 Aardvark, EF-111 Raven and F-16 Fighting Falcon fleets were built there. With the end of the Cold War and the subsequent downsizing of the American military, the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission of 1991 recommended that Carswell AFB be closed by 1994. Today, the facility is known as Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth. It retains an Air Force Reserve presence as well hosting Navy Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve and Air National Guard flying units which were formerly located at Naval Air Station Dallas. History Carswell Air Force Base was named after Medal of Honor recipient Major Horace S. Carswell, Jr. (1916–1944). Major Carswell was returning from an attack on Japanese shipping in the South China Sea on 26 October 1944. He attempted to save a crewmember whose parachute had been destroyed by flak. He remained at the controls of his crippled bomber and died while crash-landing the B-24 Liberator near Tungchen, China. The base was renamed in his honor on 29 January 1948. Origins Carswell's origins date back to the early years of aviation. After the United States' entry into World War I in April 1917, General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing invited the British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) to establish training fields in the southern United States where the warmer weather would be more conducive for flying year-round. In June, the War Department inspected 6 sites around Fort Worth, Texas which had been offered by the Chamber of Commerce. In August the War Department signed leases with the RFC on 3 sites around Fort Worth. Known as the Flying Triangle, these sites were Hicks Field (#1), Barron Field (#2), and Benbrook (later Carruthers) Field (#3) based on their