airport, the White River Valley Flying Field, was located on the Henry Ahlert farm (once owned by the Renos) near the White River north of the city. In 1934, Seymour police officer John Pfaffenberger was shot and killed by three assailants after he attempted to stop their car after they stole a few dollars' worth of fuel from a gas station east of town. One defendant, a Nashville, Indiana native Edward Coffin was subsequently sentenced to death and sent to Indiana's electric chair for the murder of officer Pfaffenberger. His co-defendants were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences. During WWII, the US government purchased 2,500 acres of land southwest of town for use as an airfield. Freeman Army Airfield operated from 1942 to 1946. The based was first used for twin engine training. The first class was graduated on 29 April and the graduated went on to fly multi-engine aircraft such as the B-24 Liberator, B-17 Flying Fortress, B-29 Superfortress, and various other medium bombers and transport aircraft. Twin-engine training continued with a total of 19 classes of students being graduated from Freeman Field using a total of 250 Beechcraft AT-10 Wichita trainers. The last graduates were in May 1944; 4,245 total cadets. Freeman Army Airfield was the first helicopter base in the US. The first instructor pilots arrived on 30 June and preparations for the helicopter training were made in great secrecy, as in 1944 very few people had seen one and the technology was new and revolutionary. The group assigned to coordinate their arrival was known as "Section B-O". A total of six Sikorsky R-4 helicopters were assigned for training, flown directly to Freeman from the Sikorsky plant at Bridgeport, Connecticut. This was the longest long-distance flight of helicopters at the time. The Freeman Field Mutiny occurred in 1945, in which African American members of the 477th Bombardment Group attempted to integrate an all-white officers' club at Freeman Army Air Corps Base. The mutiny later led to the integration of the United States military. Nearing the end of WWII, Freeman Field was designated the Foreign Aircraft Evaluation Center for the Air Force. After the end of the war in Europe, captured German and Italian aircraft were collected by "Operation Lusty". Freeman Field was also charged with the mission to receive and catalogue United States equipment for display at the present and for the future AAF museum. However, these operations,