Hurlburt Field is a United States Air Force installation located in Okaloosa County, Florida, immediately west of the town of Mary Esther. It is part of the greater Eglin Air Force Base reservation and is home to Headquarters Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), the 1st Special Operations Wing (1 SOW), the USAF Special Operations School (USAFSOS) and the Air Combat Command's (ACC) 505th Command and Control Wing. It was named for First Lieutenant Donald Wilson Hurlburt, who died in a crash at Eglin. The installation is nearly and employs nearly 8,000 military personnel. This facility is assigned a three-letter location identifier of HRT by the Federal Aviation Administration, but it does not have an International Air Transport Association (IATA) airport code (the IATA assigned HRT to RAF Linton-on-Ouse in England). History Hurlburt began as a small training field for the much larger Eglin Field. It was initially designated Eglin Auxiliary Field No. 9, and later as Eglin Air Force Base Auxiliary Field 9/Hurlburt Field when the U.S. Air Force became an independent service, before being administratively separated from the rest of the Eglin AFB complex in the 1950s. However, once separated, the facility retained its history and kept all building numbers the same; i.e., all start with a "9". The installation was named by then-Eglin Field base commander Brigadier General Grandison Gardner for First Lieutenant Donald Wilson Hurlburt (1919–1943), who was killed in an aircraft crash at the main base, then known as Eglin Field, in 1943. The facility had previously been named the Eglin-Hurlburt Airdrome until 1943; Hurlburt Field, March 1944; Eglin Auxiliary Field No. 9, October 1944; with the current name official on January 13, 1948. The base commander of Eglin Main was also responsible for Hurlburt, 1942–1946, but when the base reactivated on February 1, 1955, it gained a separate commander. Donald Wilson Hurlburt After flying combat missions from Great Britain in B-17s and receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), Lieutenant Hurlburt was assigned in mid-1943 to the First Proving Ground Electronics Test Unit at Eglin Field. He died on October 1, 1943, when his Lockheed AT-18 Hudson gunnery trainer, 42-55591, crashed during take-off at Eglin. An official history of Eglin AFB's early years cites October 2, 1943 date for this accident, and also notes that Capt. Barclay H. Dillon, test pilot of the Fighter Section of the 1st Proving Ground Group, died in another accident