was located at the Kaufman Building on Tejon St.) Army Air Base, Colorado Springs "Army Air Base, Colorado Springs",* construction began after 10 May 1942, on "nothing more than a large patch of Colorado plain", and the installation was placed under the Headquarters, United States "AAF [on] 11 June 1942". The 373d Base HQ and Air Base Sq was activated as the base operating unit on 20 June 1942 (replaced by the 214th AAF Base Unit in 1944), and the base was assigned to the 2nd Air Force on 22 June 1942. On 7 July 1942, "HQ PROTU" was on the "Army Air Base, Colorado Springs" and was ordered to provide "four to five months of training to each individual". During air base construction, the 20th Combat Mapping Squadron was activated on 23 July 1942, and used the Alamo Garage on Tejon Street. Runways were completed in August 1942, and eponym 1st Lt Edward J. Peterson crashed 8 August 1942 on take off (1st Coloradoan killed at the airfield.) Peterson Field Peterson Field was the airfield named on 13 December 1942, and included the runway used by both the municipal airport and the military installation: "Army Air Base, Peterson Field", which had begun publishing the Wingspread base newspaper by 11 July 1942. The "18 Dep Rpr Sq" was assigned to the military installation from 19 January – 29 April 1943, and the installation was assigned to the Third Air Force (5 March – 1 October 1943) and by the end of the 1943 summer had tar paper barracks, an officer's club, and a theater in a Quonset. After the base transferred to Second Air Force on 1 October 1943, in June 1944 Peterson Field began fighter pilot training with P-40N Warhawks. "In March 1943 the Third Air Force took over the photographic reconnaissance Operational Training Unit which had been operating at Peterson Field ... under the direct control of the Director of Photography since April 1942". Bomber Commands The 4th Heavy Bombardment Processing Headquarters ("4 H Bomb Processing HQ") was activated on 10 June 1943 (the 1st B-29 landed at Peterson Field in the summer of 1943), and bomber training by the 214th AAF Base Unit (Combat Crew Training School, Heavy) B-24 Liberator) began after the 383rd Bombardment Group relocated from Geiger Field, Washington on 26 October 1943. In 1944 (11 June – 20 October), the XXI Bomber Command was