Frazier recognizes Travis Air Force Base 75th anniversary on Assembly floor
June 27 2018The Reporter POSTED: 06/26/18, 6:46 PM PDT | UPDATED: 8 HRS AGO
Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Solano, recognized Travis Air Force Base’s 75th anniversary, presenting the base’s commanders with a resolution during Monday’s Assembly floor session.
“The pride and joy of the 11th Assembly District, Travis Air Force Base is known as ‘America’s First Choice’ and as ‘The Gateway to the Pacific,’” Frazier said.
Travis got its start as the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base soon after the United States entered World War II, in what was then an isolated location amid windswept hills with a single air strip and a few tar paper shacks to house the airmen, Frazier’s office noted in a press statement.
“The base and its personnel have been proudly serving our country ever since, providing vital and diverse services, including medical support, airlift service and aerial refueling,” Frazier added. “As ‘America’s First Choice,’ Travis is known for providing humanitarian services in the United States and around the globe. Travis dispatched aircraft that brought Vietnamese refugees to the United States after the fall of Saigon in 1975, air-lifted vital relief supplies and personnel to Santa Clara County after the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 and ferried personnel and 12 tons of equipment to Ground Zero and the Pentagon immediately after Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and much more.”
Planned shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base in the summer of 1942.
It officially opened in June 1943, with a primary mission of servicing and ferrying tactical aircraft from California across the Pacific to the war zone. By the end of the war in 1945, it had become the largest aerial port on the West Coast.
It became Travis Air Force Base in 1951, in memory of Brigadier General Robert F. Travis, who was killed in a B-29 crash at the installation in 1950.
Today, as the “Gateway to the Pacific,” Travis handles more cargo and passenger traffic through its aerial port than any other military air terminal in the United States. With more than 14,000 service members and civilian employees, Travis annually contributes more than $1.6 billion to the region’s economy.
“Colleagues, please join me in congratulating Travis Air Force Base on the occasion of its 75th Anniversary and in commending the base and all of its personnel for their exemplary record of ensuring the security of the United States, providing humanitarian relief and contributing to the economy of our region,” Frazier said during his address on the Assembly floor.