Goodfellow AFB

By 1944 the base had doubled in size,  growing toward San Angelo to the north.  My barracks is highlighted in red.  The open area just beyond my barracks had a bank of outdoor coin operated telephones.  I recall the night I called home on one of these to tell my parents that I was being sent to England and not to Vietnam.

Partially obscured by the vertical stabilizer is the old chow hall where we ate on weekdays.  It was closed on weekends so we had to use the main chow hall at the other end of the base.  We were spoiled by the quality of our old chow hall and suffered greatly on weekends.

Above is the base in the late 50's.  Basically what we found when we arrived in July 1971.  The only things obviously missing are the theater and the new chow hall.  The large building in the foreground is the wooden gym which was a 1950's addition.  Few if any of these structures are still in place although some barracks were relocated nearby for civilian use and you see on some of the rural roads around the county.  What is scary almost 50 years later is that twice as much time has gone by "since" 1971 than had passed between WWII and when we arrived;  and at the time we thought the 40's ancient history.

If you compare the above photo with the current color photo below,  the two ball diamonds can be seen in both.  Who would have imagined in the 1950's that they would remain unchanged as virtually every molecule around them went away.

The rec center (above photo) was a less than inviting looking building. 

My only occasion inside was for a Christmas show put on by girls from Texas Women's University.  That was a nice event in the style of a WWII USO show.