Having just received his wings, my father Lt. Ernest Anders Erickson of the 467th Bombardment Squadron was stationed at Dalhart Army Air Base. Near the city of Dalhart, Texas it operated three training sites for the Army Air Forces from 1943 until 1945.

In February 1943, Dalhart was transferred to Second Air Force, which placed the base under the jurisdiction of II Bomber Command. The new mission of the base was to be a B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator Heavy Bomber aircrew replacement training center. Graduates of the training would then be assigned to new combat groups or be sent directly to the European Theater of Operations (ETO) for assignment as replacements.

My father returned from his combat duties at Horham Airfield in England with the 95th Bomb Group in October of 1944. He had completed 35 missions over Nazi occupied Europe and soon after had put in a transfer to a B-29 Super Fortress unit. He was awaiting his orders when he went to Bismarck for a 10 day leave to visit his family. In November of 1944 as fate would have it he was assigned to the Yuma Army Airfield as a flight instructor, still waiting to see if he would fly B-29s.

In 1942 the civilian airport in Yuma was transported into the Yuma Army Airfield. Yuma AAF became a single-engine flight training school, operated by the Army Air Forces Flying Training Command.

Flight training began in January of 1943. It's training unit was the 307th Single Engine Flying Training Group which operated AT-6 Texans Unit.

In 1944 months before my father returned from Europe, the unit had been upgraded to multi-engine flight training, operating B-26 Marauders. In addition to the flight training, a Flexible Gunnery School was established at the airfield in November of 1943.