Williams Air Force Base southeast of Mesa, Arizona was the leading pilot training facility of the United States Air Force. The United States Army Air Corps broke ground for its Advance Flying School there on July 16, 1941. The base was closed in 1993 and converted into a civilian airport, Williams Gateway Airport. During the fifty-two years it was opened, the base graduated more pilots and instructors than any other base in the country and supplied twenty-five percent of the Air Force's pilots annually.
