Withlacoochee Army Airfield [SEP] located in the administrative territorial entity
Withlacoochee Army Airfield
Withlacoochee Army Airfield and Withlacoochee Bombing & Gunnery Range, was a World War II United States Army Air Forces airfield, located east of Lacoochee, Florida. The airfield closed in 1945 and is now abandoned.
History.
The airfield was built circa 1942 as part of the Army Airfields in the Orlando area, as an auxiliary to the Bushnell Army Airfield and Zephyrhills Army Airfield. Its primary mission was to support Chemical Weapons testing in the Bushnell area and as an emergency airfield for the Army Air Force
School of Applied Tactics fighter training school at Orlando Army Air Base.
In 1943 the Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, Mobile Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) Unit arrived at Bushnell AAF to begin experiments on both persistent and non-persistent chemical agents, setting up the Chemical Warfare Service Experimental Station. The Withlacoochee airfield was used by the CWS Unit as a landing strip for the planes used in the field trials at Withlacoochee Bombing & Gunnery Range. Several military herbicides for defoliation and crop destruction were tested at the airfield.