- Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville was officially commissioned in October 1940. Batson-Cook, along with the Auchter Company and Duval Engineering and Contracting Company of Jacksonville, were awarded the contract to build the largest portion of the facilities – a trade school and cadet training area totaling approximately $49 million ($880 million today). Batson-Cook also worked on another $8 million worth of projects.
- NAS Jacksonville served as a pilot training facility throughout WWII. At the war’s peak, some 1,000 aircraft were housed on the base. Two take-offs and landings occurred every minute, around the clock, during 1943 and 1944.
- In addition to the aviation training facilities, the base had more than 700 buildings before the end of the war, including a hospital and a prisoner-of-war compound.
- One of the largest structures on the base is the enormous 1,500,000-square-foot Assembly & Repair Shop. Art Deco in style, the Assembly & Repair Shop was intended for the overhaul and maintenance of military planes. It is flooded with light from thousands of window panes, and its main door measures 160-feet wide by 45-feet high.
- Batson-Cook received the Army-Navy “Excellence in Production” or “E” award for the work done to support the war effort. The award was created to encourage industrial mobilization and production of war-time materials. Only five percent of the 85,000-plus companies involved in efforts to support the military’s war effort were awarded the honor.
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