DeLand When the United States entered World War II, even a quiet college town like DeLand was called to service. In 1942 the U.S. Navy purchased the City of DeLand's municipal airport — a field the city had built in the 1920s and paved in the mid-1930s — and rapidly transformed it into a full military installation. Naval Air Station DeLand officially opened on November 17, 1942.
The base became a serious training hub for Navy flight crews. Its mission centered on advanced training in carrier-based SBD Dauntless dive bombers and, from 1944, the F6F Hellcat fighter, along with land-based PB4Y-2 Privateer and PBO Ventura patrol bombers. New barracks, hangars, and support buildings went up almost overnight, and by early 1944 the station housed as many as 331 officers and 1,140 enlisted men. The work was dangerous: more than a hundred pilots and support personnel were killed in training accidents here.
With the war won, the base closed as an active naval installation on March 15, 1946, and the field returned to the City of DeLand for civilian use. Fifty years later, the community honored that service by founding the DeLand Naval Air Station Museum in the former Master-at-Arms residence, dedicated in November 1995, where the story of the young aviators who trained on the Volusia ridge is still told.