I recently wrote an article for the Dunwoody Crier newspaper about women working as Link Instrument Trainers at Naval Air Station Atlanta during World War II. Naval Air Station Atlanta was built on the same land where WWI Camp Gordon was located. Following the end of World War I, the temporary encampment of Camp Gordon was taken apart and the land sold at auction.  DeKalb County purchased three hundred acres of this land in 1940 for a future airport.

As World War II began, the Navy chose the site for a Naval Aviation Reserve Base and issued contracts for three million dollars in construction.  Fifty permanent buildings, two hangars and three runways were planned.   The base was commissioned by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox on March 22, 1941.

Naval Aviation Reserve Base changed to U. S. Naval Air Station in January of 1943. The base began to focus on training in the areas of control tower, operators school, air navigation radio, operations officers training, and instrument flight instructors school or Link Training.

I came across an Atlanta Constitution article from 1942 that announced women working as Link flight trainer instructors, teaching pilots blind flying using the Link trainer machine. The instructors also taught women who were part of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), who in turn were sent across the country to be instructors.

Lawson General Hospital was next door to NASA on land that is now home to the IRS and CDC-Chamblee campus. The former Camp Gordon and NASA are now the location of Dekalb-Peachtree Airport.

It is always fantastic to hear from someone who has a personal connection to history, which is what happened when Linda Miller contacted me to tell me that her mother, Carolyn Thompson, was a Link Instrument Trainer at NASA. My article about Carolyn Thompson can be found here on the Appen Media website.

Linda shared the above group photo of women who served as Link Trainer Instructors. Her mother is in the back row, fifth from the right.

Miller had a copy of a magazine issued in 1944, during the time her mother was working as a Link Instructor. The 1944 Tattoo magazine has photos and stories that show what life was like at Naval Air Station Atlanta. Five different training programs were located at the base, including the Link Instrument Training Instructors School. Although Miller generously offered to share the magazine with me, I had already purchased a copy on ebay.

The benefit of sharing the links to my Dunwoody Crier articles in this post is that I can add as many images as I have available. Here are two more images from the Link Instrument Training School pages of Tattoo magazine.