Selfridge Air National Guard Base Celebrates 90 Years!
Henry Joy set aside six hundred acres of marshy land to be used as an airfield. The year was 1910, and
aviation was in its infancy, with Wilbur and Orville Wright completing the first successful powered aircraft flight
on December 17, 1903. He named it Joy Aviation Field, and Joy Blvd., the western boundary of the base, still
carries his name. In 1917, the airfield itself was renamed for Lieutenant Thomas Etholen Selfridge, the first
person killed in an aviation accident.
Thomas Selfridge
Thomas Selfridge was born in San Francisco in 1882 and graduated from West Point in 1903 in the same
class as Douglas MacArthur. Selfridge was assigned to the U.S. Signal Corp, Aeronautical Division and was
one of three people trained to fly Army Dirigible Number One. He was the U.S. Government representative to
the Aerial Experiment Association, which was chaired by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell constructed a
tetrahedral kite, the Sygnet, which Selfridge was the first to fly in. This was on December 6, 1907, and was
Selfridge's first flight and the first by a member of the military. The Aerial Experiment Association's first
powered aircraft, the Red Wing, was designed by Selfridge. It was not named Red Wing because Selfridge
was an early Detroit hockey fan, but because the wings were covered with red silk. Its design inspired Glen
Curtiss to build the Flying Jenny. On September 17, 1908, Selfridge met Orville Wright in Fort Myers, Florida,
where Orville was demonstrating a new aircraft, the Wright Flyer. Selfridge arranged to be a passenger while
Orville tested the plane. The plane crashed, killing Selfridge. This is how Orville Wright described the crash, in
letter to his brother Wilbur:
Crashed Wright Flyer
“On the fourth round, everything seemingly working much better and smoother than any former flight, I started
on a larger circuit with less abrupt turns. It was on the very first slow turn that the trouble began. ... A hurried
glance behind revealed nothing wrong, but I decided to shut off the power and descend as soon as the
machine could be faced in a direction where a landing could be made. This decision was hardly reached, in fact
I suppose it was not over two or three seconds from the time the first taps were heard, until two big thumps,
which gave the machine a terrible shaking, showed that something had broken. ... The machine suddenly turned
to the right and I immediately shut off the power. Quick as a flash, the machine turned down in front and started
straight for the ground. Our course for 50 feet (15 meters) was within a very few degrees of the perpendicular.
Lt. Selfridge up to this time had not uttered a word, though he took a hasty glance behind when the propeller
broke and turned once or twice to look into my face, evidently to see what I thought of the situation. But when
the machine turned head first for the ground, he exclaimed 'Oh! Oh!' in an almost inaudible voice.”
Aerial view of Selfridge in the 1930's
And so, Thomas Selfridge, the first military flyer, at age 26, became the first aircraft casualty, and Joy Aviation
Field was renamed Selfridge Air Field in his honor. In 1918 Selfridge became the first aerial gunnery school
and was used to help train pilots for World War I. In 1921 Henry Joy formally sold the field to the U.S.
Government for $190,000. In the early days of the airfield, horses were used to pull mowers to cut the grass
on the runways. There were no lights, so fires were built at the end of runways to guide planes.
Eddie Rickenbacker at Selfridge Field
Many of the aerial pioneers made stops at Selfridge over the years, including Eddie Rickenbacker and Charles
Lindbergh. Rickenbacker returned for the base's 50th anniversary in 1967.
In 1942, as the U.S. Entered World War II, Selfridge Field was expanded to 3700 acres. In 1947, as the U.S.
Army Air Corp developed into a separate service, Selfridge Field was renamed Selfridge Air Force Base. In
1971, the base was transferred to the Michigan Air National Guard. Since the 1970s, the main ongoing
organization at the base has been the Michigan Air National Guard's 127th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing.
These units had formally been housed at Detroit's Metro Airport.
Selfridge is a joint military facility, and includes units from the Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, U.S.
Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and the Marine Corp.
For more history on Selfridge, be sure to visit the Selfridge Air Museum, located on the base.
-Alan Naldrett, 2007