<P> On December 8, three workers started a topographic survey of what would become Ault Field, about four miles to the north . Construction of Ault Field started on 1 March 1942 . The first plane landed there on 5 August, when Lieutenant Newton Wakefield, a former civil engineer and airline pilot, who later became the air station's Operations Officer, brought his SNJ single - engine trainer in with little fanfare . Everyone was busy working on the still - incomplete runway . </P> <P> On 21 September 1942, the air station's first commanding officer, Captain Cyril Thomas Simard, read the orders placing the field in use as a Navy facility . U.S. Naval Air Station Whidbey Island was duly commissioned . A year later, on 25 September 1943, the land plane field was named Ault Field, in memory of Commander William B. Ault, missing in action in the previous year's Battle of the Coral Sea . Following the recommendation of the Interdepartmental Air Traffic Control Board, an area 21⁄2 miles southeast of Coupeville was approved as an auxiliary field to serve NAS Seattle . Survey work began in February 1943, and work started in March . Outlying Field (OLF) Coupeville was in use by September . </P> <P> At Ault Field, the earliest squadrons of aircraft were Grumman F4F Wildcats, which came aboard in 1942, followed by Grumman F6F Hellcats . Later that year, Lockheed PV - 1 Venturas arrived for training . By the end of 1943, all F4F Wildcats were gone, replaced by the F6F Hellcat . In 1944, Douglas SBD Dauntless dive - bombers became the predominant aircraft at Ault Field, while at the Seaplane Base, several Consolidated PBY Catalina and Martin PBM Mariner seaplanes were aboard in the summer of 1944, augmented by a few land - based Martin B - 26 Marauders that arrived earlier that year to be used for towing targets . </P> <P> After World War II, operations slowed and the station was placed on reduced operating status . Many naval air stations across the United States were closing because they couldn't meet the requirements on post-war naval aviation; 6,000 - foot runways were now the minimum standard and approach paths had to be suitable for radar - controlled approaches in any weather . Lockheed P2V Neptune patrol bombers, which arrived in the late 1940s, would eventually make up six patrol squadrons at NAS Whidbey . </P>

In what cities did the united states base its primary naval commands in the 1950s