You successfully navigated the world wide web to find the James Connally Navigator’s/Observers Home Page. This web site covers people who trained at James Connally AFB, Harlingen AFB, Texas and Mather AFB, CA or who were instructor navigators or radar observers at Connally or Harlingen Air Force Bases.

The term navigator includes, navigators, observers, electronic warfare and weapons systems career fields. Today the Air Force has renamed the Navigator career field to Combat System Officer (CSO). After Harlingen closed (last class 62-22) the training moved to Connally. The last class at Connally was 66-18. Training then moved to Mather AFB near Sacramento CA. When Mather closed Sept. 1993 training was moved to Randolph AFB, TX. The last class completed training at Randolph in Sept. 2012 and training {renamed Combat System Officer (CSO)} moved to Pensacola Naval Air Station FL. 

James Connally Air Force Base, near Waco TX was named for Colonel James T. Connally, a resident of Waco. He graduated from Texas A&M in 1932, completed pilot training and got his commission at Randolph Field in 1933.

He flew the air mail as an Army pilot in 1934. In 1941, he accompanied the first B-17s sold to the British. In 1942, he transferred to Clark Field in the Philippines with the 19th Bombardment Group where he won the Distinguished Flying Cross for a mission that destroyed a Japanese tanker ship and rescued 23 stranded US pilots.

James Connally Air Force Base, located seven miles northeast of Waco, Texas, was initially a basic pilot-training school. It opened as Waco Army Air Field on May 5, 1942, and became headquarters for the Army Air Forces Central Instructors’ School in February 1945.

The base was inactive from late 1945 to 1948, until it was reactivated as a basic pilot-training school. On June 10, 1949, the name was changed to Connally Air Force Base in memory of Col. James T. Connally, a local pilot killed in Japan in 1945. By 1951 the name had been changed to James Connally Air Force Base.