Former Central Valley Airfield Connects to Hollywood 

In World War II, with the threat of Japanese air attacks on the California coastline, the US Army Air Force added to the number of bases to hold an increasing flood of aircraft and pilots fighting the good fight.

Castle Air Base in Atwater in Merced County was fortified with more personnel and airplanes. Throughout the state and the Central Valley, more land was being used to strengthen our nation’s air power.

One of those bases was in Taft in Kern County. Gardner Field was built on about one thousand acres of land near Taft in Kern County in 1941. According to a history of the field online (AirfieldsFreeman.com), more than ten thousand people attended the official dedication of the facilities on October 26, 1941, just six weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Gardner was ready for mobilization, but the build-up came with some complications.

The online history recounts how fifty cadets in the first class arrived at Gardner Field to find no quarters, field, or planes.

Tents provided temporary quarters for the cadets, and soon, the planes arrived. That first class was now off and flying.

At one point, two thousand personnel were on site. The base eventually had a hospital, sewage plant, nine administration buildings, four mess halls, thirty-seven barracks, and a chapel.

Because of the proximity to Hollywood, movie stars and radio performers could make a quick trip ninety miles north of Los Angeles to show their support for our military.

Joel McCrea and other movie stars paid for a swimming pool built on the base. Johnny Weissmuller was at the official opening for the pool and, according to the online history, “enlivened the pool’s dedication with his Tarzan jungle call.”

Comedian Jack Benny took his weekly radio show to Gardner Field eighty years ago this month.

The October 15, 1944 broadcast of the Jack Benny Program featured many of his on-air family members, such as announcer Don Wilson, platonic friend (Benny’s real-life wife) Mary Livingstone, and bandleader Phil Harris.

It was full of the usual Benny antics from the star who dominated radio for over twenty years before doing the same in television.

(Dialogue from the show)

Sound effect, knocking on the door.

Benny: (opens the door) Come in?

Messenger: Mr. Benny?

Benny: Yes.

Messenger: On behalf of the US Army Air Force, we’d like to present you with these wings.

Benny: Oh, how nice.

Messenger: I’m sorry, the rest of the chicken got away.

Gardner Field was also where Chuck Yeager was based for his primary pilot training in the forties. Yeager would become the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the speed of sound in level flight. 

While at Gardner, this eventual world-famous pilot reportedly suffered from air sickness. Thankfully, in aviation history, he overcame the condition.

Gardner proved to be a positive economic generator for the small city of Taft.

The city was primarily an oil town as petroleum companies set up wells over several decades. With some two-thousand men on site, the airbase helped propel the city through the war and beyond.

The base closed after the war, with the last class graduating in January 1945. Nearly twelve thousand soldiers and cadets trained there during the four years of operation.

Over time, the buildings were taken down.

The airstrips remained for a few years. It’s believed the field was used as a civilian airport in the late forties, and what was then known as Gardner Airport closed in the early fifties.

The land was used for farming after that. Gardner Air Field remains a memory to Kern County residents who may have been around when the base was in operation.

However, during World War II, actors such as McCrea and Weissmuller helped to make lasting memories for the men who served on that air base in Kern County.

Comedians like the great Jack Benny visited and put on his acclaimed radio show right there from the grounds of the former Gardner Air Field.

Benny may have summed it up best when he painted such a rosy picture of the place to his audience of cadets and soldiers, they politely jeered him.

Jack toured several military bases in California during the war, and his writers went out of their way to add local color, causing the audience to react with laughs and applause.  

In the case of Gardner Field, the writers put in gags about the hot weather, with Mary Livingstone telling Jack that it was so warm, “The flowers in my hair wilted.” The writers added dialogue featuring two actors playing cadets with comments about the nearby town:

Cadet: What do you think, should we go to the Benny show?

Cadet 2: Well, it’s either that or spending another half hour in Taft.

The broadcast was similar to the shows other stars, such as Bob Hope, would bring to the troops overseas. The shows lightened up the mood with good humor to get a taste of home to the cadets and pilots away from their loved ones.  

Benny and the gang came to the party, and Jack brought the jokes. –

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He will soon publish Jack and Johnny: Benny, Carson and a Friendship Made for Television, his latest book recounting the friendship between Jack Benny and Johnny Carson. The book will be out on November first and available at Lulu.com.

To listen to the complete broadcast of the Jack Benny Program from Gardner Field, follow this link: From Gardner Field Taft California | Jack Benny Program | Comedy | Old Time Radio Downloads

Steve thanked Paul Freeman, who manages the website AirfieldsFreeman.com .

The site has a lot of information and photographs of air bases, planes, and soldiers all over the US.