Myth: Was FAU a WWII Army base?

Sixty-seven years ago, students on the Boca campus were forbidden to tell their families what they were studying. The grounds where the FAU Boca campus now stands were actually used during World War II as an Army air base and a top secret testing facility for radar tracking equipment.

The army base — which housed the first radar school in the nation — stretched from Dixie Highway to Military Trail and from Yamato Road to Palmetto Park Road. There were over 16,000 troops marching up and down and around where FAU students tread to class today.

In 1942, the federal government seized the land and the surrounding neighborhoods from local Japanese pineapple farmers. The proximity to the ocean that draws students each year to the school attracted the U.S. Army as well. The then-isolated coastal town would benefit cadets training to fly airplanes with new radar equipment. Radar made it possible for pilots to locate targets for air strikes where the human eye would fail to do so.

The U.S. Army Air Corps was housed in and operated out of 800 T-buildings hastily constructed on 5,860 acres, and the recruits trained in B-17 and B-29 bombers from a three-runway airport.

Beneath the base were a maze of tunnels that acted as storage facilities and shelter for on-base personnel. These tunnels still exist today as utility tunnels under the school’s campus.

The bombers were equipped with a top secret intelligence weapon, named radar. This new technology was so classified that students were instructed to learn without taking notes and not to discuss it. They learned by auditory instruction, visual example and possibly osmosis.

The airplanes they trained on in the last year of the war were B-29 bombers. B-29s carried the bombs that were dropped on Japan and ended World War II, according to the Boca Raton Airport Authority.

Today, only five of the eight-hundred T-buildings are still standing. They can be found along Florida Atlantic Boulevard. Across from Campus Operations are buildings T-5, T-6 and T-11. Building T-30 is further north across from the Research and Development Park.

The Boca Raton Airport, west of campus, uses part of the three landing strips that used to comprise the air base.

The FAU campus is 1,000 acres of the original 5,860 that made up the Army base. It was set aside in 1953 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. FAU was a part of an initiative by President Johnson to make a college education available to whomever sought one.

According to FAU’s historical archives at www.fau.edu/explore/history.php, the school was another alternative to the expensive Ivy League universities, for young adults who did not come from wealthy backgrounds.

As the fifth public college in Florida, FAU is similar to other large universities. But tucked in the background are the remnants of a historically important military base and school.

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