Naples Municipal Airport
The facility was established in 1942 as Naples Army Airfield by the United States Army Air Forces. It was initially assigned to the Southeast Training Center (later Eastern Flying Training Command). Provided basic (level 1) flight training to flight cadets by Embry-Riddle Co; Fairchild PT-19s were the primary trainer used. Along with the flight training, was a sub-base to Buckingham Army Airfield for flexible gunnery training, which the 75th Flying Training Wing supervised. Inactivated on November 1, 1945, being turned over to the War Assets Administration for conveyance to civil control as a public airport.
First Barbary War
On 31 May 1801, Commodore Edward Preble traveled to Messina, Sicily, to the court of King Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples. The kingdom was at war with Napoleon, but Ferdinand supplied the Americans with manpower, craftsmen, supplies, gunboats, mortar boats, and the ports of Messina, Syracuse and Palermo to be used as naval bases for launching operations against Tripoli, a port walled fortress city protected by 150 pieces of heavy artillery and manned by 25,000 soldiers, assisted by a fleet of 10 ten-gunned brigs, 2 eight-gun schooners, two large galleys, and 19 gunboats.