Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum

A collection of adventure and human interest flying stories from the Wright Brothers to the Concorde.

Author: Jack Elliot.

A documentary by John Bailey detailing the defense network along the east coast during WWII. Fire Control Tower 23 was part of Fort Miles headquartered in Lewes, DE. The tower was used to defend Cape May and southern NJ against possible U-Boat and shore ground attacks by the Germans.

About the Author & Book

Commissioned as Navy Section Base 9 in 1917, the US Coast Guard
Training Center at Cape May stands on the site of a former amusement
park that bordered the Atlantic Ocean a few miles east of Cape May
in southern New Jersey. Dirigibles, submarines, and minesweepers were
based here during World War I. Because of its proximity to the ocean
and Delaware Bay, the base was used by Coast Guard patrol boats and
cutters to chase rumrunners during Prohibition in the 1920s. An airfield
was established adjacent to the base in 1926, and in 1940, both combined
to become Naval Air Station Cape May. The station protected the coast
line from German U-boats during World War II. The Coast Guard took
over the facility in 1946, and in 1948, the base became the only recruit
training center in the country, today graduating more than 4,000 recruits
per year.

Joseph E. Salvatore, MD, is the non-salaried executive director of
the Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum. Joan Berkey is an
architectural historian and author. US Coast Guard Training Center at
Cape May contains photographs and images from the museum’s archives,
most of them previously unpublished.

In stock now!

Book Description:

Fort Miles is in Cape Henlopen State Park near historic Lewes and the site of Delaware’s first Dutch settlement. Named for Gen. Nelson Appleton Miles, this powerful seacoast fortification was built during World War II to defend the vital industries of the Delaware Valley. Included in this volume are rare vintage photographs of the fort’s heavy artillery, hundreds of 3,000-pound sea mines, and radar systems that searched the nearby ocean for the enemy surface fleet. Its powerful 12- and 16-inch guns could reach out between 15 and 25 miles to attack an adversary. Today, the fort is being reborn as one of the best World War II museums in the country; it is housed in a real World War II bunker and includes the barracks complex and fire control towers.

Author Bio: Dr. Gary Wray co-founded and now serves as president of the Fort Miles Historical Association. He also teaches history at Wilmington College and in the Ph.D. program at University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Book Description:

From the seventeenth to the twentieth century, New Jersey’s low-lying, sandy coast has been the site of thousands of shipwrecks as ships bound for New York City or Philadelphia foundered on its offshore shoals. As coastal and international trade dramatically increased after the War of 1812, the federal government was forced to increase safety aids to mariners. To ensure their safe passage, a series of lighthouses was built and the U.S. Life-Saving Service was created. More than two centuries of the history of New Jersey’s treacherous coast are preserved in Guarding New Jersey’s Shore: Lighthouses and Life-Saving Stations. Gathered from a wide array of sources, more than 200 historic photographs and fascinating, documented text combine to create the only illustrated history of the state’s thirty-eight lighthouses and forty-one life-saving stations. Sandy Hook, built in 1764, is the nation’s oldest operating lighthouse. Navesink’s Twin Lights was the first lighthouse to use electricity and was the home of Marconi’s early radio experiments. From the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, which once served as a lighthouse, to Cape May Point, and up the Delaware Bay and River, the fascinating story of protecting mariners from perils “Down the Shore” is presented and preserved in Guarding New Jersey’s Shore: Lighthouses and Life-Saving Stations.

Author Bio: Author David Veasey is a former journalist and professional writer. His work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Military History and Naval History Magazines, as well as in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. Veasey is a lifelong New Jersey resident who first became interested in lighthouses as a teenager under Barnegat’s beam on Long Beach Island.

Book Description:

Few would guess Atlantic City has a rich aviation history, being instrumental in many technical advances and playing a key role in the defense of the nation. The wartime role of Naval Air Station Atlantic City, commissioned in 1943, was training naval fighter pilots as well as developing technology and procedures for ground controlled interception of enemy aircraft. After the war, Atlantic City was the site of testing new Navy aircraft as well as the development of all-weather, night-fighting, and attack capabilities. After the Navy left in 1958, the airfield became home to the Federal Aviation Administration’s premier research center, a New Jersey Air National Guard jet fighter base, a US Coast Guard air station, and Atlantic City International Airport.

Author Bio: In Naval Air Station Atlantic City, Richard V. Porcelli, an avid aviation historian, has relied on a number of government, library, and private sources of historical photographs to illustrate the significant contributions of Atlantic City to aviation and the nation’s security.

Written by Joseph E. Salvatore, MD and architectural historian Joan Berkey, this book features images and photographs, most previously unpublished, from the museum’s and the U.S. Navy’s extensive archives.

At least 42 airmen lost their lives while training at the station, but their deaths brought about improvements in airplane designs and tactics. Today, Hangar #1 has been restored to its original appearance and houses Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum.

Book Description:

Millville had always been known for its glassmaking, but with the outbreak of World War II, the community’s identity was primed to change forever. A private civilian airfield gave way to the creation of America’s first defense airport, the training ground for the U.S. Army’s Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and Republic P-47 Thunderbolt pilots. Bright and brave young men from across the country converged on Millville in the early 1940s to learn to fly and fight for freedom. Some died in training; others flew into history as heroes. While in Millville, they lived the average lives of the country’s military men, playing baseball, flirting with the girls at the local USO dances, and attending Sunday night dinners with local families, creating lifelong friendships in a time when a young man’s life expectancy was in the hands of America’s enemies.

Author Bio: John J. Galluzzo is the author of more than a dozen Arcadia Publishing titles, including Camp Edwards and Otis Air Force Base and Squantum and South Weymouth Naval Air Stations in Massachusetts and New Jersey Coast Guard Stations and Rumrunners. The Millville Army Air Field Museum, founded in 1983, preserves the story of American military aviation from the early days of flight to modern conflicts through exhibits and educational programming.

A local veteran’s personal account of his service in Normandy during WWII.

Author: Edward P. Kent, with Carol L. Rose.

The true story of Sgt. Andrew J. Baddick, an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq.

Author: his father, Joseph Baddick.

Naval Air Station Wildwood At War, 1943-1945

By Jeffery M. Dorwart, Rutgers University

A historical, paperback booklet.

Command decision and statistics will always be preserved in the archives, but here is the human side of aerial warfare. This story of the air battles of Europe, from Schweinfurt to Regensburg and to Ploiesti will be told through the hearts of one surviving crew.

Author: William J. Fili.

Book Description:

When the twentieth century was young, visitors to Cape May knew exactly how to show the folks back home the attractions, accommodations, and ambiance of “the Nation’s Oldest Seaside Resort”: they sent a penny postcard. Publishers such as local entrepreneur Joseph K. Hand provided a vast choice of views, capturing white sands crowded with colorful tents and wool-suited bathers or beachfront hotels such as the Stockton, Lafayette, and Congress Hall. Popular postcards depicted amusement centers and nearby diversions: the Casino, Red Mill, Corinthian Yacht Club, Fun Factory, Convention Hall, and Cape May Point Lighthouse. Reprinted Victorian views of hotels destroyed by fire served as reminders of the resort’s glory days. Real-photo cards chronicled newsworthy events including the creation of the harbor, construction of the huge Hotel Cape May, and the 1907 fire at the Iron Pier.

Author Bio: Today, both visitors and residents can rediscover pre-World War II Cape May through those same vintage postcards, retrieved and researched by deltiologists Don and Pat Pocher. Readers can marvel at the elegant interior of the recently demolished Christian Admiral or imagine the rigorous training at World War I Camp Wissahickon as they explore, in over two hundred postcard images, the rich heritage of Cape May.

An American Soldier in WWII. Sharon Wells Wagner makes her literary debut with the story of her father, Red Wells–a man who has seen hardship, joy, and adventure. Telling the tale through his eyes, she takes us on a remarkable journey from childhood through the Second World War and beyond.

Author: daughter of Red Wells, Sharon Wells Wagner.

Puts you in the cockpit of a WWII fighter or bomber!

You can choose from 10 available options.

A work of historical fiction based on his father’s air combat experiences in WWII. This book follows the sole surviving crewman of a B-26 Marauder shot down over German territory.

Author: Jim Opalka.

A Novel of Love and War. A compelling blend of military history and romance, this novel tells the story of a Georgetown University history teacher who is recalled to the Air Force and sent to Korea, commanding a special detachment of F-86s that engage the MiGs.

Author: Terence T. Finn