Take-off at Zamperini Field

Torrance Municipal Airport - Zamperini Field is a general aviation airport just north of Palos Verdes. Our son has been taking flight lessons there for more than 2 years, mostly in his flight instructor's Citabria, a tail-dragger airplane. (Citabria is "airbatic" written backwards and is a great plane for getting a real feel for flying.)
Last week, our son turned 14 and celebrated with a long flight to El Mirage, a dry lake bed. As a coincidence, he and his instructor took off right by Torrance Memorial where our son was born (lower right corner of upper photo).

I've included a brief history of the airport - the above photo and the text below is from the plaques inside the airport building.

"The Lomita Flight Strip in late 1945. Note barracks in lower left later demolished for Crenshaw Boulevard. Note P-38 hardstands, oil wells (upper right), Walteria Lake (dark area, top left).

Completed by the Army Corps of Engineers in March 1943, the Lomita Flight Strip served as a training base for P-38 fighter pilots (June 1943 to April 1944) and Air Transport Command pilots (August 1944 to September 1945). In early 1946 it housed nearly 1,000 Japanese-Americans returning from relocation centers. The City of Torrance obtained a Use Permit in December 1946 and final Deed in March 1948, renaming it Zamperini Field.

Legendary Louis (Lou) Zamperini attended Torrance High School and as a junior in 1934 set a world interscholastic mile run record that remained unbroken for 20 years. Lou was the first American to finish the 5,000 meter race in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. While attending U.S.C. in 1938, Lou set a new N.C.A.A. mile record that stood for 15 Years.

A legacy of WWII, Captain Louis Zamperini crashed in the South Pacific, was listed as Missing in Action on May 23, 1943, and was declared dead by the war department on August 28, 1944. At the end of the war it was learned that Captain Zamperini had survived 47 days adrift in an open raft and 2 ½ years as a P.O.W. in Japan."