Early years

In the early 1930s, an airfield and flight school were established in Goleta, California that would later be named the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport. In 1940, the Civil Aeronautics Authority recommended expanding the airfield in the interest of national defense which led to the city purchasing another 568 acres (2.30 km²) and building another terminal and filling in the Goleta Slough to make way for three runways.

World War II

After the outbreak of war, the United States Army Air Corps began to build revetments and station Curtiss P-40 interceptors at the airfield. The first Marines at Goleta came on 14 June 1942, with the arrival of Marine Aircraft Group 24 (MAG-24) and VMSB-243 and VMSB-244,^[2] and expanded construction on the base began a month later on 29 May 1942. The field was officially commissioned on 4 December 1942. However, throughout 1942, the threat of a large Japanese strike against the West Coast of the United States kept the base on very high alert, especially after the February, 1942 shelling of Ellwood Oil Field, two miles to the west, as well as the raid against Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands.

The advanced echelon of Marine Base Defense Aircraft Group 42 arrived in January 1943 and would remain for the duration of the war. Conditions surrounding the base also improved in early 1943, when the local slaughterhouse burned down and the hog farm was abandoned. Two unique conditions that affected the base were that U.S. Route 101 ran through the middle of it and during the course of the war, United Air Lines continued to use the field.^[3]

In early 1944, after the Battle of Tarawa, where many felt that close air support left much to be desired, General Holland Smith recommended that Marine aviators be trained to operate from aircraft carriers. In July 1944, Commandant of the Marine Corps General Alexander Vandegrift held a meeting with Admiral Chester Nimitz where it was agreed that Marine aircraft would be placed on a certain number of escort carriers to provide close air support for Marines during amphibious landings.^[4] This led to the establishment of the Marine Carrier Air Group (MCVG) and the establishment of a command known as Marine Carrier Groups Pacific, which would be based at MCAS Santa Barbara.^[5] The goal for the unit was to have eight air groups ready for the expected invasion of Japan late in 1945.^[6]

At its peak, the station housed nearly 500 officers, about 3,100 enlisted men, and 440 women Marines. A total of 24 squadrons trained at the base during the war^[7] and 101 aviation accidents occurred at the station during training. Following the war, the Marine Corps considered making MCAS Santa Barbara a permanent installation. However, the city of Santa Barbara opposed this, since the area was needed for its municipal airport, as no other land nearby was suitable. The Marine Corps Air Station went into caretaker status on 1 March 1946, and it was released to the War Assets Administration for disposal two months later. Substantial portions of the former air station now compose the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport, while the rest is the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. A former hangar houses the Goleta/Santa Barbara Air Heritage Museum.^[6]