Created as Selfridge Field almost exactly 30 years before the establishment of the U.S. Air Force, American Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and federal law enforcement agents from Selfridge have been a critical component of our nation’s defense for more than a century. Today, Selfridge Air National Guard Base is home to personnel from five of our nation’s six military services, providing highly skilled personnel to fight and win our nation’s wars.
Selfridge is home to more than 40 tenant commands, including components of the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Customs & Border Protection. In total, nearly than 3,000 full-time civilian and military personnel work at the base, in addition to approximately 3,000 members of the Air and Army National Guard and the Reserve
components of the U.S. Armed Forces. Primary aircraft assigned to the base are A-10 Thunderbolt II and KC-135 Stratotanker (Michigan Air National Guard); CH-47 Chinook helicopter (Michigan Army National Guard); HH-65 Dolphin helicopter (U.S. Coast Guard); and a variety of light helicopters and fixed wing aircraft (Customs & Border Protection).
Major units assigned to Selfridge:
127th Wing, Michigan Air National Guard
Coast Guard Air Station Detroit
Naval Reserve Center-Detroit
1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment
Marine Wing Support Squadron 471-Det B
Border Patrol Detroit Sector
Joint-Reserve Intelligence Support Element, European Command
Joint Combat Support Systems
Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 26
2nd Battalion, 337th Regiment
Army Aviation Support Facility #2, Michigan Army National Guard
Customs and Border Protection Great Lakes Air & Marine Wing
and many more.
History
The origins of the 127th Wing and Selfridge Air National Guard Base date back to the days of Wilbur & Orville Wright. The base's namesake, Army Lt. Thomas Selfridge, was killed while flying on a demonstration flight with Orville Wright in 1908 – the first military casualty of flight. In 1917, a local auto pioneer, Henry B. Joy, leased his rural airfield near Detroit to the military to train pilots and related personnel during U.S. preparation for entry into World War I. Lt. Byron Q. Jones flew the first military flight at the base in a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny on July 8, 1917 and the military has operated the field ever since. During World War II, pilots and maintenance personnel of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, an all-African American unit, trained at the base and helped lead the way toward the ending of racial segregation in the military. During the Cold War era, Nike missiles were stationed at the base to guard the industrial might of the Detroit region. Following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the 127th Wing began flying combat air patrol missions over the Great Lakes region within hours of the attack. It maintained that 24-hour mission until 2008, when the Wing transitioned to its current flying missions with the KC-135 and A-10.
Over the years, dozens of different types of aircraft have been assigned to the base. Examples of many of these aircraft, as well as related memorabilia are on display at the Selfridge Military Air Museum, which is located on the base and is open to the public. The base is also home to the first STARBASE center, a program created at Selfridge and later replicated around the Dept. of Defense, which encourages school age children to study math, science and technology by introducing them to elements of the U.S. space program.
(Current as of 27 Dec. 2022)