By S. Mark Rhodes

Embedded within the pages of Jack Whitehouse’s new book, Fire Island: Heroes & Villains on Long Island’s Wild Shore (History Press) is the fascinating, but mostly forgotten story of the creation of one of the first U.S. Naval Air Station’s on Long Island near the community of Bay Shore, New York in 1917. Whitehouse, an author/historian with a fascinating resume that includes graduation from Brown, a stint as the commanding officer of a patrol gunboat as well as having had the honor of being the first Naval Officer to participate in an exchange program with the Royal Norwegian Navy was nice enough to check in with In Flight’s Mark Rhodes about his book and this unique chapter in not only Long Island, but U.S. aviation.

In Flight USA: Bay Shore was basically the second American community to get a United States Naval Air Station. What do you think the rationale for locating it there was in particular?

Jack Whitehouse: “The Navy had several good reasons for selecting Bay Shore, located in approximately the geographic middle of the south shore of Long Island, as a location for a U.S. Naval Air Station. First, in 1916 the Second Battalion of the Naval Militia of the State of New York had built an eight-acre base in Bay Shore on the edge of the Great South Bay. The purpose of the naval militia base was to train naval volunteers in flying and aviation mechanics; thus to a great extent the site was already functioning as a naval air station.”