UpdatedWed, Jan 20, 2021 at 2:15 pm ET
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At the start of 1941, though the United States had not yet formally entered World War II, the U.S. military was anxious to shore up defenses along the eastern seaboard, which some considered a vulnerable target for a German attack. Early in the year, the Connecticut General Assembly approved the purchase of 1,700 acres of former tobacco farmland in Windsor Locks to lease to the U.S. Army to build a new air base. Because the new base was surrounded by mostly flat, rural farmland, the airfield s engineers utilized a novel camouflage scheme to render it nearly invisible from the air, painting the runways and taxi lanes with a special patchwork pattern mimicking tobacco crops and dirt roads.