Peterson Seventieth Anniversary

Officials at Peterson AFB, Colorado, marked the seventieth anniversary of the base’s renaming on 13 December 2012. What was then known as Colorado Springs AAB was changed on 13 December 1942 to honor of a twenty-five year old Coloradan, 1st Lt. Edward J. Peterson, who was killed in an F-4—the reconnaissance version of the P-38 Lightning—accident four months earlier. Peterson earned his wings through the US Army Air Forces Aviation Cadet program and was assigned to the 14th Photoreconnaissance Squadron. On 8 August 1942, Peterson, the unit’s operations officer, crashed during a routine maintenance test flight. At his wife's request, Peterson was cremated and his remains scattered over Colorado by a pilot flying a P-38.