Dyess Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located five miles southwest of the central business district of Abilene, a city in Taylor County, Texas. The base employs more than 5,000 people, making it the single largest employer in the area. Dyess AFB has nearly 200 facilities on base, plus 988 units of family housing, and encompasses 6,117 acres of land. The base has a total economic impact of nearly $310 million yearly on the local community. It is also an emergency landing site for the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter. The base is named after Lt. Col William Edwin Dyess, a native of Albany, Texas who was captured by the Japanese on Bataan in April 1942. Dyess escaped in April 1943 and fought with guerilla forces on Mindanao until evacuated by submarine in July 1943. During retraining in the United States, his P-38 caught fire in flight on 23 Dec 1943 near Burbank, CA. He refused to bail out over a populated area and died in the crash of his P-38 in a vacant lot. http://www.dyess.af.mil/
