P-38 Lightning fighters would’ve been a common sight over my home town, Arroyo Grande, California, during World War II. That’s because today’s Santa Maria Airport was then an Army Air Forces training base for advanced pilots about to ship out overseas.

The beginners were farther north, at the site of today’s Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria. 8,000 cadets went through primary flight training here.

Still farther north, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo was devoted to preflight training for prospective Navy pilots. 3,000 young men went through Poly’s program while the civilian student population fell to about eighty students.

Learning to fly–or military flying, period–was hazardous, even for advanced pilots. Three of them were killed in accidents in January 1945 alone: two P-38s collided over Corbett Canyon; one crashed in the dunes; another fell into the Rusconi Cafe in Santa Maria, killing the pilot and two people inside the cafe.

The video also commemorates some of the young fliers from San Luis Obispo County who were killed in flying accidents. Eighteen local aviators were killed in all; half in combat and half in accidents.