CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales announced that the city of Corpus Christi was named by the National Park Service as a World War II Heritage City.
City Councilman Greg Smith feels the honor is long overdue, considering that the largest military training base in the world was located at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.
"It shows what an important part we were in that effort, and the ongoing effort to. We love our military here in Corpus Christi, past, present and in the future," he said.
Many of the veterans who were here for Tuesday's announcement were proud that the city was being recognized for it's contribution to the war effort during World War II. Victor Salas was a Marine who served in Vietnam.
"I think maybe now the rest of the nation will start seeing that, and seeing how special a place this is," he said.
Vietnam veteran James Gerdy told 3NEWS the new designation should help to attract more tourists to our area.
"I think it’s very good for the community in the long run too," he said. "It’s going to bring people into town to see what was going on to the sites. It’s gonna be good for all of the areas and in the long run for the veterans."
3NEWS toured NAS Corpus Christi and found a number of buildings still standing from World War II. One of which happens to be the first chapel built on the base. Inside of the chapel, near the front entrance is a framed copy of the Beam Newspaper from Dec. 6, 1941.
The Beam was the base newspaper. It talked about the very first services to be held inside the chapel which were on Dec. 7, 1941. 3NEWS was told that once word got out about the attack on Pearl Harbor, people rushed to the chapel to pray. It’s that kind of history that you can continue to find around the base.
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