Darlington County Jetport is a public airport located 9 miles north of Darlington, South Carolina

Darlington, South Carolina

Darlington is a city in and the county seat of Darlington County, in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is a center for tobacco farming. The population was 6,720 at the 2000 census and is part of the Florence Metropolitan Statistical Area...

. The airport serves the general aviation

General aviation

General aviation is one of the two categories of civil aviation. It refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and regular cargo flights, both private and commercial. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to large, non-scheduled cargo jet flights...

 community, with no scheduled commercial airline service.

History

The airport was opened in October 1943. It was built by the United States Army Air Force, and known as Hartsville Army Airfield. It was used as an auxiliary training base for Florence Army Airfield

Florence Regional Airport

-History:The airport began with the purchase of of land in 1928. During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces Third Air Force used the airport as a training base and added...

, located 18 miles southeast. It was built as a bomber airfield, and supported A-20 Havocs, and later A-26 Invader

A-26 Invader

The Douglas A-26 Invader was a United States twin-engined light attack bomber built by the Douglas Aircraft Co. during World War II that also saw service during several of the Cold War's major conflicts...

s which were based at Florence. Its base unit was the 82nd Station Complement Squadron, which maintained the airfield and provided service to the aircraft.

Military use of the airfield ended early in 1945, and it was turned over to civil authorities which converted it into a civil airport.