The Department of War, in turn, announced that it would not contest the wish of the Department of the Navy to take over Rickenbacker Field, and that it would build its new factory elsewhere. The Cobb County government appealed to the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, urging him to change the Navy's plans. Since other options were available for flight training. Secretary Knox relinquished the Navy's claim on this airfield and left it to the Army Air Forces. (During World War II, the Navy established an auxiliary naval air station at Gainesville, Georgia, just northeast of Atlanta.)