Follow Up: Great Bend Army Air Field 1943

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Credit:

"Here is a photo of Great Bend in her heyday of 1943. Hap Halloran sent it to me a while ago."

Chris Howlett

Great Bend B-29 Hanger Bites The Dust

A backhoe belonging to Stone Sand Company is used to chew away at the east wall of the middle of the old World War II-era hangers at Great Bend Municipal Airport Wednesday morning. The building is being razed because it has deteriorated beyond repair.

Story From Great Bend Tribune 03/20/2008:

And down it goes

By DALE HOGG dhogg@gbtribune.com

WW II hangar razed at Great Bend Airport

The cavernous hanger at the Great Bend Municipal Airport once housed one of America’s most fierce warbirds, the B-29, the plane which dropped atom bombs on Japan to end World War II.

However, as the morning sun Wednesday filtered through the arched roof and walls stripped of their outer skin of tin and shingling, it seemed strangely vulnerable. With shafts of light illuminating circulating dust and debris, a backhoe dwarfed by the mammoth structure gnawed away at its east side.

The building with enough history behind it to fill its massive wooden frame was being razed, not as a casualty of war, but of economics.

“It would just cost to much to fix it up,” said Great Bend City Attorney Bob Suelter. The roof of the hanger was badly damaged in a 2005 tornado, as were outer walls. Besides, the building had no utilities and the doors were frozen shut.

The demolition project has been in the works for about a year and a half, Suelter said, adding the city had to get permission from the Kansas Historical Society and the Federal Aviation Administration first. The contract was awarded to Stone Sand Company for around $34,000 and the work will only take a couple of days.

The hanger, the middle one of three, dates back to 1941 or ‘42 during the early days of the U.S. Army Air Corps B-29 training base, said Steve Murray, local historian whose father John was a gunner on a B-29 and trained here. The base was part of a network of training facilities including Pratt and Walker. Airplanes still land on the Great Bend runway built during the war, the fourth longest in Kansas.

At the time, the hangers were among the largest structures on the Great Plains. There were originally five but two burned down, the most recent one in October, 1998.

The federal government tried to establish a reserve base here after the war, but that didn’t stick, Murray said. It then sold it to the City of Great Bend for $1 in 1947 and it became part of the new Great Bend airport, being used as storage and garage space.

In the 1950s, the hanger along with its sister structure to the north were sold to Marlette Homes which owned them until the ‘80s when the city bought them back, Suelter said. The north one was occupied by Great Bend Industries for a spell, but the one being demolished had only stored city equipment, and grain and crop fertilizers for a farm Co-op.

“We just can’t find tenants for them,” Suelter said.

“I’m sad to see it go,” said Kevin Lockwood, a Great Bend resident and World War II enthusiast. “That’s who I am, I’m kind of historical.”

Lockwood is part of a WW II re-enactment group and has a private collection of period equipment and memorabilia. He or the Barton County Historical Society may work with Stone Sand to salvage a section of the concrete wall on which is painted a crew chief’s maintenance chart which dates back to the air base days and a segment of the door on which there is a warning to make sure the door is completely open before moving the plane from the hanger.

“We had a unique tourist opportunity there,” Lockwood said of the hanger. About 10 years ago, he led an effort to utilize the building as part of a WW II museum complex.

“I wanted to set it back to the ‘40s out there. Next to Cheyenne Bottoms, the base is one of our claims to fame. A few years from now, we will look around and ask ‘where did all the old hangers go?’” By then, however, “all we will have left are the old black and white photos at the historical society.”

“I’m sorry to hear its being torn down,” Murray said. He said he’s worked with owners of restored B-29 seeking a place to park their planes, and the loss of this hanger makes that possibility even more remote.

Note: There is an active B-29 Museum Committee in Pratt Kansas that is exploring the possibility of building a new Museum dedicated to the story of the "Bombers On The Prairie" which will tell the complete history of the planning, development, training locations, and deployment of the B-29 in WW II. Contact Phillip Schulz for more information.

George T. Chandler Featured In Brooks Aviation Art Collection

Barbara Ann's Busy Day
by Roy Grinnell

November 8. 1943, 1/Lt. George Chandler, from Pratt Kansas, 339FS, 347FG, has safely returned to his base at Munda, New Georgia Island. This day saw the U.S. invasion of Bougainville at Empress Augusta Bay. Flying a P-38-H, George has shot down in a single pass, his second and third victories, both are Mitsubishi Zero 52’s flying from Rabaul and attempting to dive bomb the invasion fleet.
Signed by Maj. George T. Chandler - Capt. Norman J. “Dusty” Kleiss - CDR Don W. McMillan
Maj. William B. Berry - Col. Bernard F. Fisher - Elmer Smith.

The signatories

P-38 Ace - George Chandler flew the legendary Lockheed P-38 fighter in the Southwest Pacific, becoming an Ace. Chandler’s most memorable mission occurred as he was above Bougainville leading the second flight of four Lightnings. He could hear the fighter controller vectoring other aircraft to intercept a big Japanese raid of almost 150 aircraft. The Lightnings flying high cover over the fleet, dived to engage the Japanese fighters. Chandler saw two Zero fighters diving on a transport that was just off-loading troops. The P-38 quickly overtook the Japanese fighters and shot them both down. Among his decorations are the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal with eleven oak leaf clusters... read more about it here.