JIM & JANE'S GREAT B-29 ADVENTURE

Source: Jim Bowman

It was a good opportunity. After I retired from federal service in 2008, one of the first items on my to-do list was to research my father's WW2 service. This led to joining the 73rd Bomb Wing Association, dedicated to his old outfit, and it turned out the 73rd was holding its 2009 reunion in Oklahoma City, OK, in late May. As far as I know, Dad had never been stationed in Oklahoma, but he had spent most of 1944 in Kansas training on B-29's at Walker Army Air Field near Hays, KS, as part of the 882nd Bomb Squadron, 500th Bomb Group, 73rd Bomb Wing. Walker was only one of four fields on the Kansas prairie where the units of the 73rd trained in 1944. So why not combine a trip to Oklahoma City to meet some of Dad's old buddies with a visit to the old Kansas air fields where he and they had trained?

It didn't take much arm-twisting to convince my sister to come along (after all, somebody's gotta watch me), so on the morning of Friday 22 May 2009 I was off from my home in Laurel, MD, to my old hometown of Monroe, MI, to pick up Jane. (I still call her Janie and she still calls me Jimmy, but for the purposes of this narrative I'll use our grown-up names.) After an uneventful drive, I spent the night at Jane's house, and on Saturday morning 23 May we were off on our great adventure.

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