Storage Depot 41 Post Cards

War Assest Administration

Storage Depot 41

Kingman, Arizona

These are the post cards the came after the war. Most likely created by Gallup Photo Studios, which most towns in the country had. The cards were sold in the local gift shops and such. 

The post cards here are most likely in public domain...

Copyright 1990-2018

email  kingmanaafsd41@gmail.com

KAAF Post Cards

Kingman Army Air Field

Post Cards

These are the post cards that were sold on base through the base exchange (store) for the permamet personnel and gunnery students could buy and send home... 

As the post card reads, Greetings for Kingman....

As part of the Air to Air Gunnery Training, as part of the final classes for the student.

As part of the Ground to Ground Gunnery Training, as part of the middle classes for the student.

As part of the early training for Ground to Ground Training.

As part of the Ground to Ground Training, learing the .50 cal. Browning M2.

Students on the Kingman Ground to Ground Training facility.

As part of the Ground to Ground Training, this is the skeet range.

As part of the Ground to Ground Training, this is the moving skeet track or road.

As part of the classroom instruction, the introduction to the turret.

As part of the Ground to Ground Training, the turret training continues.

As part of the Air to Air Training, the student is flying out the Kingman Air to Air Range or Yucca.

As part of the Ground to Ground Training, there is night time firing. 

The Hualipai Mountians for relaxation for the airmen...

 Life on the training school.

 Scenes of Kingman, mainly downtown.

 On the road of Route 66....

The end of the day at Kingman Army Air Field.....

the post cards are in the public domain.

Copyright 1990-2018

email  kingmanaafsd41@gmail.com

A Brief History of

This piece was printed in a local car publication spotlighting the airfield's history. Then added some photos of the airfield to make usable for the printing. I added different photos, like the post cards from the airfield from the operation and salvage days.

A Brief History of Kingman Army Air Field

Kingman Army Air Field was established in 1942. The airfield lasted until the end of the war. KAAF was one of the best of gunnery schools in the Army Air Force. KAAF was one of seven gunnery schools for the B-17. The gunnery course was 6 weeks long. The first two weeks was the classroom, the next two was ground to ground, and the last two was air to air. The base facility was one of the largest in the country. KAAF was the six largest base.

Here are some the of the classes: orientation, safety, knowledge of the equipment, ballistics, gun installa­tion, sights, sighting rules, aircraft recognition, turret training, and tactics. The two weeks of classroom study. The classroom gave the basic knowledge of what the gunnery student should in the field or in the air.

Kingman Army Air Field's first name was Army Air Force Flexible Gunnery School at Kingman and was activated on 4th of August, 1942. The airfield was given okay to build in May of 1942. The bids for con­struction came in July. On 3rd of August, the airstrips were started. By the end of the year, the base started to have personnel set up full operations.

B-17 Flying Fortress:

(1) Bombardier -- Chin turret

(2) Navigator -- Waist gun

(3) Engineer -- Waist gun

(4) Armorer -- Waist gun

(5) Radio operator -- Waist and radio hatch guns

(6) Career gunner -- Top turret

(7) Career gunner -- Tail turret

(8) Career gunner -- Waist gun and ball turret

From ground to ground to air to air training: caliber .50 machine gun, 30 caliber machine gun, malfunc­tions, turrets, sighting, aircraft recognition, ground fir­ing, and air firing. Before the shooting of any guns, the students would first fire a BB guns on the airfield. The ground to ground training used shotguns for trap and skeet. The students were trained on moving vehicles to get the feel of the aircraft movement. The students were trained to know every position of the B-17. The positions are next.

The 8th of January, 1943 was the first class and the class number was 43-8. The 7th of May, the airfield was renamed Kingman Army Air Field. As the war was winding down, the need for B-17 gunners was rapidly decreasing. The airfield was placed on inactivating status in the summer of 45. The last day of KAAF was 25th of February, 1946

A Brief History of Storage Depot 41

Kingman Army Air Field headed into 1945 under a full steam of energy. The airfield had been open and teach­ing over to 36,000 gunner trainees. In May of 1945, Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered. On June 8th, the airfield command received word that the gunnery school would become inactive. For the next few days, the Station Disposition Board would meet with the base command to survey the airfield. The airfield started an inactivation program on June 15th. On August 2nd, KAAF is put on stand-by status. The gunnery school was active for 4 years of the war and the air-field com­mand was now slowing down operations at the school. The gunnery trainees still at Kingman Army Air Field were transferred to other schools for training. By the end of the summer, the gunnery school at KAAF was over.

A telegram was received on September 24th informing the field would be taken over at the end of the month. George Adams, chief of the Surplus War Aircraft Divi­sion of the RFC arrived in Kingman on September 25th to meet with C. W. Berg, government supervisor for the project. KAAF will be used as an RFC Storage Depot. On October 6th, preparations were being made to receive the incoming aircraft for storage. Then on October 10th, the first aircraft were flying in for the Storage Depot 41. A new program would begin on November 23th with an agreement between ATSC of the San Bernardino AAF, CA and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. San Bernardino will have jurisdiction over KAAF. Julian Myers a contractor for the RFC Sales & Storage Sub-De­pot 41 arrives in December to be in charge of the op­erations. By the end of December, the airfield had 4693 aircraft.

The myth of 7000 planes may have been started or overstated by Carl W. Berg, who was the supervisor of the Depot. The aircraft at the airfield would break down as 2000 to 2200 B-24, little over 1800 B-17, the flyable fleet of B-32 consisted of over 100 aircraft. The rest of the aircraft were B-25, B-26, P-38, P-40, P-51, AT-6, and BT-13. What was at the airfield was 85 recon­naissance aircraft, 615 fighters, 54 light bombers, 226 medium bombers, and 4463 heavy bombers for a total of 5443 aircraft. As you can see the numbers do not add to 7000 aircraft. Here is another set of numbers of aircraft at Depot 41, 2567 B-24, 1832 B-17, 478 P-38, 200 P-38 photo reconnaissance, 142 B-25, and hun­dreds of P-47 and P-40 and some A-26s. The price for a B-17 was $13,750. The rest of the aircraft went down from there.

1946-A set of new directives were received on January 10th for demobilization from San Bernardino Field, CA. Then on February 26th, Kingman Army Air Field became Storage Depot 41. By May 1st, Storage Depot 41 has sold 7 aircraft, 1 BT-13, and 6 AT-6s. On June 6th, WAA Deputy Regional Director John F. Taggart announced a bid process for the aircraft at Kingman and Ontario, CA. Some 8000 aircraft will be scrapped at these locations. The bids will go to Washington, D. C.; they need to be received by 12 Noon on First of July. The successful bidder for the lot at Kingman will have 14 months as part of an 18-month project to clear all aircraft for the field. The aircraft inventory at KAAF is 5553, 10 aircraft were sold and number for salvage is 5543, by June 27th. On August 9th, War Asset Admin­istration awarded the Martin Wunderlich Company of Jefferson City, MO. The bid of $2,780,000 is to destroy 5540 aircraft being stored at the KAAF.


Copyright 1990-2018

email  kingmanaafsd41@gmail.com

This is the online home of the

Here is the web site landing page or home page for the Kingman Army Air Field Historical Society. This is what I created for the web site. It did have a name but I will not be using on this blog until another date.

This is the online home of the

Kingman Army Air Field

Historical Society & Museum

When World War Two finally broke out on 1st of September, 1939, the United States was staying isolated from the rest of the world. It figured it was safe from fighting for a couple of years. As the 1940’s started, U. S. military was starting a gradual build-up of men and equipment. By the time the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army Air Corp had close to 150 airfields. By the peak of the war in late 1943, there were 345 main bases, 116 sub-bases, and 322 auxiliary fields. Kingman Army Air Field was one of the main bases including Yucca Army Air Field as it’s sub base and had 5 auxiliary fields at Red Lake, Hackberry (Antares), Topock, Havasu (site 6), and Signal.

As the war progressed, Mohave County Chamber of Commerce was sending telegrams to the President and the War Department. The chamber was letting the government know that the good folks of Mo­have County wanted to do their part of protecting America. The tele­grams and communications happen during the year of 1940.

The Army Air Corps started to look at Hualapai Valley for their next airfield. In March 1941, Major John C. Horton and Captain Mauhan made a visit to Kingman and met with Mohave County Officials. This is the first of many visits by Major Horton and other officers of the Air Corps to evaluate the possibilities of Hualapai Valley for a major air­field. On December 7th, Pearl Harbor is attacked and the country goes to war with Japan and Germany.

In 1942, events make Kingman beehive of activity. Port Kingman will become a pilot training program airport. The Army Air Forces will speed up building of Army Air Force Flexible Gunnery School at Kingman. On 10th of August, the school is officially open for training. On 5th of October, the 460th Base Headquarters & Air Base Squadron, 1100th Guard Squadron & 334th Aviation Squadron were established. On 21st of October, the 1120th, 1121st, 1122nd, & 1123rd Flexible Gunnery Training Squadrons were set up to train the gunnery student at the school. Since there were no buildings at the school, the first personnel worked out the Harvey House in downtown Kingman. Towards the end of the year, school personnel starts taking up residence on the 6th largest B-17 school in the Army Air Force system.

'Bugs Bunny' became the base's official mascot, because of so many 'rabbits' in the area. Lieutenant William L. McCurdy got permission to use 'Bugs' from his producer Leon Schlesinger. 'Bugs' held the rank of technical sergeant. This happens on 14 January 1943.

The first training class, Class 43-8 had begun training at the school. The majority of the class was bombardiers' & the class size was 40 students. The class started on 18 January 1943. Training for the gun­nery students varied during KAAF operations. By starting out with small classes working up to 300 students was set by orders for Air Force Command. The training would begin with the basics, bb guns, shotguns, Thompson machine guns, .30 cal machine guns then to .50 cal machine guns. Classroom training would take about two to three weeks. Then they would train at the ground firing facility. The last week would be for flying. The training course change through the school’s operations, at one time it was 6 weeks, then to 8 weeks. The students were trained on Jam Handy trainers and Sperry train­ers. For flying training, they used AT-6 at first, then finally new B-17s arrived on the airfield, then the student would fly in them for their training missions. At graduation, the student would earn the gunnery wings and become flying sergeants. KAAF had trained over 36,000 gunners in the few years of operations. In 1945, class sizes went for 300 to the smaller class size of 50 to 100. The last class completed there was June or July.

The Army Air Force Flexible Gunnery School, Kingman, Az. was re­named Kingman Army Air Field on 7th of May, 1943. The school did not change from its primary mission, training gunners for the B-17. KAAF was a 100% B-17 training school. In January 1944, KAAF added Four Engine Transition Group (Co-Pilot) program. The program used the TB-26 and lasted about 18 months. KAAF had trained two classes of WASP during the year of 1944. On 1st of May, 1944, 460th Base Headquarters & Air Base Squadron became 3018th Army Air Force Base Unit. As the war winded down in 1945, the 3018th was reas­signed to 4184th AAFBU on 29th of September, 1945. As the war end­ed, on 2nd of September, 1945, so did the KAAF mission. KAAF was ordered to close down. Kingman Army Air Field’s last day was 25th of February, 1946. The 4184th AAFBU on 26th of February was changed to 4126th and placed on Temporary Duty.

          Storage Depot 41

After the war in late 1945, preparations were being made to change KAAF assignment from Army Air Force Base to Storage Depot 41. On 1st of October, 1945, Western Flying Training Command turned over KAAF to Air Technical Service Command. KAAF would become an aircraft storage facility. The first aircraft to be received by KAAF happen on 10th of October 1945. On 23rd of November, 1945, ATSC at San Bernardino AAF, CA. signs an agreement with Reconstruc­tion Finance Corporation. The RFC assigned KAAF as Storage Depot 41. Julian Myers is the contractor and is in charge of RFC Sales and Storage Depot 41. By the first of May, 1946, Depot 41 had sold 1 BT-13 and 6 AT-6s by the War Asset Administration. On 9th of August, 1946, WAA awards Martin Wunderlich Company of Jefferson City, Mo. the bid of $2,780,000 to destroy 5540 aircraft being stored at KAAF. On 10th of July 1947, Mohave County was granted access to KAAF, this is the first step in gaining control of the airfield. On 1st of July, 1948, WAA turns over KAAF to Mohave County’s control. By early Decem­ber, WAA had ended their stay. They turned over 9 buildings to the county. Julian Myers, who is in charge of Storage Depot 41 tells that they sold some 400 buildings, 5634 aircraft were processed and approximately $850,000 personnel properly disposed of. The Kingman Army Air Field Historical Society and Museum are working to preserve this his­tory for every American to understand the mission of Kingman Army Air Field.

Copyright 1990-2018

email  kingmanaafsd41@gmail.com