KAAF, Storage Depot 41

This next piece came from the web site of the Kingman Army Air Field Museum. I wrote this for the site. The site was the second for the museum. The first web site was not impressive. So I got a new web site and created this for it. And was able to change the domain name and use this again. I also added this to the booklet I did for the EAA B-17 and anyone else I made one for.
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Kingman Army Air Field

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 buildup 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 becomes a pilot training program airport. The Army Air Forces sped 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 airfield 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 100 to 50. 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. 


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