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.


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