Great Bend Municipal Airport

Infobox Airport
name = Great Bend Municipal Airport
nativename =
nativename-a =
nativename-r =


image-width =
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IATA = GBD
ICAO = KGBD
type = Public
owner =
operator = City of Great Bend
city-served =
location = Great Bend, Kansas
elevation-f = 1,887
elevation-m = 575.2
coordinates = Coord|38|20|39|N|98|51|33|W|type:airport_region:US|display=inline,title
website =
metric-elev =
metric-rwy =
r1-number = 17/35
r1-length-f = 7,850
r1-length-m = 2,393
r1-surface = Asphalt
r2-number = 11/29
r2-length-f = 4,698
r2-length-m = 1,432
r2-surface = Asphalt
stat-year =
stat1-header =
stat1-data =
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Great Bend Municipal Airport Airport codes|GBD|KGBD is a public airport located four miles (6 km) west of the central business district (CBD) of Great Bend, a city in Barton County, Kansas, USA. The airport covers convert|1887|acre|ha|0|lk=on and has two runways. It is mostly used for general aviation, but is also served by one commercial airline. Service is subsidized by the Essential Air Service program.

Airline

* Great Lakes Airlines (Dodge City, Hays, Kansas City)

History

During World War II, the facility was known as Great Bend Army Airfield and was used as a United States Army Air Forces Second Air Force training field.

The first public announcement of intentions to build an airfield at Great Bend, on the Arkansas river in Barton county, came in the form of a telegram from Sen. Arthur Capper of Kansas to the secretary of the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce on 30 September 1942. But, of course, by then all the preliminary work had been done. In July of that year the site at Great Bend had been chosen. Nor was all the initiative left to the Army. A committee of leading citizens from Great Bend and Hoisington had made the original proposal. Originally, plans called for the Civil Aeronautics Administration to supply the funds, and, with war's end, Barton county and Great Bend would acquire ownership. However, this tentative arrangement was subsequently changed so that the field was built under the auspices of the Air Force.

Originally intended to serve merely as a satellite base of Smoky Hill Army AirField at Salina, the physical plant at Great Bend was initially decidedly limited in its functional utility and in size. Most of the construction work was done by Patti-McDonald Construction Company of Kansas City, but the concrete work on runways and taxiways was undertaken by the W.L. Johnson Construction company. Essentials were completed first. These were followed in time by facilities for recreation and services. During the summer and fall of 1943 a service club, theater, and bowling alley were completed.

Capt. Theodore C. Reid, post engineer, was the first officer to report for duty on the base. He arrived on 18 January 1943. The first enlisted men to arrive, detachments of the 501st Base Headquarters and Air Base Squadron, the 1159th Guard Squadron, and the 902d Quartermaster Company, were necessarily housed in Great Bend for a time, there being no facilities on the base. On 13 February 1943 the 501st was transferred to Great Bend to become the headquarters squadron on the new field. Capping the inchoate organizational structure, Lt. Col. Glenn M. Pike assumed command of the field on 26 February. The first recorded Morning Report, dated 5 March 1943, lists 13 officers and 182 enlisted men. From these modest beginnings, which was, of course a skeleton force even for the limited role the field was originally designed to play, Great Bend was to grow impressively, both as a mission and physical plant. By 31 January 1945 a total of 6,409 personnel would be stationed there.

In keeping with its scheduled function of processing heavy bombardment groups, Great Bend Army AirField was assigned to the 21st Bombardment Wing on 16 January 1943. It was the function of the 21st to operate processing bases, but, besides processing it did some training also. For instance, it provided certain types of navigational flights in those instances in which these had not been accomplished in the third-phase training of the group. In addition, the wing provided training in "Prisoner of War Behavior and Escape."As early as March 1943 it was known that the Second Air Force was to be charged with the responsibility of training personnel for the new B-29 very heavy bomber.

And the first tangible step toward executing this mission was the activation of the 58th Bombardment Operational Training Wing at Smoky Hill Army AirField at Salina, on 1 May 1943. But before much in the way of implementation could be done, the 58th was withdrawn from Second Air Force jurisdiction on 8 June 1943.

Knowing this delay to be purely a temporary one, on 1 July 1943 Second Air Force chose as the instrument to achieve this objective the 5th Heavy Bombardment Processing Unit, Stationed at Salina. Since Great Bend Army AirField had been designated as one of the bases to participate in the B-29 program, it was transferred to the 5th Heavy Bombardment Processing Unit on the same day.

If Great Bend was to assume a different and greatly enlarged mission, physical expansion of necessity became the order of the day. Original plans were altered, providing for considerable additions to the runway and taxiway systems. Additional troop housing was built, and new hangars we constructed especially designed to accommodate the B-29.

To bring its nomenclature more into harmony with its function, the 5th Heavy Bombardment Processing Unit was redesignated the 73d Bombardment Operational Training Wing on 17 August 1943. But the new organization endured for scarcely four months before it was disbanded on 22 October 1943, subsequent to the reassignment of the 58th Bombardment Operational Training Wing to the Second Air Force on 15 October. Both the personnel and the several bases of the 73d, among which figured Great Bend Army Air Field, were relinquished to the 58th.

Fortunately, despite the somewhat impermanent organizational picture at higher levels, the B-29 training program did get under way at the bases which were assigned the task. Great Bend received the 444th Bombardment Group (VH) and by April 1944, its training completed, the 444th departed for overseas service. During the remainder of its career, Great Bend was destined to train three more very heavy bombardment groups, the 498th, the 19th, and 333d, and in addition, it retrained the ground echelon of the 489th back from Europe for redeployment to the Pacific. The extreme dearth of B-29 aircraft, however, hampered the training efforts for some time. Consequently, for several months the group in training at Great Bend perforce used B-17's and B-26's for the most part, with a sprinkling of B-29's to leaven the loaf.

Great Bend Army AirField was fortunate in the caliber of cooperation received from surrounding communities. The neighboring municipalities, such as Great Bend and Hoisington, were particularly active in promoting recreational opportunities for the troops.

On 25 March 1944 the units permanently assigned to Great Bend Army Airfield were reorganized in the 243d AAF Base Unit (OTU) (VH). Thereafter, Great Bend was organized under the standard plan for OTU (Operational Training Unit) bases. This plan consisted of three major sections: administrative and services section, supply and maintenance section, and the training section. In addition, the air inspector and the hospital were referred to as sections. The office of the director of training was set up in April 1944, with the responsibility of providing flying and ground school training to all flying personnel of the very heavy bombardment groups successively stationed at Great Bend. In addition, the directorate was charged with the training of ground crew personnel. However, since the new directorate was not prepared immediately to take up its burden, the group in training at that time, the 498th, continued to train itself as the 444th had done before it. Consequently, it was only with the 19th Bombardment Group (VH), which began training in September 1944, that the training directorate took over the training responsibilities. Thereafter, the tactical units stationed at Great Bend were trained by the base directorate of training, although they maintained their individual organizations and operated independently of the base unit insofar as administration was concerned.

It came to be common procedure for the maintenance echelon of a group to move to Great Bend while another group was being trained there. This was done in order that these men could receive "on-the-job" training which would enable them to maintain the aircraft of their own group when it arrived. For instance, an advanced detachment of the 19th Bombardment Group (VH) were given jobs alongside the men of the 498th.

Beginning with the winter of 1945, part of the flying training was conducted at Borinquen Army AirField, Puerto Rico. The primary purpose of this program, termed the "Gypsy Task Force," was to take advantage of the good flying weather in Puerto Rico during the winter months, enabling the crews to complete their training much quicker than would otherwise have been the case. With this phase of training over, the crews would return to Great Bend to prepare for departure to a staging area. The program was discontinued in April 1945, after only one season.

If the operations of the base were not crippled, they were certainly impeded by the critical manpower shortage resulting primarily from heavy transfers to the Army Ground Forces during the autumn and winter of 1944-1945.1 By 31 January 1945, Great Bend had furnished the Army Ground Forces with 244 enlisted men. The reciprocal arrangement with the Ground Forces did not solve the problem, since by 31 January 1945, the field had received only 90 enlisted men replacements from the Ground Forces.

With the arrival of the ground echelon of the 489th Bombardment Group in February 1945 from the European theater, Great Bend became one of the first redeployment installations in the country. At that time the 333d Bombardment Group (VH) was receiving its regular training, but the ground echelon of the 489th was trained on B-29 maintenance alongside the men of the 333d. After a relatively short transition course in the B-29 (they were already experienced maintenance men) the 489th left in March to join the air echelon of the group, which had received transition training at several different bases.

Victory over Japan had a direct effect on the mission and activity of the base. The 333d Bombardment Group (VH), having completed its training, left Great Bend during July and August 1945. No other groups were assigned for a full schedule of training, but the 44th Bombardment Group (VH) and the 405th Service Group used Great Bend as an assembly point. Indeed, in this period the primary mission of the base became that of discharging qualified men--or rather of transferring them to separation centers.

On 25 October 1945 the base was officially informed by Second Air Force that the installation would be put on a standby basis on 31 December 1945. Following this announcement, activities on the base (except that of shipping men to separation centers) slowed up considerably. During December the 44th Bombardment Group (VH) and the 405th Air Service Group were transferred to Salina. Second Air Force had placed Great Bend in the category of those fields whose retention was desirable for standby, with a possibility of being reopened on 30 days notice. Consequently, one of the principal activities of December consisted of inactivating buildings.

Sources are lacking by which to trace the subsequent steps leading to complete inactivation and transfer to the District Engineers. As late as March 1946 Great Bend was still in the category of temporarily inactive or standby under the Second Air Force. However, the field was never subsequently activated. For a short time during 1950 (and possibly 1949), the field was host to an Air Force reserve unit. However, by March 1951 no unit was stationed there, nor has the Air Force made use of the field since.

World War II units assigned

* 19th Bombardment (Very Heavy) 1 Apr-7 Dec 1944
* 44th Bombardment (Heavy) 25 Jul 1945
* 333rd Bombardment (Very Heavy) 13 Jan-18 Jun 1945
* 444th Bombardment (Very Heavy) 29 Jul 1943-12 Mar 1944
* 489th Bombardment (Heavy) c. 18 Feb 1945
* 498th Bombardment (Very Heavy) 13 Apr-13 Jul 1944

Other

The airport is the site of the first nationwide NHRA event, held in 1955.

ee also

* Kansas World War II Army Airfields

References

*FAA-airport|ID=GBD|use=PU|own=PU|site=06636.*A
* Kansas Historical Quarterly - Summer/Autumn 1959

External links

* [http://www.greatbendks.net/airport.htm Airport page at Great Bend web site]