It was a rite of passage for many World War II B-29 pilots. Before heading overseas to fight, they trained at one of the Army Air Corps bases that dotted Kansas and Nebraska. The towns that surrounded these bases - places like Great Bend and Pratt, both in Kansas – thrived as the bases grew.
But 60 years later, with veterans of the war passing on at a rate off 1,000 a day and corn belt towns consumed with other issues, the hangers that housed these planes are falling apart and fading away.
Passionate WWII buffs, armed with little more than an abiding respect for history, are fighting to save them. They're struggling against the ravages of time, weather and neglect - not to mention a general lack of public interest - to keep the hangars open because, they say, they are a monument to history.
They've got their work cut out for them.
At Pratt Industrial Airport, one of two war-era hangers houses some businesses, but the other is slated for demolition. There's a hangar still open in Great Bend, but a second has been razed and a third stands empty after being damaged during a tornado.
The preservationists play up the historical importance of maintaining these buildings for future generations, but they also argue that keeping them open would boost tourism by capitalizing on increased interest in military history. But they're up against towns that can't rent out the structures to businesses or otherwise develop them and therefore see them as financial liabilities. The city manager of Great Bend has suggested razing the town's tornado-damaged hangar probably makes more sense than spending $1.5
million to preserve it.
Historians plan to keep fighting, and hope to enlist others in the cause before the hangars are lost. "It's just so important to the whole area," says Milt Martin, a WW II buff from Pratt. The bases "changed these communities forever. I can't believe that there isn't a more concerted effort to save them."
Photo from PrattTown
