Pyote Air Force Base

Pyote Air Force Station (nicknamed "Rattlesnake Bomber Base") was a World War II airbase. It was on 2,745 acres of University of Texas land a mile southwest of the town of Pyote, Texas, twenty miles west of Monahans and just south of U.S. Highway 80.

After World War II, it was formerly home to the Enola Gay.

The West Texas State School [1] is now situated on the site. Located on I-20 at exit 66.

Origns

Pyote Air Force Station was established as a bombardment crew training base during World War II.

Two giant runways, each over 1½ miles long and 150 feet wide, and a taxiway formed a triangle on the flat, arid land. Construction of the facilities, including five large hangars, shops, warehouses, and living quarters, began on September 5, 1942.

World War II Use

The first troops were assigned within a month, well before the base was completed. Troops and civilian technicians poured in, and the population of the base grew steadily to a peak of over 6,500 in October 1944.

Within four months of its opening, the base had become the largest bomber installation in the country. Despite morale problems caused by isolation and the shortage of off-base recreation and of dependents' housing, Pyote achieved a distinguished record in molding inexperienced individuals into effective bomber crews.

After the arrival of the famed 19th Bombardment Group on 1 January, 1943, and the ceremonial inauguration of its training program on January 5, Pyote rapidly turned out crews proficient in hitting targets from the B-17 Flying Fortress until the summer of 1944, when it was switched to the B-29 Superfortress.

The 19th BG was the first air force unit to bomb Japanese targets. It flew to Pyote directly from combat in the Pacific. The base was redesignated the 19th Combat Crew Training School late in 1943 and then replaced on March 30, 1944, by the 236th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Combat Crew Training School). In June 1945 the base claimed records for the most B-29 training hours flown by any base in a single month (7,396), in a week (1,873), and in a day (321).

Postwar Use

Control of Pyote was transferred from the Second Air Force to the San Antonio Air Technical Service Command on November 15, 1945, at the end of the war, and the base became an aircraft-storage depot.

At its peak in 1948 the depot, which was maintained by the 4141st Army Air Forces Base Unit, housed 2,042 stored planes, mostly B-29s and B-17s, but including B-25s, A-26s, C-47s, P-63s, P-51s, AT-7s, L-5s, and L-4s.

Best known of all was the Enola Gay, from which the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. This famous plane was flown to Washington, D.C., on December 2, 1953, for preservation at National Air and Space Museum.

After the Korean War, all of the planes at Pyote were moved or scrapped, and most activity on the base ceased.

For a few years in the 1950s and 1960s, the 697th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, an Air Defense Command unit, operated a radar site on the base.

Closure

Following the deactivation of the site in 1966, base housing was taken over by the West Texas Children's Home, and the land and remaining buildings reverted to the University of Texas.

At some point between 1966 and 1980, four out of the five remaining hangars were apparently removed/destroyed. At least one of them was evidently intentionally destroyed in the course of filming the 1980 movie “Hangar 18”.

By 1985 a single large hangar (the former 3rd Echelon Maintenance Hangar) and slowly deteriorating runways & taxiways were all that marked the once-busy bomber base.

By 1985 a single large hangar and slowly deteriorating runways and taxiways were all that marked the once-busy bomber base. At some point between 1989-96, the roof & most of the walls of the former 3rd Echelon Maintenance Hangar were removed, leaving only a hollow grid of the side walls of the hangar standing.

In October 2004 the property was being used by the "Texas Youth Commission’s West Texas State School. The former AFB family housing (small, individual units) now looks to be used by prison staff,

The west side of the former AAF/AFB, where the actual airfield was, sits apparently unused. Some partial remains of one of the hangar walls, was the only structure remaining.