Coffeyville Army Air Field

Coffeyville Army Airfield
Part of Army Air Forces Flying Training Command
Located near Coffeyville, Kansas
Coffeyville Army Airfield KS 10 Oct 1943
Coordinates	37°05′39″N 095°34′19″W
Type	Training Airfield
Site history
Built	1942
In use	1942-1947

Coffeyville AAF

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Location of Coffeyville Army Airfield, Kansas

Coffeyville Army Airfield was a World War II training base of the United States Army Air Forces Central Flying Training Command (CFTC). It is currently the city-owned Coffeyville Municipal Airport.

History

Early in 1942, the War Department decided to build a basic training field outside the town of Coffeyville, Kansas, one of eleven Air Force bases the state would have before the end of World War II.

The base was eagerly sought after by the town's community leaders. Many businessmen donated time and part of their expenses to get the base approved. Their efforts started in late 1941, with several visits by key city officials in Washington to talk with different agencies of the War Department. By Thanksgiving 1941, the Chamber of Commerce and the Airport Committee, received a commitment from the War Department for a site engineer to consider Coffeyville.

The decision was made to build the base on May 8, 1942. Construction began on June 10, 1942. It had really started before when the county began to improve the road network around the new base to handle the increased truck traffic hauling construction material to the site. The weather didn't cooperate, as the latter part of 1942 was very wet, slowing construction; however, most of the construction was accomplished over the next eight months.

When finished, Coffeyville Army Air field had four runways, each 150 feet wide. The shortest was 5,872 feet. Most of the buildings were Theater of Operations construction while some were of the Mobilization type. The Mobilization type buildings included the station hospital, theater, chapel, and Link training buildings. There were three hangars with a parking apron a mile long and 450 feet wide were constructed. Where before there had been only open farm land, this new city now contained 212 buildings, a water storage and distribution system, sewage system and treatment plant, electric transmission lines, a railway spur, and all the other things one could expect to find in a town of 5000 people. Its effect upon the city of Coffeyville was dramatic.

The base was activated during June 1942 and named the "Army Air Forces Basic Flying School. Coffeyville Kansas" Later the name would be changed to "Coffeyville Army Air Field." It was the first of its type to be established in Kansas and would graduate the state's first class of cadets.

It was normal for a new base, built under extreme time pressure, to have start up problems. Coffeyville was no exception. There was no running water, and no roads. Coffeyville AAF wasn't ready for personnel. The base housing facilities were not ready. Some men were living under a baseball stadium at Forest Park, a recreation area in the city of Coffeyville. Meals were also served there for a time before the base mess hall opened.

The first large number of base support personnel, about 600 men, came to the field by train, arriving on September 18. The sewage system was not completed, and the water wasn't fit to drink because the pipes had not been cleaned. All drinking and cooking water had to be hauled from the city of Coffeyville in a street sprinkler. The electricity had been turned on and off intermittently during September, and came back on in the mess hall around 6 PM just as the troop train was backing into the siding. Due to a problem with the natural gas service, the first meal served at the base was barbecued wieners, instead of the originally planned roast beef. Dinner was about half finished when a cloudburst started. From then until January, the place was a sea of mud.

Lots of jobs needed to be finished before the cadets arrived. At the time, there was no water tower, so for fire protection, a fire truck was rented from the city of Coffeyville, and crewed by a driver and firefighter hired from the city. The post refrigeration units were not complete, meats and other perishables were stored in the Coffeyville Ice and Cold Storage company until facilities at the field were ready. Runways were not completed, nor were any of the maintenance buildings or shops in the sub-depot area. Most of the major construction would not be completed until January 1943.

Additionally, much remained to be built, i.e., taxiways, fencing, a crash station, a cadet operations building, some streets, and a civilian mess hall, etc. The fourth runway was started in July, later in August, the rebuilding of the original runways with concrete began.

So, as was typical with most of the training bases, training began while the field was being completed. The first group of cadets arrived on November 11, 1942, about six months from the start of construction. This was class 43-C with 137 members from primary flying schools at Muskogee, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Training started on November 14. While in basic flying school the student pilot learned to fly a more advanced aircraft than he soloed in primary flight training. At the time, Basic was a 10-week course consisting of 70 hours flying, 94 hours in ground school, and 47 hours in military training. At the end of the basic training, the student moved on to advanced flight training at another base

The trainer used at Coffeyville was the Consolidated¬Vultee BT-13 Valiant. Coffeyville received its first BT-13s on November 8, just eight days before the start of flight training. Since construction of the maintenance hangars was still in progress, maintenance was done outside on the parking ramp. To make matters more interesting, the sub-depot supply warehouses weren't finished, so parts were kept, and the sub depot operated in the City of Coffeyville at the Ford dealership. At first, maintenance personnel had to make their own desks, tables, and work benches. Important maintenance equipment and aircraft parts were not available, so occasionally aircraft were cannibalized to keep the remainder flying. Maintenance went on day and night. Like flight training, maintenance procedures and organization were consistently reviewed and improved. Eventually, a base mechanics school was established. This along with the other improvements, led to about 96 percent of all aircraft being available for training by June 1943.

Early, only broad course objectives, requirements, and directives were received from higher headquarters. As time went by, these directives became more specific. As a result, the flight training program at Coffeyville continually changed. Additionally, training was hindered by lack of equipment, facilities, and trained personnel. Instrument training provides a good example of the continual evolution of training at Coffeyville At first, all instructors gave their students the appropriate instrument training. Later, this phase of training was delegated to a few instructors who specialized in this phase of the cadets training. During the winter of 1943 and 1944, all instructors took additional training and became qualified to teach instrument flying. So, the centralized training for instruments was stopped. Many felt this was a positive move, because the student could stay with the same instructor throughout his training at Coffeyville Later as directives became more specific, some instructors would complain about the lack of

See also

• Kansas World War II Army Airfields

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency

• Shaw, Frederick J. (2004), Locating Air Force Base Sites History’s Legacy, Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, Washington DC, 2004.
• Manning, Thomas A. (2005), History of Air Education and Training Command, 1942–2002. Office of History and Research, Headquarters, AETC, Randolph AFB, Texas ASIN: B000NYX3PC