Ghosts from a war bird past

by Susan Anderson
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 1:58 PM MDT

Bob Hope entertained there, test pilot ace Chuck Yeager was training when he crashed nearby, and 124 airmen took off from its runways to die in eight different plane crashes in Wyoming.

The former Casper Air Base has an astonishing, colorful and largely unknown history. It’s hard to believe if you visit the windswept, deserted sagebrush landscape with runways, a few 66-year-old barracks and clubhouses that this place buzzed with such important activity during World War II.

When you visit the Wyoming Veterans’ Museum in what was the Serviceman’s Club at the base, you are struck with an almost eerie sense of history. Can it really be true that for nearly three short years -- from September 1942 through June 1945 -- 35,000 soldiers came through the air base on their way to every major battle location in World War II?

When the U.S. entered the war, it needed an air force immediately. The Casper Air Base rose from nothing to a training facility with runways and 400 buildings in six months, eventually housing and training 3,000 soldiers at a time.

Young pilots came to the base to learn how to fly the B-17 and B-24 bombers that figured so hugely in the second World War. The base was an important final training step where they learned to fly in formation and the crews practiced bombing runs.

From here, they flew on training missions as far as Texas and the East Coast. The Casper Air Base was valued for the challenging flying conditions at this altitude and the wide open spaces for bombing practice.

Veterans’ Museum Director John Goss said pilots and crewmembers who trained in Casper went on to fly in operations in Germany, Tokyo and the South Pacific. A graduate of the Casper training program bombed a refinery at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

Crashes

A Casper Mountain resident has found debris from one of the plane crashes just in the past year. Eight died in a B-24 that crashed at the top of the mountain not far from what is now Micro Road.

Goss recounts the loss of 12 bombers that went down in Wyoming during training, killing a total of 124 men.

One of the more lighthearted stories of mishap is about test pilot Chuck Yeager, made famous in the book and movie “The Right Stuff” as the ultimate possessor of the nerves of steel and bravery that made up “the right stuff.”

He came to Casper with the 363rd Fighter Squadron, of the 357th Fighter Group for final training in 1943. On Oct. 23 of that year in Casper, “during a high speed exercise, his P-39’s engine blew up, the plane burst into flames and Yeager had to bail out,” according to the Web site acepilots.com. He fractured his spine and was hospitalized.

Shot down over France just four months after his Wyoming crash, Yeager was protected by the French Resistance until he could get over the Pyrenees to Spain. Yeager eventually shot down 11 enemy planes and went on to become a revered test pilot.

But he liked to talk about his time at the Casper Air Base, including flying over antelope, then returning to hunt them. According to Goss, his autobiography credits a Wyoming sheepherder with saving him after his plane crashed after taking off from the base.

Murals in a dance hall

The museum is in what was the Servicemen’s Club, complete with the wood floors that saw many social evenings during the war. Some of those soldiers met women from town at the dances, and came back after the war to settle down and start numerous Casper families.

On a tour, director Goss said that the first things most people notice are the huge, vivid murals on the walls, painted by four different artists during the war. They bring to life what has happened on this piece of land, beginning with Native American myth and continuing to the bustling time of the air base.

In the museum are 10,000 artifacts donated by soldiers from Casper and around the country. As you look at the signed pictures of famous airplanes, recovered German Lugar guns, uniforms of all kinds and letters home from young soldiers, the stories are vivid and poignant.

All of this started with Joye Kading, who was the secretary to the commandant of the air base and the driving force behind preserving the air base. She still volunteers at the museum on weekends. Hours are 1-5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, and tours at other times can be arranged with Goss.

Standing outside on a runway that launched so many pilots and crew who went on to make such a difference in the world’s history, you easily can imagine that you hear the voices of the 35,000 who came through or the roar of the plane engines.

As Goss said, “We have beautiful stories.”

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