Aircraft Storage: Kingman Airport’s Legacy

Following the airport signs posted along the historic path of Route 66 added some welcome surprises on the journey from Chicago to Santa Monica, but several airports were predetermined destinations. One of them was Arizona’s Kingman Airport (IGM). Built on 4,145 acres of Mohave County in 1942 as Kingman Army Airfield, it started service as an aerial gunnery school. I first read about when I was a brand new teenager, in Hollywood Pilot, Don Dwiggins biography of Paul Mantz. It is where Mantz bought the half dozen B-17s he needed for his work on Twelve O’Clock High, released in 1949.

Aircraft storage areas have long fascinated me because of the silent, unspoken history presented by the aircraft that populate. This fascination probably grew out of that scene in The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946’s Best Picture winner about the post-war lives of four World War II servicemen. In my mind’s eye I can still replay the scene where Dana Andrews, a bombardier, relives the horror of combat while wandering through a seemingly endless field of B-17s. That scene was filmed at Ontario, California, one of six post-war storage and sales and scrapping sites established by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to dispose of nearly 120,000 aircraft the government no long needed. Seventy years have passed since these centers opened, and I didn’t expect to find any of their winged charges hiding in some forgotten corner, but I was curious to see if some trace of that legacy remained.

Following the signs to Kingman Airport, the pavement gave way to gravel. Affixed to the expected chain link fence was a sign for Kingman Airline Services. On the other side was a hangar, clearly built during World War II, still in use by the FAA repair station. And parked on the ramp were dozens of airliners wearing the graphic livery of several airlines. Like the military aircraft that preceded them, their ultimate fate was unclear once they had been stripped of the useable spare parts that would keep their active make-and-model siblings airborne for a few more years.

Research refreshed my memory of why the high desert was ideal for aircraft storage: little precipitation, dry air, and a soil ph that slowed the process of aging and corrosion on metal and rubber. But aside from the old hangar still in use, there were no other signs that told of the airport’s contribution to aviation. The Kingman Airport website said that the Kingman Army Airfield Historical Society was established to preserve the field’s history with artifacts, photos, and displays, but there was no mention of where they were, if any, and during my ride-around no signs pointed to any such location.

Now, like the veterans who gave them life, the aircraft that fought World War II are now few in number. But they are respected and admired by anyone with even the slightest knowledge of their contribution. But what about the airfields that were their wartime homes? During World War II the United States built hundreds, if not a thousand or more airports to support the war effort. It would be a safe assumption that most of them are still active aerodromes, but few know of their prior service, and that is a shame. Without them, the contributions of the veterans and the aircraft they flew that we now lionize would not have been possible. It seems unfair that these facilities, which continue as priceless components of the national airspace system, are not recognized for their decades of service to past, present, and future of aviation. — Scott Spangler, Editor