More military personnel were assigned to the field as warehouses were completed for the Supply Depot. Motor Pool was set up. M.P.'s were on duty. Base officers were looking for a tinsoral geneses. Every army camp is familiar with the GI haircut, clipping all around and on top too.
The city gave permission to use the Club Rooms at the Municipal Building to the USO. One serviceman stated that the USO here was the best he had been to except for one in San Francisco. Kurt Motor Co. (Ford dealer) established a bus route between Pratt and the Air Base. This was a big help for civilians working at the Base and for the military living in town.
A Base Post Office was set up, a branch of the Pratt Office. They were looking for some one to serve as Postmaster. The telephone exchange was doing great. There were two operators on each shift. the Pratt Tailwind, Base newspaper, was edited and was controlled by soldiers of the Base.
As each day passed with more soldiers arriving, the installation took on a more military atmosphere. Many civilians were finding their positions in many areas throughout the base, with the majority in the large maintenance hangar on the south end of the apron and its adjoining machine shop.
In the summer of 1943, the first B-29 made its appearance in the large maintenance hangar. It was No.2 off the assembly line at the Boeing Wichita plant and was designated as the YB29.
About the same time the 40th Bomb Group of the 6th Air Force, which had been stationed at Rio Hato Air Base in Panama was assigned to the Pratt Army Air Field. They were flying the Martin Marauder B26. These B26's were the first military planes on the Base. A few B17's came a little later as multi-engine training.
The YB29, an unproven plane with hundreds of modifications still to be made in its design, was in the huge maintenance hangar. It was top secret. Both military and civilians had a special pass to even get into the hangar and you didn't get too close to the plane unless you had a special reason to be there.
The B29 was designated as very heavy (VH). Many incoming future crew members were awed by its huge size. B-29 Superfortress dwarfs the B17.
During the first few weeks, the YB29 was surrounded by crews and engineers from Boeing, both Wichita and Seattle. Working around the clock to correct electrical and mechanical difficulties, which had rendered the giant plane almost unflyable.
After going over the plane with a fine comb type of inspection, the plane would be pulled out on the apron, made ready for a flight of perhaps less than an hour. Back in the hangar for more inspections and modifications. At times it would be two or three days before another flight would be made for only an hour or two.
Planes were slow coming off the production line. As soon as one was delivered to Pratt, it was swarmed over by flight engineers, crew chiefs and civilian technicians.

The modifications and adjustments seemed endless as a result the B-29's seldom flew the first few weeks. One crew member stated that during the month of January, he logged 79 hours of flight of which only 6 ½ hours were in the B-29.
The nucleus of the flight personnel was seasoned combat veterans with a sprinkling of younger trainees from various training commands. As planes were being checked and pilots learned to fly them, crews were being formed of engineers, navigators, bombardiers, gunners and radar operators. Putting all these people together to form a crew were miracles of planning and execution.
Many of these men attended Pre-Flight school and then followed by a Bombardier school. Bomber Command decided that each plane should carry two navigators. Should one be killed or injured over the target the other one could take over and navigate the plane safely home. Those with dual ratings would fly some missions as a bombardier and some times as a navigator.
The crew was the basic unit of the Army Air Force. Each B-29 had a crew of eleven: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, two bombardiers, navigator, radio operator, radar operator, two side gunners, tail gunner and as center fire-control specialist.
Fifteen crews formed a squadron. In the early months of the B-29's mission against Japan, there were insufficient planes, so two crews were assigned to the same plane rotating with each other on missions.

Four squadrons formed a group. Each group was assigned to an individual air field. This was true in Kansas, India, and China.
Four groups formed a wing. The 58th Wing with its four groups (40th included) operating out of India and China was the first to take the B-29's into combat.
A bomber wing was a part of a bomber command. The 58th Wing was in the Twentieth (XX) Bomber Command.
A bomber command belonged to an air force. All the B-29 units in World War II were in the Twentieth Air Force.
By late October most of the crews were assigned to a plane, that had not been completely tested. They would fly and that was about all that was known about the planes. With hard work and long hours, they were ready for combat the next March.
It was not known at the time, but a lone B-29 took off from the Pratt Army Air Base in late March of 1944 bound for India. It was the first B-29 to leave the United States for the Pacific theater of WWII.
At the controls of this B-29 was Col. Jake Harmon, a Boeing engineer and one of the men who knew the B-29 from the drawing board to its flight to India and later over Tokyo. During the following two weeks a secret fleet of B-29's from Pratt, Salina, Great Bend and Walker Air Base, all a Kansas home for the Wichita built B-29's, followed Col. Harmon.
As the 40th Group took off on that early April morning, they made one circle over Pratt and headed toward Presque Isle, Maine. This was a refueling stop enroute to Gander Lake, Newfoundland. The designation beyond Gander Lake was unknown to the group.
The ground group personnel had a hard time getting to Bombay, India. From Kansas, they journeyed to India across the Atlantic. Their convoy was misdirected. They arrived at the Bay of Naples where they were dive bombed by the Germans. Without leaving the ship they joined another convoy and returned to North Africa. The arrived at Bombay and took a train to Chakulia. Their forward base in China was Able I, near Cheng-tu.
Young birds need a nest to come home to. Here are a few words about how that nest was made for the Superfortress in China under adverse conditions.
When the Army Engineers started construction of B-29 bases in China, they were told that they would have a vast supply of manpower, but little or no equipment.
There were only 40,000 men and women and children, who carved the earth with their hands and primitive tools.
They had to forget power shovels, tractors, bulldozers, ditching machines and other heavy equipment.
Ninety days after the first rice paddy was broken down on a stretch of Chinese farm land, thousands of laborers stood by to let a Superfortress land.
On one base five engineers supervised and inspected the work of 70,000 laborers. The only machine they had was a tired and over worked jeep. Before it was over there was a vast network of B-29 bases constructed in south China. Often a 'human chain' drew materials as far as eight miles.
The runways, taxi-strips and hard stands were paved about 18” deep. Gangs of coolies packed each course with eight ton rollers. As many as 200 men and boys pulling the roller by harnesses attached to their shoulders.
These bases very much like the one at Pratt, built with only human labor should stand as a monument to this labor likened to the effort of the raising of Egypt's pyramids and China's Great Wall.
Have you visited your museum lately?
Transcribed by Madeline Martin on 11/13/2007.