In the spring of 1941 I was working at Lemon's JJ ranch as a carpenter and was contacted by a civil engineer of the Rock Island Railroad to join a surveying party as a roadman. The job was accepted.
The first job was to survey a rail spur from Pratt to the newly acquired city airport. A British Operational Training Unit was going to train at Pratt with two or three satellite fields. A week later the British project was cancelled.
Our survey party went to Liberal to make a survey for a spur to a proposed air field. From Liberal to Dalhart to survey a spur to a proposed glider field. Our next job was to survey some spirals on some curves on the track between Hutchinson and Herrington.
To spiral a curve in the track would increase the top speed 10 miles an hour.
On a curve between Hutchinson and Medora, the party came in contact with some poison oak. Our crew chief went to the hospital in serious condition. That broke up the survey party. I transferred to the Bridge and Building Department of the railroad. I worked a couple of weeks and decided that it was not for me.
In the meantime orders were issued for an airfield at Pratt. The Army Engineers moved to town. Their temporary office was at 410-442 S. Main. A notice was placed in the “Tribune” calling for several different job descriptions. One was for a draftsman. I applied and was hired. The office had no drafting equipment for a week or two.
One of the first assignments was to build a glass covered form 30 inches by 36 inches. This was used to expose Tracings on a sensitive paper by sunlight. They were then developed by placing the exposed paper in a large tube containing ammonia fumes. It was all guess work. You never know the intensity of the sun's rays and how long the exposure should be. After a lot of time and experimenting I was able to get a few prints.
Later we found that the county has an old carbon-arc that we could borrow. It was crude and slow, but we were able to control the exposure better. More equipment arrived and we set up shop. More draftsmen were hired and the place became a bee-hive.
The first building to be erected was for the engineers. As soon as it was completed, they moved in the building from the down town site. All Base operations worked out off the Engineers building until Headquarters had a building to their own. Even the telephone switch board was in the building.
We later received a government issued blue print machine, which would print and develop in one operation. Our building was not the best for a drafting office. The building was heated with coal fired stoves, when ever a stove was opened to be refueled a cloud of smoke and soot would settle down on everything in the room. It was hard to keep the drawings clean.
After construction was going full swing, it was announced that the air field would be tripled in size. A contract was issued to the Wyatt C. Hedrick Architectural Engineering Firm, Dallas, Texas to make plans and supervise the construction of the expansion.
The Corps of Engineers wanted me to move to Kansas City with a base pay of $1,200 a year, which was considered a fair wage at that time. I refused to move, so they gave me a release to the Architect Engineers. If you didn't have a release and just quit your job, your chances of a new job was not very good as the new employer could be subject to a fine.
I was accepted by Wyatt Hedrick. Mr. Hedrick was a very pleasant man to work for and with. At the start we did a lot of revising of the building plans. The Army had a general plan for each type of building, but they had to be modified and revised to present needs.
As the revision of the building plans were completed, I was assigned to another project. Probably the longest and most varied was the Highway 281 by-pass around the east side of the Base. My first duty was to tally loads of material. Later on I was in the materials lab testing the different materials and taking soil compaction tests.
The next assignment was the seeding of the bare land on the Base. The wind came up a few days after the seeding was completed and it was a duster. The Post Engineer called and wanted to do something to stop the blowing soil. I told him that there were two alternatives we could pursue, pray for the wind to stop blowing or we could go out and strip the ground every so often. The striping would require re-seeding of the blowing areas. We waited until the next morning and the wind had stopped blowing.
As the completion of the construction drew to an end, I was again looking for a job. The Army Air Corps was moving in. the first planes were a squadron of B-26's. Theoretically they were not supposed to fly. They were transferred up from Panama. On the base they were called the “Flying Coffin.” Several B-26's crashed in the immediate area.
I applied to the Army Air Corps for a job as a draftsman. They had as opening, but it would be on the third shift. Should report for work on the first shift until the department personnel was completed. As it turned out I was the only one hired. The Drafting Department was in existence only on paper, for a week or two. Finally space for the office was allocated. After a few days I was asked to secure from Supply the necessary equipment and furniture for the department. I wondered each morning when I came to work who might be there to head the Department. After a while I came to believe that maybe that would be my job.
Security was very tight. Everyone had a pass to get on the Base. Then a second pass to get into the big maintenance hangar, which could hangar two B-29's. The first morning it was a great surprise to walk into the hangar and see on of the B-29's, which few people had ever seen to even knew about. One with great awe wondered if a machine that large could fly. The first and only B-29 on the Base for some time was labeled YB-29 (Y indicating that it was an experimental plane). It was the second plane off the Boeing assembly line in Wichita.
During the early weeks that I was with the Air Corps, the FBI was checking on me. I didn't know about this until after the was was over. The Drafting Department was the keeper of the blueprints for parts and assemblies of the B-29.
Our office, during its tenure was located in three different areas. The first one in the center of the west wing of the big hangar. Much to our surprise one morning we walked in our office and the wing tip of a B-29, which had crashed on the apron during the night, was extended through the window about three feet. Part of the plane had burned and part of the crew with it. The odor of burned flesh was very evident until the wreckage was removed.
The second location of the office was in the machine shop which was directly east of the big hangar. This didn't prove to be satisfactory—too much noise and dust caused several problems. It was handy for the shop but too far from the flight line.
The third location was in an area that was built on the west side of the hangar as a second story. Our access to the office was by an outside stairway. A Major was assigned over maintenance. He was responsible for the second story offices. There were three office spaces. He had the north one for his office. The middle one was for his clerks and staff. The south office was for the Drafting Department. He was the only one I had to answer to. He was a civilian who was drafted into the Service. He held several patents which the Air Corps were using in the war effort.
There were no tools or stands to work on the planes with. Generally they were made in the machine shop first and, then drawings were made after some of the bugs were worked out. Copies of the drawings were taken with the units when they went overseas. They would make the tools and equipment in their overseas shop.
To expedite the designing and making of the tools and equipment stands used to work on the planes on the flight line, the shop foreman and I were flown to the Wichita Boeing flight line to get ideas of what they were using for tools and maintenance stands.
The trip in a way was very eventful. Our pilot had just returned from the European theater, having piloted the private B17 for General Eisenhower. He told of one incident, that he was flying the General and they were to land on Gibraltar which was completely fogged in. He asked the General if he wanted to try to land or go for another field. General Eisenhower replied, “You are in command and it's your decision.”
He would not take us up until he tried flying the twin-engine Cessna. He took off, circled the field and made a perfect landing. We boarded the plane and off to Wichita. You guessed it, landing he bounced all over the runway. After several hours on the flight line, we headed back to Pratt. He made the same rough landing he felt very bad about his landings. We assured him that there was a little difference between a B17 and a twin-engine Cessna.
During the height of activity, four people were working with me. Dorotha Gray Giannangelo, file clerk; Doris Flanders, draftsman; both Dorotha and Doris were local girls. One GI who had worked at Boeing in Seattle; one WAC, who was a Jewess, from Brooklyn, draftsman.
I might explain the filing in a Drafting Department. We had 20 four drawer filing cabinets full of drawings of parts and assemblies of sections of the B-29. In other words, they were the parts catalog for the B-29's.
I had other duties than drafting. I taught several classes on blue print reading to both enlisted men as well as civilians. There were TO's (Technical Orders), some of which I taught and explained to the maintenance people. I was chairman for the Bond Drives among the civilians in maintenance.

Our biggest work load was in the few weeks prior to the first group leaving (40th Bomb Group) for overseas. Each squadron was wanting prints for tools and equipment, even some of their own ideas to be drawn for prints, to take with them so they could build them at their overseas bases.
We worked 16 to 18 hours a day seven days a week, trying to get all the drawings they might need. We didn't know their date of departure. They left on Easter morning. The next day was deathly quiet, all had a prayer for a happy landing at their new base.
I did one thing that was illegal. I had a renter who was district manager for a major oil company. He seemed to have more gasoline ration stamps than he knew what to do with. In each rent check there would be ration stamps. I didn't need them as I was using all that was alloted to me. I'd find out that many GI s were unable to go home on leave. For many of them it was their last before going overseas. I would give them some stamps on one condition, that if they had any left on their return, they give them back to me so someone else could go home. Each one returned his unused stamps.
When the war was over, the closing of the base was a sad time, as many of your co-workers were going back to their homes in other states. We checked all of our equipment back to supply and that ended our stay at the Pratt Army Air Base.
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Transcribed by Madeline Martin 11/11/2007