The Battle of Kansas Part 1
40th Bomb Group Association Memories Issue No. 11
September 1986 EDITORS' INTRODUCTION: In late February and March, 1944, the 40th Bomb Group, stationed at Pratt, Kansas, began receiving B-29's to take overseas, but they needed engine changes and some 50 modifications, major and minor, before they would be ready for combat. High command in Washington was pressing to get the B-29's overseas as soon as possible. With the 40th Group ground crews already shipped overseas, Pratt became the scene of several weeks of feverish work, day and night, by the crew chiefs, flight crews, and specially recruited civilians to get the planes ready. These weeks of chaos, confusion and hard work in the bitter Kansas winter have come to be called "The Battle of Kansas." To describe that "battle," we have assembled recollections of some group personnel, excerpts from news and magazine accounts (released months later when the B-29 was actually in combat), and excerpts from records and diaries. This issue contains part of these; more will appear in the January 1987, issue.
Source is 40th Bomb Group Association
Please select a story to read in its entirety:
Capt. F.G. Wood Jr. - July 1944
During the period of intense and almost frantic effort to get the new B-29's in shape for combat overseas (which started in the latter part of February and continued through March) the 40th Group was charged with the accomplishment of seven changes and modifications. The remainder of the 40 to 50 modifications were to be done by crews from four modification centers.
Boeing Magazine - June 1945
On airfields near Wichita were scattered the first two hundred B-29s that had been built. They were ticketed for the CBI Theater, but first they needed overhaul and modification for combat. Army mechanics were working desperately on this job, though they had been trained only to go with the ship into combat and there keep it in condition.
General Electric Bulletin - Summer 1945
There are many "stories behind the story" of the production record of launching the B-29 in half the usual time required for a heavy bomber. Perhaps one of the most dramatic was the "Battle of Kansas." For it was at a blizzard-swept Kansas airfield that thousands of technicians sent from war plants all over the country pitched in to help the army perform a miracle. In three weeks' time they did several months' normal work, installing and testing the latest equipment on a good share of the first super-bombers earmarked for action.
M.E. "Red" Carmichael
Much has been said, and I'm sure much will be written about the Battle of Kansas. To me as one of the original crew chiefs on the B-29 at Pratt, it didn't seem to be that great a hardship. We crew chiefs were used to the many hours in the cold, trying to get the "Big Bird" ready for flight. It was quite a change for the flight crews, who, up until that time, had only to climb into the A/P when we finally decided it was ready for flight. The following episodes are not intended to throw aspersions at the flight crews who had taken over the chore of trying to get the "Big Birds" ready for flight. They did remarkably well under the conditions they had to work in.
Victor Agather - Feb. 1944
The origin of the problem and the sequence of events which resulted in the Battle of Kansas are manifold but can be summarized. The loss of the prototype B-29 in February 1943 redoubled the necessity of freezing production design on both airframe and engines with the knowledge that modifications would have to be made after production of each B-29 was completed.