Pyote Air Force Station
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Pyote Air Force Base was a World War II United States Army Air Forces training airbase. It was on a mile from the town of
Pyote, Texas Pyote ( ) is a town in Ward County, Texas, United States. Its population was 114 at the 2010 census. History Pyote began as a small town. Its fortunes rose with oil, but its population decreased when the railroad was built away from the town. At ...
, on
Interstate 20 Interstate 20 (I‑20) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the Southern United States. I-20 runs beginning at an interchange with Interstate 10, I-10 in Scroggins Draw, Texas, and ending at an interchange with Interstate 95, I-95 in Flo ...
, 20 miles west of Monahans and just south of U.S. Highway 80, east of El Paso. It was nicknamed "Rattlesnake Bomber Base" for the numerous
rattlesnake Rattlesnakes are venomous snakes that form the genera ''Crotalus'' and ''Sistrurus'' of the subfamily Crotalinae (the pit vipers). All rattlesnakes are vipers. Rattlesnakes are predators that live in a wide array of habitats, hunting small anim ...
dens that were uncovered during its construction. At the height of its use in 1944, the base had over 6,000 officers and enlisted men, either permanently assigned or temporarily attached. In addition, hundreds of civilians came from all over the United States to work on the base. After World War II, thousands of reserve aircraft were stored there, one of which was the
B-29 The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fly ...
''
Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it be ...
''. Today, most of the base is gone. Other than the concrete runways, taxiways, and ramp, virtually nothing remains that would tell the casual observer that this was once a major training center responsible for turning out highly trained flying crews. In later years, the
West Texas State School The West Texas State School (WTSS, originally the West Texas Children's Home of Pyote) was a juvenile detention facility operated by the Texas Youth Commission that closed on August 31, 2010.B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
crew-training base during World War II. Initially, newly established bomber groups were trained at Pyote, then it was switched to training replacement aircrew members who were deployed to combat units overseas. Initially, Pyote Army Airbase was assigned to Second Air Force, then in April 1944, to USAAF Continental Air Forces training command. Two main runways, each about 8,000 ft long and 150 ft wide, and a taxiway formed a triangle pattern on the flat, arid land. Construction of the facilities, including five large hangars, shops, warehouses, and living quarters, began on 5 September 1942.


World War II use

The first troops were assigned within a month, well before the base was completed. Troops and civilian technicians poured in, and the population of the base grew steadily to a peak of over 6,500 in October 1944. Within four months of its opening, the base had become the largest bomber installation in the country. Despite morale problems caused by isolation and the shortage of off-base recreation and of dependents' housing, Pyote achieved a distinguished record in molding inexperienced individuals into effective bomber crews. After the arrival of the famed
19th Bombardment Group 19 (nineteen) is the natural number following 18 and preceding 20. It is a prime number. Mathematics 19 is the eighth prime number, and forms a sexy prime with 13, a twin prime with 17, and a cousin prime with 23. It is the third full re ...
' on January 1, 1943, and the ceremonial inauguration of its training program on January 5, 1943, Pyote rapidly turned out crews proficient in hitting targets from the B-17 Flying Fortress until the summer of 1944, when it was switched to the B-29 Superfortress. The 19th BG was the first air force unit to bomb Japanese targets. It flew to Pyote directly from combat in the Pacific. The base was redesignated the 19th Combat Crew Training School' late in 1943, and then replaced on March 30, 1944, by the 236th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Combat Crew Training School). Known B-17 units trained at Pyote AAB were: * 381st Bombardment Group (Heavy) 3 January - 5 April 1943 * 96th Bombardment Group (Heavy) January - March 1943 In June 1945, the base claimed records for the most B-29 training hours flown by any base in a single month (7,396), in a week (1,873), and in a day (321). Known B-29 groups which trained at Pyote AAB were: * 301st Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) * 454th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) With the end of the war in the Pacific in August 1945, both of these groups were inactivated.


Postwar use


Aircraft storage depot

Control of Pyote was transferred from the Fourth Air Force to the
Air Technical Service Command The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...
/ San Antonio Air Technical Service Command on November 15, 1945, at the end of the war. The base became an aircraft storage depot. During the postwar years, the temporary tar-paper and wooden buildings were largely sold off, with the personnel using more substantial concrete structures for their duties along with the hangars and support buildings by the flightline ramp. At its peak in 1948, Pyote Air Force Base' was maintained by the 4141st Army Air Forces (later Air Force) Base Unit, and housed 2,042 stored planes, mostly B-29s and B-17s, but including B-25s, A-26s, C-47s, P-63s, P-51s, AT-7s, L-5s, and L-4s. Aircraft storage and the
cocooning Cocooning is staying inside one's home, insulated from perceived danger, instead of going out.ctionary. The term was coined in 1981 by Faith Popcorn, a trend forecaster and marketing consultant. It is used in social science, marketing, parenting ...
of some of these planes was the last major activity at Pyote Airfield, which was the responsibility of the 2753d Aircraft Storage Squadron. Storage included not only preserving planes for future use, but also transferring some of the stored planes to other Air Force units for their use. Corrosion control crews removed, cleaned, and treated the turrets in all of the B-29s. The aircraft were "cocooned" to seal out the elements from the interior, and the aircraft were kept in flyable reserve storage. Best known of all the aircraft stored at Pyote was the B-29 ''Enola Gay'', from which the first atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...
. Arriving at Pyote on 12 January 1952, the ownership of the aircraft was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution. The ''Enola Gay'' was taken out of storage and flown to
Andrews Air Force Base Andrews Air Force Base (Andrews AFB, AAFB) is the airfield portion of Joint Base Andrews, which is under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force. In 2009, Andrews Air Force Base merged with Naval Air Facility Washington to form Joint B ...
, Maryland, on December 2, 1953, for preservation at the
National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...
. It was the last time she flew. Two other notable aircraft put in storage at Pyote were the B-17D "Swoose" (arrived 18 January 1952 - Departed December 1953), which was the only B-17 to survive the bombing of Clark Air Base on 8 December 1941 and manage to escape from the Philippines, and the
XB-42 Mixmaster The Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster was an experimental bomber aircraft, designed for a high top speed. The unconventional approach was to mount the two engines within the fuselage driving a pair of contra-rotating propellers mounted at the tail in a pu ...
, a one-of-a-kind aircraft.USAFHRA Document 00489778
/ref> Beginning in 1950, the demands for B-29s to be used in the Korean War meant that nearly 100 of the aircraft stored at Pyote were refurbished and sent to active-duty units on Okinawa for use in combat, while some stored B-29s were authorized to be used for cannibalization to furnish spare parts to operational aircraft. Many of the B-29s stored at Pyote were flown by the men of the 19th Bomb Group. This is the same group that was the first to serve at Pyote in 1943. Air battles between the B-29s and Soviet MiG-15s, in the skies of North Korea made it clear that the age of the jet had arrived, which made most of the propeller-driven combat aircraft stored at Pyote obsolete. After the 1953 Armistice in Korea, the Air Force ordered most of the remaining planes at Pyote to be scrapped, and activity on the base was sharply curtailed. Its mission became the reclamation and salvage of the stored aircraft. The B-29s stored at the base were very important, as the reclamation process consisted of removing all serviceable and reparable items to support the operational B-29s still in service. A smelter was installed on the base and as the aircraft were disassembled and parts removed, the remnants were recycled with the metal sold for scrap. The last base commander, Lt. Col. Max A. Piper, was notified that the base was scheduled for deactivation on 31 December 1953, and the base went on standby status, leaving only a 27-man caretaker crew to maintain the facility. The last plane left Pyote AFB sometime in 1955, along with the standby crew. At that time, most of the permanent buildings and hangars remained, although abandoned.


Air Defense Radar Station

In April 1958, the base was reopened as Pyote Air Force Station (TM-186), a radar installation acting as one link in a chain of installations that were part of an early-warning network in case of Soviet air attack during the Cold War. The 697th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, an
Air Defense Command Aerospace Defense Command was a major command (military formation), command of the United States Air Force, responsible for continental air defense. It was activated in 1968 and disbanded in 1980. Its predecessor, Air Defense Command, was est ...
34th Air Division The 34th Air Division (34th AD) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with Air Defense Command at Custer Air Force Station, Michigan. It was inactivated on 31 December 1969. History Assigned to Air Def ...
unit, operated a radar site about southwest of the main containment area . The 697th ACWS operated a Bendix AN/FPS-3 search radar with a range around 200 miles; it also operated a General Electric AN/FPS-6 height-finder radar with a range around 300 miles. The station functioned as a ground-control intercept (GCI) and warning station. As a GCI station, the squadron's role was to guide interceptor aircraft toward unidentified intruders picked up on the unit's radar scopes. In addition to the radar station, the Air Force built base housing and several support buildings. The NW/SE runway was also activated and used to fly crews in and out of the base and for logistical support. In March 1963, the Air Force ordered the site to close. Operations at Pyote ceased on 1 August 1963. With the ADC facility closed, Pyote AFB was declared surplus, and turned over to the General Services Administration (GSA) for disposal.


Current status

Following the deactivation of the site in 1963, the facilities were disposed of by the GSA. The Air Defense Command support buildings along with the base family housing were provided to the West Texas Children's Home, and the land and remaining buildings were turned over to the University of Texas at Austin. The
Confederate Air Force The Commemorative Air Force (CAF), formerly known as the Confederate Air Force, is an American non-profit organization based in Dallas, Texas, that preserves and shows historical aircraft at airshows, primarily in the U.S. and Canada. The CAF h ...
used the runway and some of the remaining buildings on the flightline in the early 1960s, but the remoteness of the base led to it being closed by 1965 as uneconomical. The last of the original World War II support buildings on the base were gone by 1977. Six huge hangars once fronted the concrete ramp. Five are visible in an aerial photo dated 1977. At some point after 1980, four of the hangars were apparently removed or destroyed. At least one of them was evidently intentionally destroyed in 1979 in the course of filming the movie '' Hangar 18'' (1980). By 1985, a single large hangar (the former 3d Echelon Maintenance Hangar) remained and slowly deteriorating runways and taxiways were all that marked the once-busy bomber base. At some point between 1989 and '96, the roof and most of the walls of the former 3d Echelon Maintenance Hangar were removed, leaving only a hollow grid of the side walls of the hangar standing. The west side of the former AAF/AFB, where the actual airfield was, is deserted. Runways and taxiways, hardstands, and the flightline apron exist with tall weeds and other sparse vegetation slowly taking over the concrete areas. The Air Defense Command radar site southeast of the base is abandoned and full of junk vehicles; the buildings on it are still standing in a deteriorated state. The property was being used by the Texas Youth Commission's
West Texas State School The West Texas State School (WTSS, originally the West Texas Children's Home of Pyote) was a juvenile detention facility operated by the Texas Youth Commission that closed on August 31, 2010.TYC Facility in Pyote Officially Closes Their Doors
." Newswest 9. Retrieved on June 3, 2010.
The original entrance has been refurbished, and today stands as a memorial to the men and women who worked and trained here, many of whom gave their lives while learning to effectively use the B-17 and B-29. In the town of Pyote, about 15 miles west of Monahans, a museum honors the memory of the men and women who served there. Pyote Army Airfield played an important role in the local community during World War II. Base personnel had a long-lasting social relationship with the local citizens, and the base itself created jobs and great economic prosperity for the community. Pyote was quite literally transformed by the base. When the base finally closed for good in the early 1960s, it left a lasting impression on the local community.


See also

*
Texas World War II Army Airfields During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces established numerous airfields in Texas for training pilots and aircrews. The amount of available land and the temperate climate made Texas a prime location for year-round military training. By ...
* List of USAF Aerospace Defense Command General Surveillance Radar Stations


References

* Baugher, Joe
USAAS-USAAC-USAAF-USAF Aircraft Serial Numbers--1908 to Present
* Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. . * Thole, Lou (1999), Forgotten Fields of America : World War II Bases and Training, Then and Now - Vol. 2. Publisher:


External links

*
The 381st Bomb Group Website




* ttp://www.airfields-freeman.com/TX/Airfields_TX_W.htm#pyote Pyote Army Airfield / Pyote AFB / Pyote Airfield, Pyote, TXbr>2007 Pyote AFB Photos
{{authority control Installations of the United States Air Force in Texas 1943 establishments in Texas Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Texas University of Texas at Austin Buildings and structures in Ward County, Texas Aerospace Defense Command military installations Post-World War II aircraft storage facilities 1955 disestablishments in Texas 1958 establishments in Texas 1963 disestablishments in Texas Military installations closed in 1963 World War II airfields in the United States