May 2021 Road Trip to Kansas Part Two of Five Series

The B-29 Memorial Plaza, Great Bend, Kansas

While we were staying in Great Bend, we visited the B-29 Memorial Plaza located at the Great Bend municipal airport. Located at the airport entrance, the Plaza is dedicated to everyone involved in building, flying and providing support for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress.

In July 1943, a Kansas wheat field was being converted into the Great Bend Army Air Field - runways, hangars, barracks, and other facilities were being built. To fly the B-29s, 11-men crews were trained for each plane.

Other nearby B-29 airfields were Smoky Hill, Pratt, and Walker. Great Bend was chosen for the memorial site due to the number of original base structures that still exist and Great Bend agreed to donate the land for the memorial.

Great Bend Army Air Field is significantly historic as it was in the first group United States Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress bases for training in the summer of 1943. The pictures at the Plaza depicted the great amount of construction that happened to convert Kansas farmland to a B-29 Superfortress airfield. Along with Walker Army Air Field near Victoria, Pratt Army Air Field near Pratt and Smoky Hill Army Air Field near Salina, the initial 58th Bombardment Wing was formed.

The memorial honors bomber crews not only in Great Bend but also the nearby airfields on bronze plaques and bricks. It was an interesting discovery about American military history and the use of Kansas farmland. One of the runways is used as a dragstrip in today's world while the other two runways are still used for municipal air travel.

Walker Airfield acknowledge with plaque.