WALNUT RIDGE, AR (KAIT) - World War 2 had a huge impact on Walnut Ridge and the surrounding area. The airbase built on 3 thousand acres just to the Northeast of the town brought people and prosperity to the area. Those that served and worked on the base are really famous in the small town.
With the nation still mired in the last part of the depression, nearly a quarter of the of the population in the area around Walnut Ridge was out of work. The construction of the base alone brought 1500 good jobs to the area.
Douglas Fender was a youngster when the base was built. He still remembers the airplanes flying over his family farm and he knew economically how important the base was.
"I know a lot of people that worked out here and of course all the soldiers and cadets that came in. Fender said. They brought money into the community."
Fender said that like the area that surrounds any military post, the night spots made money from base personnel. "They ate at restaurants and night clubs and what have you that were quite prevalent back then and were flourishing because of the army base." Fender said. When he was older Fender worked on the base at the water facility.
Regina Bachmann met her future husband while working on the base. Bachmann had just graduated high school and had taken a civil service test just before the base opened.
"I worked as a clerk-typist making a big salary at that time of a hundred eighteen dollars a month." Bachmann said. "That was nice right after the depression." Bachmann showed me a picture of the base chapel where her and her husband were married. That same building still exists at Williams Baptist College along with the base commanders residence.
Over 5 thousand cadets trained on the Vultee BT-13 trainer before moving on to fighters or transports or bombers.
We met 95-year-old Buell Crider at the Walnut Ridge Flying School Museum. Crider trained at Walnut Ridge before going on to fly B-24 bombers in Italy. "It was rough," Crider said. "They did have trouble and a few deaths due to the BT-13 cause it was not a forgiving airplane."
While at the museum we helped Crider climb in and sit in a roller mounted BT-13 cockpit. He told me about all the instruments and levers in the cockpit and said he had actually bought one of the trainers as surplus and flown it for several years as his private plane.
Crider gave full credit to the training he received at the base for saving he and his crews lives in Europe when they were attacked by German fighters. "I was squeezed in between two of them and they were on fire." he recounted. "But I was able to pull out and make it back to base without running into either one."
There are many pictures of trainers that crashed in the area around the base. Just outside the door of the Museum a memorial lists the names of instructors and students who lost their lives during training.
There are only a couple of buildings left from World War 2 including an old hangar which is now being considered for nomination as a historic building. From a major hub of aircraft repair during the war, it's silence service now includes being used to store airport maintenance equipment.
Looking at a mock-up of the base on a table in a museum, Crider pointed at the runways. "You would have one taking off. One on the runway and another one approaching and entering the runway. It was always busy."
Mary Grow currently lives in Florida. She stopped by the museum for a visit. Grow has deep personal ties to the base. She was a civilian who met her husband while working as a telephone operator at the base. Grow said he used to call her at the switchboard when she worked at nights. They married and had a daughter who was born at the base hospital.
Grow grew up in the local area said the base had a huge impact on the community. "Just finding a place to sleep, was a problem." she said. "When all that moved in here, you know everybody with a spare bedroom I think rented their bedroom out just to people who had to have a place to live. It was just a little town, just a very small town."
In the last year of the war German prisoners were held at the base which the Army turned over to the Marines in 1944. For a brief time the base held a radar site and was used to store and salvage aircraft until it was officially turned over to the city in 1947.
The runways and ramp still remain and are used by aircraft from all over. But if you listen real close, you can still hear the round engine rumble flown by those students of the past made this base, famous in a small town.
Copyright 2012 KAIT All rights reserved.
Allcontent ©Copyright 2000 - 2013 WorldNow and KAIT, aRaycom Media Station.
