| Marine Corps Air Facility Walnut Ridge Walnut Ridge Army Airfield |
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| Located near: Walnut Ridge, Arkansas | |
Oblique airphoto of Walnut Ridge Army Airfield, looking northeast, taken while under construction in 1942 |
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| Built | 1942 |
| Built by | United States Marine Corps United States Army Air Forces |
| In use | 1942-1945 |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Marine Corps Air Facility Walnut Ridge is a former United States Army and United States Marine Corps airfield located in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. After it was closed, it was redeveloped into Walnut Ridge Regional Airport.
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In early April 1942, a board of three army air forces officers went in search of a new location for an army air forces basic flying school. The site originally planned—in Dyersburg, Tennessee, but that site was deemed unacceptable because it would require moving five million cubic yards of dirt. The three men flew over an area just northeast of Walnut Ridge that looked promising. Returning by car the next day, they looked over the site and checked on public schools, housing, utilities, and transportation. On April 15, 1942, they recommended it for the flight school.
The U.S. government approved the recommendation, and paid $305,075 for 3,096 acres. The land housed private homes and the Moran School, a typical two-room rural public school. Forty-five families lived on the land and were forced to move out quickly; their homes were torn down. Landowners were paid an average of $110 an acre for their land, while the sharecroppers and tenant farmers who constituted most of those living on the land were reimbursed for a share of their crop.
Walnut Ridge AAF had three (3) 5,000-foot runways, a huge apron covering over 63 acres (250,000 m2), 4 large hangars, base engineering building, and fully equipped 203 bed hospital. It also included, 131,151 sq ft (12,184.3 m2). of office space, 119,613 sq ft (11,112.4 m2). of enclosed storage space, 49,324 sq ft (4,582.3 m2). shop space, a water plant and sewer plant designed to serve 5,000 troops, and a 10,000-man laundry, 2 theaters, a swimming pool, gymnasium, WAC housing, eight mess halls, dozens of enlisted-men's barracks, parachute loft, gas chamber, 260 tile-block apartments, motor pool, control tower, officers' club, link-trainer buildings, fire station, several warehouses, crash station, and 9.64 miles (15.51 km) of streets. Construction and land cost was almost ten and one-half million dollars.
To serve the new airfield, five auxiliary airfields were constructed, at Biggers (Randolph County), Pocahontas (Randolph County), Beech Grove (Greene County), Walcott (Greene County), and Bono (Craighead County), taking 2,624 acres of prime farmland. These other airfields were used for safety reasons. There were approximately 250 airplanes based on the field, and students did extensive take-off and landing practice; it would have been risky and impractical for that many airplanes to be in a traffic pattern at one time.
Construction of the airfield brought in 1,500 workers. Walnut Ridge and Pocahontas residents opened their homes to the workers. The mayors and the Boy Scouts worked to find housing for them. Churches and civic groups provided recreational facilities. Residents rented out rooms, garages, and attics to accommodate workers.
The airfield was activated on August 15, 1942, with the arrival of the initial contingent of key military personnel. Ten days later, 100 troops arrived, but housing was not yet available at the airfield, so they were transported to and from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp at Five Mile Spring north of Pocahontas for the first thirty days.
Even though the airfield was planned and designed as an army air forces basic flying school, for some time it appeared it would become an advanced glider school. As late as September 1942, preparations were being made for gliders.
Because of the delay in changing sites and the confusion over the glider program, the first three classes of aviation cadets set for Walnut Ridge went to the army airfield in Blytheville, which was being built as an advanced twin engine school. Blytheville was scarcely better prepared than Walnut Ridge. Circus tents were used for operations headquarters and classrooms. The runways were not ready, so flying was done from oil-coated dirt strips.
In late September, the Southeast Training Command, headquartered at Maxwell Field, Alabama, clarified the situation by announcing that twenty cadets from Camden and 102 cadets and three student officers from Decatur, Alabama, would be sent to Walnut Ridge for basic flight training, and the glider program was established at Stuttgart. The airfield was opened in October 1943 as Walnut Ridge Army Airfield and was used by the United States Army Air Forces as a training base during World War II. Walnut Ridge was commanded by the 324th Army Air Force Base Unit, being assiged to the AAF Southeast Training Center.
Training at Walnut Ridge AAF began on October 12, 1942, and students began training on the BT-13. During the eleven month period from November 1, 1942, thru September 30, 1943, the training hours flown at Walnut Ridge were 160,648. The average for all Basic Flying Schools in the Southeast Training Command was 129,474. Walnut Ridge had .49 accidents per 1000 hours versus .57 accidents per 1000 hours average for all schools; however, the fatal accident rate at Walnut Ridge was higher, .087 per 1000 hours versus a .052 average. The hours flown at Walnut Ridge through June 30, 1944, totaled 414,429.
Walnut Ridge was also a major maintenance facility, servicing C-47s, P-40s, P-51s, B-17s and B-29s. In less than two years, 5,310 students entered training, and 4,641 graduated. Forty-two students and instructors died in training. The last class graduated on June 27, 1944.
On September 1, 1944, Walnut Ridge AAF was transferred to the Department of the Navy and was known as the Marine Corps Air Facility Walnut Ridge. The Marine Corps trained for only a brief time, using SBD-5’s and FG-1D Corsair’s. VMF-513 transferred to MCAF Walnut Ridge on September 14, 1944, and then moved to MCAS Mojave, California, on December 4, 1944. MCAF Walnut Ridge was decommissioned March 15, 1945.
In 1945 the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) established five large storage, sales and scrapping centers for Army Air Forces aircraft. These were located at: Albuquerque, NM; Altus, OK; Kingman, AZ; Ontario, CA; and Walnut Ridge, AR. A sixth facility for storing, selling and scrapping Navy and Marine aircraft was located at Clinton, OK.
It is estimated that approximately 10,000 warbirds were flown to Walnut Ridge in 1945 and 1946 for storage and sale. Some sources report the number to be over 11,000. It is reported that at least 67 of the 118 B-32 Heavy Bombers built were flown to Walnut Ridge, many straight from the assembly line. Of the remaining B-32’s, at least 37, perhaps more, were flown to Kingman.
Four thousand, eight hundred and seventy-one (4,871) of the aircraft stored at Walnut Ridge, primarily fighters and bombers, were sold to Texas Railway Equipment Company in September 1946, to be scrapped. The bid price was $1,838,798.19. On the southwest corner of the ramp, two giant smelters were constructed to melt the scrap aluminum, which was formed into huge ingots for shipping.
The aircraft at Altus were put up for scrap bid in 1947, and sold on May 12, 1947, to Esperado Mining Company of Walnut Ridge. (Probably owned in whole or part by Texas Railway Equipment Company, the company that scrapped the warbirds at Walnut Ridge.)
By late 1947 scrapping had been completed at Clinton and the big five scrapping facilities, except Altus, which finished by mid 1948.
The tens of thousands of proud warbirds that had survived the enemy fighter planes and fierce anti-aircraft fire could not escape the smelters at Albuquerque, Altus, Kingman, Ontario, Walnut Ridge and Clinton.
At Walnut Ridge, the two smelters used to turn the proud Warbirds into aluminum ingots were torn down about 1951. In 1952 the City of Walnut Ridge used the firebricks from the smelters to construct an administration/terminal building on the site of the World War II Base Operations building.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.
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