Surviving Artifacts

from

Kingman Army Air Field:

& Sales-Storage Depot No.41

Planes:

-THE SUPPLY HANGAR-

(currently under construction)

How & why

does a guy originally from

end up out west & spend 30 years of his life chasing after thousands of 'mythical'

USAAF planes?

Some of the answers are as follows...

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN...

Taken from the air nearly above the same spot as the the newspaper image on the DEPOT 41 Home Page, this picture post card would prove to have a most profound effect on

3+ decades of my life...

In the early 70's, while working at a local hotel after graduating high school in Kingman, I came across this hauntingly-mysterious and very puzzling depiction of hundreds upon hundreds of old airplanes neatly lined up somewhere outside of town. With no airport in sight, the fact that they appeared to be resting quietly amongst the desert sagebrush awaiting some unknown fate seemed very strange indeed and the obvious questions raced through my mind: WHAT kind of planes were they? WHY were they there? WHEN were they put there?

And, WHERE are they now?

Little did I know at the time, but the southwestern tip of this airplane parking lot was once only a few thousand feet from the very spot where I had been staring at the postcard.

Ominously though, a seed had been planted...

The late 70's found me living in southern California and purely by happenstance, I stumbled upon a crew filming an episode of a popular television program involving WWII planes. As the engines of a B-17 Flying Fortress cranked to a grinding, noisey, smoke-belching start, the experience became absolutely captivating. Immediately, my mind's eye raced back to that bomber postcard and I thought innocently to myself, "There was a bunch of these planes somewhere at Kingman!"

To quote an oft-used cliche',

the rest IS HISTORY.

Let the journey of investigating, searching, researching, buying, trading, hauling, identifying,

storing, moving & "fun" begin..

At first, collecting for the pure and simple fascination of handling these things was my one and only goal. However, after becoming friends with many of the wonderful fellas who actually participated in WWII, some who instructed at Kingman, some who trained at Kingman and some who even once manned the planes that were once parked at Kingman, it became glaringly apparent that objects from Kingman's Air Field and those U.S. Army Air Force planes weren't mere surplus...

THEY WERE IMPORTANT PIECES OF AMERICAN HISTORY

One could go to any military surplus store and buy anonymous trinkets, but these weren't trinkets...

No, these were the remains of a huge Army Air Base base where hundreds of people trained thousands of gunners who were then sent off to war...

These were fragments of glorious airplanes built by thousands of proud, hard working Americans, financed by millions of sacrificing American citizens...

These were bits and pieces of magnificent Bombers that once flew over enemy territory, crewed by thousands of adventurous and brave young airmen... man & machine flying as one while rocked by exploding cannon shells fired from ground artillery and other planes trying desperately to destroy them both...

These were and are very valuable

Historic Treasures

Since opening this page, you've probably been wondering, "OK, but what's with the Stingray?". In the early 80's, both feet firmly planted into this obsession, the painful realization became obvious that, in order to afford this costly venture, the dream car from childhood, my precious Corvette would have to be sacrificed. Many might consider it a loss of sanity.. Consciously though, I weighed the pros & cons: There are LOTS of Corvettes, and if I ever make enough dough, I can always buy another one. Besides, the contents of

that old, rusted building weighed several times as much as the car...

Was it worth it?

Stay tuned... JCS

photo credits this page:

Depot 41 Photo Archive