Brian Norden Wrote:
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> Thunder Wrote:
> ==================================================
> =====
> > The Other side of war, that many people seem to
> > miss, is "Training Accidents". Many a man, has
> > lost his life while training. Out here in Rural
> > Colorado where I live, we lost a B-24 and its
> > entire crew, while on one of these training
> > missions. Though I don't remember the details,
> > (printed in a local newspaper, not because I
> was
> > there at the time) I will get a photo of the
> > marker, and hopefully some details of the
> > incident, soon.
>
> Tonopah, Nevada, had an Army Air Corp training
> base during World War II. It was used for
> training of first P-39 flyers and later B-24
> crews. There were a number of P-39 and B-24
> crashes and the Central Nevada Museum in Tonopah
> has a list of 110 known fatalities on its website.
>
>
> This is the same Tonopah that was served the ng
> Tonopah RR and its sg successor Tonopah &
> Goldfield RR. T&G had a traffic boom during the
> war transporting Army Air Corp personnel, wives,
> etc. and aviation fuel and other supplies.
>
> Brian Norden
Brian the museum in Tonopah hosted a reunion for the WW2 vets some years ago, and we toured about a half dozen crash sites of P39 and B24s. Talking to those guys you could really feel the hatred for their old C.O. who placed number of flights over properly maintaining the aircraft. There were so many crashes out there that the Army Air Corp finally stepped in and brought out a new commanding officer who as his first order of business put the maintience officer in the brig! He grounded all aircraft until he was convinced they were safe to fly. By wars end, they had won awards for safety at that base.
As a railroad tie end, I always found it interesting that the Tonopah and Goldfield R/R never laid rails to the base. For 4 years all supplies and fuel was downloaded on trucks for the 4 or 5 mile gap between railhead and the base.
