Today was pretty laid back. Checked out the Base
Exchange this morning and found it to be very small. This is a probably
the smallest military installation we’ve stayed at in all our travels.
There hasn’t been a lot of air traffic either. We haven’t been here much
during week days so aren’t sure how much they fly but we’ve been lucky enough
to see some of the B-1Bs going over and around.
This afternoon we went to the South Dakota Air and Space
Museum which is right outside the main gate to the base. It’s a very nice
museum with displays focusing mainly on the military contributions of South
Dakotans.
South Dakota legend General Joe Foss – sculpture by Korczak
Ziolkowski of Crazy Horse Memorial fame.
One whose name we recognized (as will Chris) was Joe Foss
(1915-2003), the leading Marine fighter ace in WWII (26 enemy aircraft shot
down). He was a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, recognizing his
role in air combat during the Guadalcanal Campaign. After the war he was
a two-term governor of South Dakota before becoming the first commissioner of
the fledgling American Football League where he helped create the Super
Bowl.
Nellie Zabel Wilhite (1892-1991) was the first deaf woman to
earn a pilot’s license as well as being South Dakota’s first licensed female
pilot in 1928. She had been totally deaf since the age of 2 due to
measles. She was a natural at flying, soloing after only 13 hours of
instruction. She worked as a commercial pilot until 1944, the first and
last deaf person to do so.
The museum had a list of the 1919 U.S. Army Air Service
flying regulations. I won’t post the picture because they’ll be too hard
to read, but most of them are pretty funny. A few of the best:
“Don’t take the machine into the air unless you are satisfied it will
fly,” “If you see another machine near you get out of its way,” “Aviators will
not wear spurs while flying,” “In case the engine fails on takeoff land
straight ahead regardless of obstacles.” Flying was still a new adventure
in those days.
South Dakotan Violet Cowden (1916-2011) was one of the first
women to fly military aircraft for the Air Force. As a young teacher she became
obsessed with flying and got her pilot’s license before her driver’s
license. When war was declared after Pearl Harbor she wanted to join the
war effort. 25,000 women applied to join the WASP (Women Airforce Service
Pilots), only 1830 were accepted and just 1,074 earned their flying wings.
Their mission was to transport planes from factories to the point of debarkation
which freed male pilots to go into combat. They flew many different types
of aircraft, some of which they’d never flown before. A single-seat
fighter had no room for an instructor so the pilot was on her own the first
time in the plane. Vi’s favorite was the P-51 Mustang, the “love of her
life.” When she went for her physical to join the WASP, she was too short
and too light to make it. She talked them into letting her try again in a
week. During the next week she stuffed herself with her sister’s good
cooking but was still two pounds underweight. At her physical she kept
stuffing herself with bananas and water until she hit the required 100
pounds. As for her height, she tied her hair up high on her head to get
to 5’2”.
The WASP made an important and valuable contribution to the
war effort with pilots flying over 60 million miles. However, in December
1944 the WASP was disbanded with no warning at all. The pilots were
dismissed and were made to feel as if what they’d done didn’t matter at all.
It wasn’t until 1977 that the surviving pilots were granted veteran status.
A very sad end for a lot of dedicated pilots who were thrown back into
the civilian world in which it was nearly impossible to get jobs as pilots
because of their sex.
Vi Cowden never flew professionally again but she still had
some amazing things to accomplish. She parachuted for the first time on
her 74th birthday; went skydiving with the elite Army Golden Knights
when she was 89; on her 90th birthday she decided to go paragliding;
in 2009 at age 92 she again flew in a P-51 Mustang as co-pilot, taking the
stick for takeoff and landing and some fast flying in between. At age 93
she took part in an aerial mock dogfight over Orange County, California.
Her goal was to reach 100 years old but she died at 94. What a life she
had.
Jim next to the B-1B’s landing gear.
B-29 Superfortress – the workhorse bomber of WWII.
And my favorite……….
The B-52 Stratofortress – biggest of them all. They
had it blocked off so I couldn’t get a picture of Jim underneath it, but this
is one gigantic airplane. I saw my first one at the Imperial War Museum
at Duxford, England, in 1987 and I’ve never forgotten it. Jim saw plenty
of them in Vietnam but that was his first on the ground, too. It’s an
awesome plane……wingspan is 185’, length 159’ (over half a football field), with
top speed of 644 mph. Jim said hearing these planes was one of the most
welcome sounds in Vietnam because they kept the North Vietnamese Army north of the
DMZ. B-52s have been in active service with the USAF since 1955.
After being upgraded between 2013 and 2015 they are expected to continue
service into the 2040s.
I took pictures of lots of other planes but won’t bore you
with them. Since our connections are to the WWII and Vietnam eras, those
are the ones we’re drawn to.
One last story……
This is Bismarck, the unofficial base mascot from the 1942
to 1951. He was a homeless pup when he wandered onto base one day in 1942
and found himself at home. He would ride the bus to town where he had his
own bowl for beer at a local servicemen’s joint, and he knew when to leave to
catch the last bus back to base. He was reputed to be an alcoholic
(probably true if they kept feeding him beer), and knew where and how to get
handouts of food and booze. He hitch hiked between the flight line and
the mess hall whenever he wanted to go one way or the other, keeping his
walking to a minimum. He also had a reputation as a “womanizer” and once
got busted back to Corporal for chasing a member of the opposite sex through
the NCO Mess. Everyone knew and loved him. It was reported that he
had been promoted to Master Sergeant prior to his death in 1951. When the
base roads were renamed in the 1990s the Commercial Gate was renamed “Bismarck
Gate.”
Tomorrow is our last day in Rapid City. We’re thinking
of investigating the downtown area which we haven’t seen yet.
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