Air Corps base memories linger in Dalhart
By Jonna Bridgman,
Contributor to The Dalhart Texan
When I began research for this article, my knowledge of the Dalhart Army Air Base was very limited. I have since interviewed five people and spent hours on the XIT Museum archives. There are still a number of questions in my mind. I am sure there will be mistakes, and maybe some will be kind enough to correct them. My email address will be at the end of this article.
When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States finally got involved in World War II. Boys were lining up all over the country to join the fight. Some (an estimated 200,000), including Al Gallo, even lied about their age in order to serve.
Activities in the small town of Dalhart didn’t change much until April 1942. At that time, our town was approved for an Army Air Base. Three local men had a big part in the air base coming to town: Dalhart Chamber of Commerce manager, Herman Steele, Mayor Herbert Peeples and manager of the DeSoto Hotel, Elmer Elliot. The main airfield was built where the airport is now, and two auxiliary fields were constructed, one east of Dalhart and the other west of town. Within thirty days, the calm and peaceful ways of every Dalhart citizen were rudely upset. The sleepy village became a boomtown. Doors were locked for the first time in anyone’s memory. Even before that date, our town already had an USO (United Service Organization). The purpose at that time was to feed the soldier boys if their trains were held up. Sometimes, cots were supplied for them as they stayed overnight. The location of one USO was 316 Denrock, but this building no longer exists. Now, it is the grassy area between Wellington State Bank and Dalhart Custom Boot. There were other locations, usually on main street. Sometime later, an African-American USO was opened. That building is still standing and is now the XIT Museum. The two USO’s in Dalhart were managed by the local Catholic Church. Often, the entertainment provided included names of ladies I remember: Betty Steele, Mrs. B. N. Richards, Luzelle Hicks and Mrs. Earl Johnson. Public thanks for contributions were given to John Colquitt, Gail Castleberry, Joe Scaling, the C.R. Anthony Company and many others. Girls from Dalhart and the surrounding area could go to the dances, depending on how strict their parents were and what church they attended. The use of a recording machine allowed soldiers to make a record of their voice and send it by mail to loved ones.
The Army Air Base was like a small city. Among other things, there was a gym, weekly newspaper, hospital, bowling alley, barber/ beauty shop, PX (general store), chapel, officer’s club, fire department, library, armament, a band, baseball field, baseball and softball teams, a mess hall, weddings, and new babies (born at Loretta Hospital in Dalhart). Soldiers could fish in local lakes without a license. The base was actually Dalhart’s only gated community. The gates were locked and no civilians could get in unless they were Civil Service workers or entertainers. Vera Hancock was the source of this information.
In April 1943, 150 members of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) arrived to join the men at the base. I can only imagine the excitement on the men’s part! There was some discussion on window coverings on the ladies’ barracks. Of course, the windows couldn’t be left uncovered! Finally, it was decided that blinds, not curtains, would be installed. The women’s jobs (nationwide) included nurses, office workers, radio operators, electricians and air traffic controllers. Three tragedies happened during the short life of the Dalhart Army Air Base. The first glider crash, on January 26, 1943, was deadly. A second glider crash occurred on February 9, 1943. Probably because surgeons were already at the base, the second could have been deadly, but was not. In the first, a C47 tow plane flown by Chuck Harruff, was pulling a glider. Somehow, the tow rope came untied and the glider crashed into a cement packing plant just west of the Highway 54 bridge. Four men in the glider were killed on contact, and the other two died later. At first, Chuck was blamed for the accident. Chuck was later cleared because he was not the soldier who tied the rope.
In the third accident, which also could have been fatal, four B-17 bombers were supposed to head to a bomb site near the Conlen community. Somehow, the navigators must have gotten confused and the planes ended up over the small town of Boise City, Oklahoma. The men who opened the bomb-bay doors and let the bombs drop had been told that the lights around the Cimarron County courthouse were the drop site. Thankfully, the bombs were only filled with four pounds of dynamite and ninety pounds of sand. This caused a lot of excitement in Boise City! Back at the base in Dalhart a sign was put up in the mess hall: “Remember the Alamo! Remember Pearl Harbor! Remember Boise City!”. The crew of the ill-fated bomber were given the choice of court martial or joining the war in Europe. All chose the latter. A year after the misguided bombing of Boise City, the same bomber crew led an 800-plane daylight raid on Berlin and became one of the most decorated of World War II. All of the crew members survived the war and went on to tell stories about their slightly misguided raid on a small Oklahoma town. In fact, one crewmember even went on to marry a Boise City girl. For a short video on this fateful event, watch The History Guy: Bombing Raid on Boise City, Oklahoma.
Recently, I met Mary Britten, who told me she grew up in Dalhart and graduated from Dalhart High School in 1948. I asked Mary what Dalhart was like during the war. She told me there were so many families of soldiers in town that there was no place for them to live. One housewife made a floor in her garage out of cardboard boxes. Other families rented out bedrooms or even chicken coops. The USO helped locate living quarters for soldiers and their families. Almost all houses at this time only had one bathroom. A one bedroom house became home to three couples. One couple slept in the kitchen, another in the living room and the last in the bedroom. Military families would do anything to be together! But, not all hometown folks were anxious to help out. Some were leery of all the strangers coming into town.
Are there still signs of the air base around town? Oh, my, yes! Look around, and you will see long narrow buildings that used to be barracks. JT Bryant and Alvie Wright bought a barracks building, cut it in half and each made a house. The Bryant house was at 1122 Peach and the Wright home was at 1015 Oak. The St. Anthony Catholic School was originally made out of barracks. A barracks building was moved to the old North Ward School and became the cafeteria. There’s a lot of life left in some of the old base buildings! At least two buildings have been moved a couple of times each. The chapel was first moved to Boys Ranch to become the home for worship. When a bigger sanctuary was built, the old chapel was moved across the road to Prayer Town. That building is still in use. Another barracks was moved to 7th street in Dalhart and became the Farm Bureau office. Some years later, when Farm Bureau Insurance built a new office, the old barracks building was moved 27 miles north and became the Coldwater community building. Look at what is now called the Lego gym behind the intermediate school; it was once a B-17 hangar. Imagine moving that building! A bid from the school system was issued for someone to disassemble the structure, move it to town, and reassemble the empty hangar. This has served the students of Dalhart for over seventy years!
Times change and buildings leave the landscape, but the Dalhart Army Air Base – once, briefly, part of Dalhart life, has now just become memories. And as interesting as the stories can be, the years 1941 to 1945 were a serious, deadly part of our history as some Dalhart people lost family members to the war. Still, I’m sure the Dalhart Army Air Base stories can keep us talking and wondering for years to come. Contact the writer at bridgmanjlb@gmail. com.
For the full story SUBSCRIBE to the online edition of The Dalhart Texan, call (806) 244-4511 to setup a subscription to our physical paper or pick a copy up at one of our many convenient news rack locations. You can also stop by and purchase a paper or subscription in person at our news office located at 410 Denrock Ave.
