12 May 2006

Rattlesnake Bomber Base

Rattlesnake Bomber Base, Pyote, Texas.

If you know where to look, you can find remnants of extraordinary times. Rattlesnake is one such place, and a while back I flew in to pay a visit. It was an eerie time-warp of an experience, with lots of ghosts and swirling half-memories I’d inherited from years of reading WWII books.

As I walked through the hangar, now roofless, and looked out across the vast, weed-studded ramp, I marveled at the events that took place here. In 1943, this place teemed with life and activity. Boys fresh out of high school, tasked with no less than saving the world, trained and flew in B-17s and B-29s. They came to this remote base to begin their defining adventure, and you can still feel the tension and excitement in the air.

The facility is derelict now. Mother Nature is slowly but efficiently reclaiming all signs of it. I’m glad I live at a time when historic locations like this can still be found and studied.

I took off and made one fast pass down the runway, then a “duster turn” back to overfly the base, wagging my wings in salute. I imagined a hundred faces upturned, surprised to see a man in a garish, red-white-and-blue Citabria rocketing across their 1943 sky.