[hikerjo]

Here are two photographs of an old air base in the state of Washington.

[kleet]

I wonder if that was taken HERE...

Now known as...

[hikerjo]

Good guess Kleet, your close. Actually those pictures are not very old, I took and developed them myself last Thanksgiving. I was waiting for someone to call me on that, but know one did! They are of the old Ephrata Army Air Base.

[Backpacker Joe]

Wait a minute. Are you telling me that there are multiple Douglas DC-3 (C-47) transports just sitting there? Wow I didnt know that there was an Air Base in E-U-Frata..... Good one! TB

[marzsit]

has anybody explored the abandoned titan-1 missile silos in the moses lake area? terraserver has some good images and they all look intact, from the air at least....

[hikerjo]

My aunt and auncle have told me stories of how they sneeked in there while they were going to Centeral. I think they said it was all on priviate land and that they had to climb over a barb wire fence to get in. I may be mistaken...

[hikerjo]

[Pyrites]

There was a wing of B-24’s at Ephrata when the war ended. Dad was a bombardier on one of the crews. They were preparing to move to Japan as bases became available on one of the home islands during invasion. Personnel had moved by dedicated train from Westover in Massachusetts. All brand new bombers were lined up on base. Being more or less local, he had his jalopy dropped off by family. He had only private vehicle in the wing. Trade government issued cigarettes for gas coupons with locals. The farmers of course had an infinite supply of gas coupons. Supposedly earlier in war Ephrata had been a fighter training base. So when released did he putt home in five hours in his old T, or to girlfriend’s place in Spokane?

[jinx'sboy]

My father-in-law - who died 3 years ago at 103 - spent most of a year 1944-45 at that air base. He was an engine mechanic, what would now be called an A and P guy. He was there when WW2 ended. He said they breathed a sigh of relief after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, as their unit was scheduled to be in the first wave of a planned invasion of Japan. He complained about how hot it was out there. He did tell one funny story; his Sergeant ordered ordered him and another guy to “drive that deuce and half over to the back of the base PX and meet Sergeant so and so”. There they loaded a hundred or so cases of warm beer into the truck, drove it out to the flight line, loaded it into a C-47 which had the doors removed. That plane flew up to 16,000ft, flew around for an hour or so to cool the beer, then flew back down quickly….and everyone got to enjoy a cold beer or 2 in the summer sun

[snoqpass]

[Dick B]

It's interesting to go back and see how many airports that operated during WWII are now municipal or regional facilities . In my flying days I flew in and out of many. Just here in Oregon there was; Redmond, Madras, Corvallis, North Bend, Burns and Klamath Falls. I visited many others, but I don't know the history. Some airports existed before the war but were taken over by the AAF and improved. Others were built by the military. All were given back for civilian use after the war. K Falls still has an air national guard unit stationed there. I was surprised to see all the uses the Grant County (Moses Lake) airport is put to today.

[snoqpass]

Some of them have disappeared into time, we found this half of a WWII MkII training bomb south of Boise

[Dick B]

I was just a kid during WW2. As I remember, Gedney/Hat Island between Whidbey and Everett was used as a gunnery range for fighters out of Paine Field. When I was in forestry school, someone said that after the war loggers came to the Hat Island with the intent of harvesting the timber. After some logs were delivered to the mill and run thru the head rig, someone decided maybe that was not a good idea. Lots of old ordinance was imbedded in the timber which raised hell with the saws. Any verification of this?

[Seventy2002]

I found a history of Hat Island that says "Air squadrons from Paine Field in Everett used the north end for bombing practice" during WWII. No mention of post-war logging operations, however.

[Dick B]

There was a lot of military activity here in Central Oregon during WWII. I mentioned the AAF airfields before. Camp Abbot was an army engineer training camp south of Bend. It operated from March '43 thru June '44. After deactivation, structures were removed, and after several ownerships it ultimately became the Resort of Sunriver. I did their survey work during the '70s, and there was still a lot of old military presence such as old streets, sewer system, firing ranges and a wonderful water well. I think the Deschutes River was used to train for river crossings in Europe. A beautiful old log structure called the Great Hall was the only structure left standing after the removal of all other buildings. There was a bombing range out east of Bend, and they held a huge war games training exercise out in the desert from September thru November 1943. It involved around 100,000 troops in 3 divisions. Every once in a while, someone will find some artifact out there. I think the most recent was someone's dog tag. They even built special apartment housing in Bend for officers & families. They still stand and are called the "Officers Quarters". They may still belong to a friend of ours and I have done surveys around them.