Army Air Field Museum

In 1943 during the darkest hours of World War II, the army hastily constructed a vast training camp northeast of Kingman to prepare gunners, pilots, and copilots for battles in the air. By war's end 35,000 cadets had earned their certificates here.

When the War was won in 1945, there was no further need to train gunners - nor for the aircraft in which they flew. Peacetime saw more than 7,000 made their final flight to Kingman for storage, and later to be broken up and melted into aluminum ingots.

The Air Field was given the task of converting the aluminum in these planes to aluminum ingots. This assignment was finally completed in 1948. 70,000,000 pounds of aluminum were rescued from the airplanes, mostly B-17s.

After this last assignment was completed, the military had no further use for the facility and ownership was transferred to Mohave County. The City of Kingman now has their airport at the location.