Ainsworth Army Air Field

Building the field took about 1,200 workers from August to November 1942, some 200 of them Native men from the Pine Ridge Reservation, and a spur off the Chicago and North Western carried in materials, food and coal for 64 buildings. The B-17 crews came first, from December 1942 to April 1943, practicing bomb runs over a wildlife refuge in Cherry County. The P-39 pilots followed in late 1943 and the P-47 pilots stayed until March 1944. A hangar, a supply warehouse and the bombardier and bombsight buildings still stand at the airport.

What the plaque says

Ainsworth Army Air Field Ainsworth Army Air Field, completed on Novem- ber 30, 1942, was a satellite of Rapid City Army Air Field and under command of the Second Air Force. The field was one of eleven Army Air Forces training bases built in Nebraska during World War II. The 2,496-acre field included three 7,300 X 150 foot concrete runways, a hangar, warehouses, repair and machine shops, link and bomb trainers, Norden bombsight vaults, and barracks for over 600 offi- cers and enlisted men. The base's primary mission was to provide proficiency training for P-39 and P-47 pilots of the 364th and 53rd fighter squad- rons, and for B-17 crews of the 540th and 543rd bombardment squadrons before deployment to the European Theater of Operations. Aircraft camou- flage experiments were also conducted on the site. The air field closed in 1945 and the following year the city of Ainsworth received a U.S. Gov- ernment Revokable License for commercial aircraft operations on the field. In 1948 the War Assets Administration declared the property surplus, and the city of Ainsworth received title to the air field for use as a municipal airport. Ainsworth Airport Authority Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smith Falls State Park — 28 mi
  Nebraska's highest waterfall, a spring-fed creek dropping 63 feet into a shaded canyon off the Niobrara, where Ice Age birch and an aspen hybrid found nowhere else still grow.

More markers nearby

• Lakeland Sod High School — 0.5 mi
• Midair Collision of P-47 "Thunderbolt" Fighter Planes, 1944 — 13 mi
• Long Pine - A Railroad Town — 16 mi
• Norden Dance Hall — 21 mi