Alliance Army Air Field

The base was dedicated on August 22, 1943, before a crowd reported at 65,000, and Universal filmed the day for its newsreel. Training ran past the units the plaque lists: B-29 crews came in the fall of 1944, and troop carrier crews again in the summer of 1945. The field was deactivated on October 31, 1945. The government auctioned 240 buildings and pulled up the railroad spur, and the transfer of land and buildings to the city was finalized on July 16, 1953. The longest runway at Alliance Municipal Airport, 12/30, runs 9,203 feet.

What the plaque says

Alliance Army Air Field In the spring of 1942 the U.S. Army selected a site one mile south of here for an air field. The dry climate and open landscape afforded ideal flying conditions. Ample water, cheap land, and Alliance's new power plant, new hospital, and railroad division point were other attractions. Five thousand construction workers descended upon Alliance, population 6,669, creating a housing shortage. By July four 9,000-foot runways had been completed. The 31,489-acre field's primary mission was to train aircrews of C-47 and C-53 transports and CG-4 gliders, along with the airborne troops they would carry into battle. The field contained some 775 buildings and housed 12,500 military personnel at its September 1943 peak. The 411th Base Headquarters Squadron, 403rd and 434th Troop Carrier Groups, 326th Glider Infantry, 507th Parachute Infantry, and 878th Airborne Engineers trained here before deployment to the European Theater. In June 1945 veteran troops arrived to train for the expected invasion of Japan. The field was declared surplus in December 1945, and most buildings were sold. Part of the field was transferred to Alliance for use as an airport. Alliance Army Air Base Memorial Committee Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carhenge — 4.1 mi
  A son's memorial to his father on the family farm north of Alliance: Stonehenge copied to scale in old American cars sprayed gray, dedicated at the 1987 summer solstice.

More markers nearby

• Burlington Locomotive 719 — 3.1 mi
• Antioch: Potash Boom-Town — 12 mi
• Box Butte Country — 17 mi
• Hemingford — 21 mi