Flying-school lecture to highlight museum’s Heritage Month events

By Amy Widner

LITTLE ROCK — The Jacksonville Museum of Military History will host a day of special exhibits, documentaries and lectures beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday as part of Arkansas Heritage Month.

The day’s theme is “From Hay Bales to Hand Grenades ... Arkansans Go to War.” The museum is also hosting a chili cook-off and will end the day with a flagretirement ceremony. Admission is free.

“A lot of it is going to be the conversion when Arkansas went from a rural community to gearing up to go to World War II,” Museum Coordinator Danna-Kay Duggar said of the program.

Walnut Ridge Army Flying School Museum President Harold Johnson is presenting a lecture on “WWII Flying Schools in Arkansas” at 2 p.m.

“I will mostly be talking about the important role that Arkansas played in WWII in pilot training,” Johnson said.“We had three primary flying schools in Arkansas, at Camden, Helena and Pine Bluff.”

There were also basic flying schools at Walnut Ridge and Newport, another training school at Siloam Springs and advanced twin-engine schools at Stuttgart and Blytheville. Johnson will describe the kind of training pilots went through and go into more detail about the history of the Walnut Ridge airfield. After it opened in 1942, the airfieldhoused the flying school, served as Marine Corps training grounds, housed German prisoners of war and became one of five major salvage yards for Army Air Force planes.

Like all of the flying schools, the Walnut Ridge airfield provided opportunities for Arkansans, in keeping with Saturday’s theme.

“Clearly that’s about all there was in Walnut Ridge at the time - farming operations - so people came up toWalnut Ridge for things like construction jobs, building the airfield,” Johnson said. “People learned new skills here. Where they’d plowed behind a team of horses before, they learned to be airplane mechanics, carpenters, just all kinds of skills.”

There is a $20 entry fee for the chili cook-off. There will be trophies for best showmanship and first, second and third place and certificates for third through 10th place and second and third place best showmanship.

The Jacksonville Museum of Military History is at 100 Veterans Circle. More information is available by calling (501) 241-1943 or e-mailing dkduggarmilitary museum@centurytel.net. Chili cook-off participants may sign up by coming by the museum, calling or e-mailing. More information about the Walnut Ridge Army Flying School Museum is available at wingsofhonor.org.

- awidner@arkansasonline.com

Three Rivers, Pages 118 on 05/11/2008