Alliance Municipal Airport is in

Box Butte County, Nebraska Box Butte County is a county in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 10,604. Its county seat is Alliance. The county was formed in 1886; it took its name from a large box-shaped butte north of All ...

, three miles southeast of the city of

Alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

, which owns it.

Denver Air Connection Denver Air Connection is a subsidiary of Key Lime Air providing both charter and scheduled passenger air service. History Key Lime Air, dba Denver Air Connection (DAC), operates FAR Part 121 regional airline scheduled passenger service and sc ...

offers scheduled passenger flights to Denver, which are subsidized by the

Essential Air Service Essential Air Service (EAS) is a U.S. government program enacted to guarantee that small communities in the United States, which had been served by certificated airlines prior to deregulation in 1978, maintained commercial service. Its aim is t ...

program. The

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. NPIAS was developed and now maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It identifies existing and proposed airports tha ...

for 2011–2015 categorized it as a ''

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

'' facility (the ''commercial service'' category requires 2,500 enplanements per year).

History

Alliance Municipal Airport was built during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

(USAAF) as one of eleven USAAF training airfields in

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

during

. On April 14, 1942, the

Secretary of War The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...

authorized the establishment of the field. It was built between summer 1942 and August 1943. The site is bordered by low rolling sandhills to the east, and a wide plain on the north, west and south. Snake Creek flows through the southern section of the property. During construction over 5,000 workers came from all over the country, causing a housing shortage. The population of Alliance doubled almost overnight. Workers moved into garages, store rooms, cellars, attics, and even their own trailers in established parks. Many of the workers were Sioux Indians from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations, Mexicans from the Southwest, and African Americans from Wichita and Kansas City. The cantonment housing area of the airfield covered , and had 775 buildings and other structures, including hangars, chapels, warehouses, barracks, mess halls, service buildings, and latrines. Some were brick and steel, such as aircraft hangars, but most were frame construction on concrete foundations. Tar paper and plywood were generally used for walls and flooring, as the buildings were considered temporary, to be used for a few years. The airfield had a railroad spur, power plant, waterworks, sewage system and of runways. The airfield had been planned as a training facility for paratroops and air commandos, which needed long runways for

C-47 Skytrain The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota (Royal Air Force, RAF, Royal Australian Air Force, RAAF, Royal Canadian Air Force, RCAF, Royal New Zealand Air Force, RNZAF, and South African Air Force, SAAF designation) is a airlift, military transport ai ...

s to tow gliders. On August 22, 1943, a huge crowd of 65,000 people gathered for the dedication of Alliance Army Airfield, a training facility for Army paratroops and air crews. Between the opening of the airfield and spring 1944, the I Troop Carrier Command, 434th Troop Carrier Group commanded the airfield. The 411th Army Air Force Base Unit commanded the support elements at Alliance as part of Air Technical Service Command. In addition to the C-47s, the unit repaired B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator aircraft from other airfields. Alliance AAF was divided into air operations, quartermaster, troop cantonment, and gunnery ranges. The airfield was home to as many as 14,000 paratroops in the area, using

s as powered troop carriers, and CG-3/CG-4 Waco glider troop carriers for their training aircraft. The sandhills were thought to provide a softer landing than wooded areas for jumping paratroops. Known units that trained at Alliance AAF were: * 403d Troop Carrier Group (December 18, 1942 - May 3, 1943) : The group eventually moved to the South Pacific as part of

Thirteenth Air Force The Thirteenth Air Force (Air Forces Pacific) (13 AF) was a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). It was last headquartered at Hickam Air Force Base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. 13 AF has never been sta ...

. * 434th Troop Carrier Group (9 February 1943 - 5 September) : The group eventually moved to England as part of

Ninth Air Force The Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) is a Numbered Air Force of the United States Air Force headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. It is the Air Force Service Component of United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), a joint De ...

. * 436th Troop Carrier Group (May 2 - August 1, 1943) : The group eventually moved to England as part of

. * 439th Troop Carrier Group (June 1 - December 16, 1943) : The group eventually moved to England as part of

. * 440th Troop Carrier Group (September 7, 1943 - January 4, 1944) : The group eventually moved to England as part of

. * 442d Troop Carrier Group (December 1943 - January 1944) : The group eventually moved to England as part of

. * 349th Troop Carrier Group (January 19 - March 8, 1944) : The group eventually moved to England as part of

. * 443d Troop Carrier Group (January 19 - February 15, 1944) : The group eventually moved to the China-Burma-India Theater. * 10th Troop Carrier Group (March 8 - April 14, 1944) : The group trained cadres for troop carrier groups and trained replacement crews. It was inactivated in place. In addition to the USAAF units, the Army 326th Glider Infantry, 507th Parachute Infantry, an
878th
Airborne Engineers trained at Alliance before deployment to the European Theater. As paratroopers flooded into Alliance, housing was short. A federal housing project was built at the east end of Alliance, apartment complexes with plain stucco walls, coal heating stoves, and rows of chimneys along the rooflines, thus the name "Chimney Town." After the paratroops left Alliance,

Second Air Force The Second Air Force (2 AF; ''2d Air Force'' in 1942) is a USAF numbered air force responsible for conducting basic military and technical training for Air Force enlisted members and non-flying officers. In World War II the CONUS unit defende ...

temporarily used the Alliance airfield in the fall of 1944 for the training of

B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...

crews. Training included teaching the B-29 air crews how to drop bombs and read navigational, aeronautical and bombsight equipment. Finally, in the summer of 1945, the 1st Troop Carrier Command returned to the airfield to train for the proposed invasion of Japan. That necessity ended when Japan surrendered on September 6. On October 31, 1945, the Army Air Force "temporarily" deactivated the Alliance Army Airfield. Control of the airfield was assigned to Air Technical Service Command at Ogden Army Airbase,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. Though speculation was that the Army would make the huge Alliance airfield a permanent installation, by November 20 the Troop Carrier Command closed the facility permanently and began to make plans to sell the surplus property. By December 1945 the facility was declared surplus property. Nonetheless, its status remained in limbo. The city of Alliance showed interest in acquiring the facility. However, in the fall of 1946 Nebraska congressman Arthur L. Miller stated that the airfield would be withdrawn from the surplus list to be reactivated for Troop Carrier Command training, in response to strained relations with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. This did not happen and the U. S. Government negotiated a disposition agreement for the facility. Due to disputes between the U.S. government and the city of Alliance, the final disposition of the airfield did not occur for many years. The government removed the railroad tracks and auctioned off 240 buildings, including lavatories, guard houses and barracks. Finally, on July 16, 1953, the city of Alliance and the federal government finalized the transfer for the land and buildings which were to become the Alliance Municipal Airport. Today many World War II-era buildings remain in use. Western DC-3s started flying to Alliance in the 1940s; Frontier replaced Western in 1959 and ended its Twin Otter flights in 1980.

Facilities and Aircraft

The airport covers 3,500

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s (1,416 ha) at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of 3,931 feet. It has three asphalt

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s: 12/30 is 9,202 by 150 feet (2,805 x 46 m); 17/35 is 6,311 by 75 feet (1,924 x 23 m); 8/26 is 6,200 by 75 feet (1,890 x 23 m). In the year ending May 31, 2019; the airport had 9,717 aircraft operations, average 27 per day: 99%

, 1%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) an ...

, and <1% military. 50 aircraft were then based at the airport: 92% single-engine, 6% multi-engine, and 2% glider.

Airline and destination

Scheduled nonstop passenger flights:

Statistics

References

Other sources

*
ArmyAirForces.com
* Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. .

External links

Alliance Municipal Airport (AIA)
at City of Alliance website
Alliance (AIA)
at the Nebraska Department of Aeronautics
Nebraska Historical Marker - Alliance Army Airfield

Heartland Aviation
the

fixed-base operator A fixed-base operator (FBO) is an organization granted the right by an airport to operate at the airport and provide aeronautical services such as fueling, hangaring, tie-down and parking, aircraft rental, aircraft maintenance, flight instruction, ...

(FBO)
Aerial image as of May 1999
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the effort is to prov ...

'' * *
{{authority control Airports in Nebraska Buildings and structures in Box Butte County, Nebraska Essential Air Service Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Nebraska Airports established in 1943 1943 establishments in Nebraska Transportation in Box Butte County, Nebraska