This World War II poster typifies the "get it done" attitude urged by the U.S. government during the war. It was displayed at the United Air Lines Cheyenne Modification Center.
We learn more information about what happened in Cheyenne, during the war years, from the Wyoming State Archives:
With the United States entry into World War II, Wyoming experienced an increase of aviation activity. By the 1940s, the technological advances in aviation manufacturing had made the airplane a major component of modern warfare. The U.S. Army embraced the new weapon and quickly began to enlarge its air force. Wyoming benefited from this with the construction of the United Air Lines Modification Center in Cheyenne and the Casper Army Air Base.
The Modification Center installed machine guns and instruments in thousands of B-17 and B-24 bombers. The Cheyenne airport was enlarged with the construction of two new hangers in 1942 and a third in 1943. By the spring of 1943, 1,600 workers were employed at the center with an average of six planes a day leaving Cheyenne for combat areas. After two years of operation, the center had completed modifications on 3,500 B-17s. United had also transferred its flight training school from California to Cheyenne in 1942. This flight school trained pilots for United Air Lines. Almost 100 students were in training year round
In 1942, the Casper Army Air Base was built eight miles west of Casper with more than two hundred buildings and four giant runways. Designed to garrison up to four thousand men, the base was the final training phase for B-17 and B-24 heavy bomber crews before they left for combat. Six target and bombing ranges were located in isolated and sparsely populated areas sited at varying distances from the base. Twenty-seven bombers crashed with at least 121 fatalities during training. The majority of the accidents happened within a thirty-mile radius of the base. During the two and half years of operations, the base trained 16,000 crew members for aerial combat. The Army deactivated the base in 1945. Four years later, the airfield became the Natrona County Municipal Airport, and the land and buildings became county property.
Credits
Image online, courtesy U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
Quoted passage, on the Cheyenne Modification Center, from the Wyoming State Archives and Museum.
