Not as good a story as the stories I've heard from the relatives of other AH players, but here is my mom's story:
My mom grew up in Pratt, Kansas in a little house on the edge of town. Early in 1943 when she was 14 the USAAF came to town and later that summer they officially opened Pratt Army Airfield and began flying the largest plane my mom had ever seen. Their traffic pattern when taking off took the huge planes directly over her house from the airfield just 3 miles away. She said they shook the glass in the windows as they roared overhead and they were always afraid one would drop out of the sky on their heads. With the coming of the Air Force there were opportunities for boarders, so they took in a fellow who turned out to be a navigator on one of these "huge beasts" as Mom described them. As he sat with them for his first breakfast as their new boarder he was horrified as the house shook as the huge planes passed overhead. Within a few days the traffic pattern was slightly adjusted to avoid flying over the edge of town (and my mom's house).
Pratt Army Airfield had become one of the first airbases established to test the YB-29 prototypes. My mom thought "surely we'll win the war with them!"
