Making A-26's at the Tulsa Bomber Plant ...

[Mark Allen M]

TULSA BOMBER PLANT.
As World War II erupted in Europe in the late 1930s and the United States mobilized its own war industry, civic leaders aggressively promoted construction of a new aircraft assembly facility in Tulsa. The U.S. War Department agreed to build a plant if Tulsa provided land and necessary runways. Tulsa citizens quickly responded, passing a $750,000 bond issue in March 1941, enabling the city to purchase 750 acres east of the municipal airport and to construct the runways. On May 2, 1941, ground-breaking took place for the facility that became known as Air Force Plant 3, and Donald W. Douglas, owner of the Douglas Aircraft Company, dedicated the plant on August 15, 1942.

The Douglas Aircraft Company, headquartered in Santa Monica, California, operated the Tulsa facility. During World War II it produced A-24 Dauntless dive bombers, B-24 Liberator strategic bombers, and A-26 Invader medium bombers. From 1953 to 1957 during the Cold War, B-47 Stratojet strategic bombers and B-66 Destroyer medium bombers were manufactured. More than twenty-three thousand people worked in the plant during peak World War II production.

The 4,004-foot-long, 200-foot-wide assembly structure provided more than eight hundred thousand square feet of floor space. Its forty-foot headroom and crane hoists were designed to process large, multiengine aircraft. A St. Louis and San Francisco Railway (SL&SF) spur line brought aircraft subassemblies and raw materials into one end of the building, and completed aircraft emerged from the other end. Built without windows, the plant operated under blackout conditions. In addition to the assembly building, the plant included a boiler house, cafeteria building, guardhouse, hanger, maintenance building, office building, paint shop, pump house, and police building.

Tinker Air Force Base (in Oklahoma City) used the plant for storage after the plant ceased aircraft production at the end of World War II. In 1951, as the Cold War with the Soviet Union intensified, the plant reopened, producing and modifying aircraft until 1991. The plant also produced missile-guidance systems, space-vehicle components, electronic countermeasure devices, and stealth technologies during that time period.

All photos sourced here:
https://claybornglobal.com/IHF/index.php/Douglas_Tulsa



















































































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[JohnB]

I believe a major supplier of sub assemblies (wings or nacelles) was Beech in Wichita.
I believe the assemblies were trucked down to Oklahoma, a bit of work in the pre-interstate hiway days.

Douglas kept n the plant busy, it was the location of Douglas B-47 production as well as some RB/WB-66Cs.
It would have been the plant for the C-132 had it not been cancelled.

[InvaderHF]

Its always interesting to see where my work ends up. There's a whole write up on the website about the pictures and I am working on making a video tour of the plant.

[InvaderHF]

I believe a major supplier of sub assemblies (wings or nacelles) was Beech in Wichita.
I believe the assemblies were trucked down to Oklahoma, a bit of work in the pre-interstate hiway days.

Douglas kept n the plant busy, it was the location of Douglas B-47 production as well as some RB/WB-66Cs.
It would have been the plant for the C-132 had it not been cancelled.

Very close. Beech Aviation did make the wing/nacelle assemblies (almost all of them, in fact). They were delivered to the Douglas Factory by rail. There are huge tracks that lead to a loading door on one end of the plant. The wings were shipped in crated pairs. They were staged inside of the door, the crates were removed, and then they were affixed to tarcks that ran along the floor where they moved along the outer wall until the station where they were joined with the engines and the fuselage.

[Ken]

Factory photos are probably my favorite. Thanks for this great thread!

Ken

[Michel Lemieux]

Super neat!

Tks again Mark.

[AG pilot]

Factory photos are probably my favorite. Thanks for this great thread!

Ken

I agree. Just wonderful!

[Mark Allen M]

A very special thanks to IHF and WIX member InvaderHF for his original contribution and hard work in the source link. Great work and really great reading and explanations on all the photos. Glad folks are still putting in all the work and dedication to assure this type of history doesn’t just fade away.

“Thanks to the generous contributions and support of David Cantin and Gregory Butler the IHF was able to acquire a very rare set of photographs showing the inside of the Tulsa plant during the height of Invader production in 1944.”

[Chris Brame]

Per Baugher:

(43-)22616 to civil registry as N3491G

Not on the Registry - anyone know more? 43-22612 that was lost at Biggin Hill in 1980 might be in here somewhere.

[InvaderHF]

Per Baugher:

(43-)22616 to civil registry as N3491G

Not on the Registry - anyone know more? 43-22612 that was lost at Biggin Hill in 1980 might be in here somewhere.

Of course I do. I have detailed informationon all but a small handful of Invaders

43-22616.

Accepted inton service 29 Jan 1945
Departed US for 9th AF (GLUE) 13 Feb 1945
Served wirh 573rd BS, 391st BG with fuselage code T6-N.
Returned to US (Hunter AAF) 29 Jul 1945.
From there she bounced back and forth between Hobbs & McLellan until 19 Dec 1952 when she was converted to a B model and then kept at McLellan.
Jan 1953 she was converted back to a C model at McLellan.
Sep 1953 she was converted back to a B model again, still ar McLellan.
In Mar 1954 she was sent to Hill AFB.
26 Apr 1954 she was give to the ANG 148th RTC Squadron at Ft. Smith.
11 Jul 1954 she was converted back to a C model again with the ANG.
In Mar 1957 she was converted back to a B model again and transferred to NY where she remained until 2 Sep 1957 when she was transferred to Davis Monthon and authorized for reclamation.

[quemerford]

I hope you don't mind me adding a bit more detail (it's "McClellan" (two c's) by the way )

• A-26C 43-22616 for Project Dom-797D (Projects 92928-N, Dom-799C and Dom-799B cancelled)
• available 27Jan44 (record card says '1944' - is this 1945?)
• accepted 29Jan44 for GLUE (9th AF) via Hunter AAF and Morrison Field
• delayed (mechanical trouble) 30Jan44; departed Tulsa 31Jan44; arrived Hunter AAF 31Jan44
• departed Hunter 11Feb44; arrived 1103rd AAF Base Unit Morrison 11Feb44
• departed US for GLUE 13Feb44
• returned to US (Hunter AAF) 29Jul45
• To Grenada AAF for storage 30Jul45
• available for transfer to Hobbs AAF 04Dec45;
• departed 24Feb46 to Love Field
• Arrived 4160th AAF Base Unit Hobbs AAF 25Feb46
• To 4127th AAF Base Unit McClellan 23Sep47 (storage)
• re-designated B-26C 01Jul48
• depot modification 28Aug52
• re-designated B-26B 19Dec52
• To Ogden Air Materiel Area, Hill AFB 04Mar54 (storage)
• for project, non-USAF 19Mar54
• To 184th Tactical Recon Sqn AR ANG Fort Smith 22Apr54
• To 114th Bombardment Sqn (Tactical) NY ANG, Floyd Bennett 15Feb56
• To Arizona Aircraft Storage Branch Davis Monthan 26Apr57 (storage)
• declared excess 12Aug57
• authorised for reclamation 23Sep57

[Chris Brame]

No word on who bought it surplus and registered it?

[quemerford]

I suspect it's a typo. N-Number search doesn't show it as a de-registered aircraft and even Geoff Goodall's awesome database says 'no further details'.

[InvaderHF]

I hope you don't mind me adding a bit more detail (it's "McClellan" (two c's) by the way )

• A-26C 43-22616 for Project Dom-797D (Projects 92928-N, Dom-799C and Dom-799B cancelled)
• available 27Jan44 (record card says '1944' - is this 1945?)
• accepted 29Jan44 for GLUE (9th AF) via Hunter AAF and Morrison Field
• delayed (mechanical trouble) 30Jan44; departed Tulsa 31Jan44; arrived Hunter AAF 31Jan44
•

Not at all! I was in a hurry so I was just trying to summarize the IARC (and throw in some typos for good measure ).

With regards to the date, it does say 1944 at the top of the card, but they got a little ambitious when they started filling them out and didnt expect the production delays. It was truly not available until 1945. There are a few dozen cards like this. While not "proof", if you look at the dates on just this card, there would be a gap of more than a year where she was just sitting before being sent overseas, which doesnt make sense. But when you look at all of the cards together in sequence, the context becomes clear. 43-22575 was the last plane received on 31 Dec 1944. 43-22576 was received 26 Jan 1945, but the card still says 1944 at the top. They had expected all of production block 25 to be available in 1944, but that didnt happen. This "1944" error continues all the way up until IARC 43-22751. Its not until Block 45 (44-34098) that the year gets corrected.

[InvaderHF]

No word on who bought it surplus and registered it?

I can find no record that this ship was ever actually sold. I have been slowly buying the complete FAA records for the ships that have been sold to the public to get their conplete civil histories and the FAA has no record of sale for this ship. I suspect that she was broken up for scrap.