Castle Air Museum
Castle Air Force Base located in Atwater,
California was named in honour of Brigadier General Frederick W. Castle.
More than simply lines from a movie, these words
started adrenaline surging through the veins of men whose courage and skill
were tested daily in the skies over the Pacific, Europe, Africa, Korea and
later, Vietnam.
To those who survived it, there is nothing
glamorous about war. But, there is something awesome...a mystique...about
the aircraft flown by the brave pilots and crews of World War II, the Korean
War, and the Vietnam Conflict.
These aircraft...planes like the B-17 Flying
Fortress, the B-24 Liberator, the B-29 Super Fortress, the B-26 Marauder and
the B-25 Mitchell Bomber as well as the Mustang, Thunderbolt and Lightning
are as much a part of America's heritage as Independence Hall, and the
Battlefield at Gettysburg. In 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt announced
that the U. S. would build 50,000 planes a year to help defeat the Axis
powers. It was a number that, by his own admission, he had picked out of
thin air. Production in 1939 was 2,195 aircraft. In the event, 300, 000
military aircraft were produced in the years 1940 through 1945, 95,272 in
1944 alone. When World War II ended, most of them were withdrawn from
service and scrapped almost as rapidly as they had been built.
Castle Air Museum is located in the heart
of the San Joaquin Valley, adjacent to Castle Airport. Driving time
is approximately one hour from Fresno, two hours from Sacramento, and three
hours from San Francisco.
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