This story will began in the spring of 2001 with a forgotten black and white snapshot of three young airmen on weekend holiday from weather observer training at Chanute AFB, Illinois, then a major center of technical training during the Korean War. The three, Waldo Johnson, from Albert City, Iowa, Ray Wiser, from Orchard Park, New York, and Donald Whitman, from Buffalo, Missouri, are pictured at a nearby swimming lake seeking relief from the stress of schoolwork and mid-July heat. They planned a mini-reunion at Chanute AFB to commemorate the passing of 50 years since that photo was taken, and missed the exact day by only two (July 13th versus July 11th.)

Chanute Air Field opened in Rantoul in the summer of 1917, and pilots trained then and there went directly to France into the midst of WWI. However, the first and oldest technical training at Chanute Field, as it came to be known, was a life support or parachute class. Weather service training was transferred to Chanute Field from Scott Air Force Base in the summer of 1940, a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the start of overt U.S. involvement in WWII. The training of Air Force weathermen and women reached its peak at Chanute in the 1950’s during the Korean War. In May of 1951, Chanute was placed under the Technical Training Command of the USAF. The closing of Chanute was announced in 1988, and after much political maneuvering, the axe finally fell in 1993. After 76 years of training thousands of people in a myriad of specialties, Chanute Field was closed. The Rantoul community fell heir to the decommissioned Air Force Base, which years before was encircled by the legal limits of the town. A local group of interested and knowledgeable people was chosen to lead the military to civilian conversion of the inherited land and buildings. The enormous task of selling Chanute commenced at once.

The transition to civilian rule has left Chanute Field somewhat dog-eared; but overall, the effective utilization of what the Air Force abandoned is impressive. The look of neglect is most noticeable where weeds and grass poke through the unused pads of asphalt and concrete; in scattered vacant and abandoned buildings; in the piles of debris; and with the unkempt trees and ornamentals.

There is no mistaking that it was a military base, a sight not unlike others where communities accepted title to such large installations. What follows are selected historical facts in Chanute’s timeline, and some impressions and recollections by Waldo, Ray and Don during a 50th anniversary visit to the place of their technical training assignment in 1951.

In the years since the three airmen became weather observers, General Byron Gates, Chanute’s (then) flashy base commander, retired in 1955, following disclosure that he was using military personnel in the conduct of personal work. Radio commentator Paul Harvey was the speaker at his going-away dinner. General Nathan Twining, Air Force Chief of Staff, dedicated Chanute’s new hospital in 1958. Training for the maintenance of Minuteman Missiles commenced in 1961, an add-on to the THOR intermediate missile training underway since 1958. A severe wind and hail storm struck Chanute in 1962; the worst blizzard in Chanute’s history happened in 1964; and later that year, the wooden hanger, last of the original buildings built in 1917, was demolished. In 1968, the first $3 million, 1000-person dormitory was dedicated. Navy and Air Force weather training was consolidated at Chanute in 1977; and in 1978, the first five-service consolidated weather forecaster class began. In 1984, a new $2.6 million athletic forum gymnasium was opened; and 1985 saw the groundbreakings for a $6 million Fire Protection Training Complex and an $18 million Regional Waste Treatment Facility. In 1987, groundbreaking took place for a $6.5 million Weather Training Facility. In 1988, a $2 million Liquid Fuel Training Facility was completed and the announcement of Chanute’s closing was made. In 1990, the last Weather Equipment Maintenance Class was graduated. In 1993 the base closed.

Today, the west (Main) and north gates have no guardhouses, and merely serve as entryways into the complex. Class A passes no longer are needed to come and go. The old north gate sign is a museum piece. The entire complex of pre-WWII temporary wood frame student barracks (with coal-fired furnaces) that Waldo, Ray and Don knew is gone. So too are the barracks’ unadorned ceilings, walls and floors, and the rows of bunks and footlockers. Left only in memory are the latrines, with rows of side-by-side toilets that faced lavatories and mirrors; and the porcelain pee-troughs and the common, zinc-lined shower rooms where humor often included jokes about ...dropping the soap. Instead, there are now large, multi-story brick structures where the students that followed were housed in more ostentatious surroundings. A dilapidated building believed to have been the student mess hall of the 1950’s remains, though modifications and passage of a half-century make its earlier identity somewhat suspect. The old service club is derelict, but the chapel is unchanged and, according to the sign, in use weekly. The twin water towers near the north gate remain as they were, but their color seems different. The disciplinary barracks, with its high-fenced compound, has disappeared, as has the humongous coal pile that supplied winter heat for the people of Chanute.

There are commercial activities in some of the brick structures constructed in the former student housing area, and others show signs of former commercial ventures that now are merely has-beens. The 50-year-ago hospital was replaced in 1958 by a new structure located nearer to the family housing area. It appears to be thriving as a health care center today. Retail, recreational, educational and business office activities are scattered about as well. All the family housing—including the brick houses near White Hall, commonly known as Buckingham Palace is sold, and apparently all units are occupied.

The core of Chanute (headquarters and hanger area) is solidly converted to civilian use, with the exception of Buckingham Palace. The hanger and adjacent classroom space where weather training took place is now home to the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum (yes, there really was a man named Octave Chanute. He built an airplane before the Wright brothers, and gave them flying lessons!) Although the museum collections do not include enough weather-related displays to please Waldo, Ray and Don, it has exceptionally informative and outstanding historical and photographic materials on display. The hanger houses about 30 vintage airplanes and three missile silos. Additionally, the Rantoul Historical Society has a sizeable collection of city and regional historical materials on display in the building. Outside, the street on which students marched to class in flights of 30 now carries only cars and vans and SUV’s. The turn at the corner of the hanger where the marching students made half-left maneuvers before halting to enter classrooms has not changed. But, the little snack shop where stragglers could grab a Danish is gone. Other hangers now contain industrial activities. A new, modern building has been constructed on the tarmac to house aviation-related businesses, and appears to be fully occupied. A fixed-base operator occupies a second building, and there is sufficient flying activity to keep the runways open and maintained. The fire station and the steam generating plant appear much as they did 50 years ago, but the space once occupied by Base Aircraft Operations and Base Weather are gone. Peeping through the windows at where those activities were, one suspects it has been vacant since the last Air Force Flight Plan was filed at base closing. There is no trace of the weather instrument plot of 1951.

Buckingham Palace has so far failed to make the change. This great building was constructed between 1939 and 1941, and was the largest Department of Defense (then War Department) building until the Pentagon was built. It has 400,000 thousand square feet of office, classroom and laboratory space, and there has been two or three attempts at conversion since Chanute closed, all have failed. It is an extremely well built structure, and resists deterioration as good as any. But, it’s empty. It needs maintenance and a purpose. Surely, such things exist somewhere. This building is an opportunity for a Microsoft or a Sprint to do a good deed. The University of Illinois has a facility at Chanute now; perhaps Buckingham Palace could become a terrific center for medical research, or something for the state.

Rantoul is different now, too. Businesses outside the north gate are decidedly changed from 50 years ago. There’s a whopping big difference in the number of people living there. Last census showed 17,000 plus. And the Interstate Highway is at the west edge of town. But, State Route 45 south through Thomasboro to Champaign-Urbana appears much as it was. The Rantoul railroad station hasn’t changed a lot, except for a major decrease in the number of passengers. Much of the building houses retail shops. Waldo, Ray and Don each recalled arriving by train from Lackland, AFB (not on the same train), and each remembered reaching Rantoul in the middle of the night. Didn’t everyone?

Nostalgic? Certainly. Was it a test of the memory? No question about it. In its three-quarters of a century, Chanute Air Force Base (the last name it held) was home for a time to 2 million service men and women. Much of its 2,000 acres of land and one million-plus square feet of facilities remain there today. Once it was one of the nation’s top training centers for the Air Force and it is good to be part of that tradition, particularly in the weather training of the 1950’s. Go, weathermen, take a second look while opportunity exists.

NOTE: The author believes there are untold stories, antidotes, and interesting bits of unrecorded history about weather training at Chanute Field that should be recorded, and perhaps provided to the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum. One such story came already. Jim Maldi, a weather student in the winter of 1950, has written about being on detail as an Air Force truck driver, and getting the vehicle stuck (because of its size) in one of the arched driveway entrances to Buckingham Palace while attempting delivery. Anyone having a story to tell regarding personal knowledge about, or experiences at, Chanute Field is welcome to make the story available for historical publication through Don Whitman directly or The Wetokian. No commercial use of submitted stories will be made.

Donald Whitman
E-Mail: Donwhitman1@aol.com
July 2001

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