Explanation and Summary of the

Freeman Army Airfield AT-10 “Wichita” Inventory List

Ted Damick,  1 August 2023

The Excel spreadsheet of AT-10 aircraft that were assigned to Freeman Army Air Field was compiled as a gift to the Freeman Army Air Field Museum. The list was compiled by using the six digitized rolls of microfilmed Individual Aircraft Record cards (IARc) from the Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA) at Maxwell AFB, AL. These rolls are:

ACR-22 for the serial block 41-1711/1860

ACR-25 For the serial number block 41-9246/9436

ACR-33 For the serial number block 41-26252/27325

ACR-34 for the serial number block 41-27326/27331

ACR-40 For the serial number block 42-2064/2413

ACR-53 For the serial number block 42-34584/35183

All 1711 AT-10 IARc were reviewed. It should be noted that these IARc are not definitive in their deployments, particularly those that are found on ACR-22 and ACR-25. There is also a major time gap in recording aircraft movements from the time that they were ferried to their first duty station until June of 1944 when the ‘machine’ entries wee made. All of the aircraft on this list were stationed at one time or another at Freeman AAF.

AT-10s began arriving at Freeman AAF on 24/25 February 1943 with 10 aircraft being present. By the end of May of 1943 there were 110 assigned aircraft. The majority of the AT-10s were ferried to RFC (Reconstruction Finance Corporation) storage facilities to be sold as surplus in late January to mid-February 1945. There were two airframes left at Freeman to be ‘reclaimed’ as late as 3 January 1946. These two aircraft were 42-2097 and 41-1766. A total of 38 aircraft were ‘surveyed’ (scrapped) and another 70 were transferred to other duty stationed throughout Freeman’s active flying time. As best as can be determined there were a total of 292 AT-10s that served at Freeman AAF at one time or another. The airframes 41-27078 and 42-34619 each had a total of 4 accidents while Freeman. There was a total of 203 accidents recorded.

Here is a description of the fields (column headings) that are presented in the spreadsheet that follows. All dates in format YYMMDD.

Aircraft Serial No: This field contains the serial numbers recorded from the IARcs, and is in numerical order. The serial numbers that have an asterisk (*) after them are aircraft that were delivered directly from the Beech plant in Wichita, KS, or the Globe plant in Forth Worth, TX. The serial number that are light blue are those recorded in Leslie Hood’s personal flight log, which is displayed at the Museum. The serial numbers in red were initially identified from Form 14 Accident Reports, and later checked against the IARcs.

Date Delivered: This column indicates the date that is recorded on the IARc of the aircraft’s delivery from the construction plant.

Date Arrived: This column indicates the date that anyone airframe arrived at Freeman Field. This date was not always recorded on the IARc thus the blanks.

Accident Report Date: This column indicates the date that any given airframe had a recorded Accident Report. The following columns of Accident 2-3-4 show the dates of subsequent accidents involving the same airplane.

Transfer Date: This column indicates the date that an airframe was transferred from Freeman to a different duty station.

Transferred to: This column indicates the different duty station location that an airframe was transferred to.

Survey Date: The airframes that were ‘scrapped’ at Freeman Field are indicated by their ‘Survey’ date.

Date RECL: “RECL” stands for Reclaimed. This is the date that an airframe was salvaged for components (spare parts).

Date RFC: This column indicates the final date on the IARc and when the airframe was flown to a Reconstruction Finance Corporation storage facility, to be sold as surplus at War’s end. Most of the time the RFC storage facility is named on the IARc.

Mfg: The manufacturer. BH=Beech Aircraft, GL= Globe This column indicates the production plant where the aircraft was built.

Source: This column indicates where on the microfilm rolls the history card is located while using Adobe Acrobat as the PDF reader.

Cost: This column indicates the cost of the airframe that was listed on the IARc. This cost did vary.