Ottumwa Naval air base faces a new battle

The Carrier on the Prairie struggles to survive

The plot of land near the Ottumwa Regional Airport has a rich history involving World War II, a President and an uncertain future.

The U.S. Naval Air Station graduated 4,626 student pilots from a complex known as the Carrier on the Prairie from 1942 to 1947.

Pilots were given flight training to fight overseas. President Richard Nixon served as an officer there. Astronaut Scott Carpenter served. So did Jesse Brown, a Black pilot whose story was told in the film “Devotion.”

The main building on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Air Station in Ottumwa is being restored as a museum and community center by volunteers. (Photo by John Naughton.)

While the air base had a significant role in America’s victory during the war, its current fight is one of survival. Of finding a future as it respects the history that made Ottumwa a big military town in the 1940s.

Ottumwa offered a location with plenty of room for training flights. And it was away from potential prying eyes (the same way Robert Oppenheimer selected rural New Mexico as home of the Manhattan Project.

One of the volunteers, Stephen Black, told me about the continuing struggle to not only preserve the buildings and grounds, but the struggle for funding, labor and battles with government and apathy.

Considering all the rich history and the beautiful brick and mortar structures on the campus, I have to ask: Can this project succeed, and even thrive?

Stephen Black is one of the volunteers that have given the Naval air base a new life. (Photo by John Naughton.)

The bare bones of the main building appear solid. Crews are polishing and sanding floorboards and finishing walls. It is a piecemeal operation — awaiting donors willing to bankroll the project.