KINGMAN — The rebranding of the city’s Interstate-40 traffic interchange that’s under construction evokes priceless memories of his father for 60-year Kingman resident Craig Chastain. Craig‘s dad was an accomplished B-17 co-pilot during World War 2.
B-17 co-pilot Chester Chastain, in uniform, survived 28 combat missions during World War 2.
Born in May 1922, Chester Miles Chastain Jr. was assigned to the 15th Air Force, 346th Bomb Squadron and 99th Bomb Group when stationed near Foggia, Italy. He completed 28 sorties and survived when 51% of the B-17 bomber crews perished during the war.
Naming the I-40 exit as the Flying Fortress Parkway, partly in honor of the B-17 big bird bombers and the gunners who trained to shoot from them at the former Kingman Army Airfield, is deeply appreciated by Craig Chastain. He said his dad was a proud and patriotic American who loved his country and was enamored with the B-17.
Co-pilot Chester Chastain, lower left, along with his crew and their B-17, somewhere in Europe.
“It had four engines, which he loved, because he always said if they lost one engine, they could come home on the three, and if they lost two engines he and the pilot would have a tough time flying back,“ Craig said. “He always told me that what he feared was if one of the shells from the Nazis hit the wing, the plane would go into a spiral and he wouldn‘t be able to bail out. And he always said that if the shell didn‘t blow your plane apart, the (anti-aircraft) flak could destroy it.“
Craig said it was mostly ground-fire that threatened B-17‘s as the war progressed because initial German air superiority was eviscerated.
“At the beginning of the war we were losing B-17‘s right and left,“ he said. “My dad always said when he entered the war America had taken out the German Luftwaffe, so they didn‘t have to worry about any Messerschmitts and it was just flak or getting hit by shells.“
Craig said flying more than two dozen war missions took its toll on his father, particularly the anti-aircraft fire.
“Pilots suffered multiple concussions flying in and out of the bomb runs,“ Craig said. “Crew members heads would shake back and forth and my dad died of ALS.“
That B-17 co-pilot Chester Chastain was highly decorated is reflected by various medals and commendations affixed to a tribute board hung in his son’s Kingman home.
Chester Chastain was discharged form the Army Air Corps in May, 1946. He met his wife Joy Hardford in California before the Chastains moved to Kingman in 1965 where they settled in a downtown home and ran the Crest Home Furnishing Store.
Craig said Chester always watched the “12 O‘Clock High“ television show, in its black and white glory, to relive his military experience. He said viewing war related documentaries draws out his emotions as well.
“Two years ago they had one on Amazon—Masters of the Air—and I cried every episode. My wife said “why are you crying'”, Craig said. “It was because it made me think of my dad and what they went through and the missions they flew.”
Craig said the BLM decades ago positioned a B-17 at the Kingman Airport during the summer season so that it could be deployed to drop slurry to suppress wildfires in the region. He said his dad would visit the airport to mingle with crew members and reconnect with his beloved bombing bird.,
Craig said the Airport-stationed B-17 was deployed when 11-people were killed in Kingman‘s historial railroad car explosion on July 5, 1973. It dropped slurry to stop spread of a wildfire sparked by the deadly railroad disaster.
Legendary reporter Dick Waters corroborated the event in a piece published in the Miner newspaper on August 2, 1973, about a month after the Doxol blast.
Waters wrote that he actually witnessed the very skillful slurry drop by the B-17 to stop the wildfire flames.
A B-17 commemmorative art piece Craig Chastain purchased from the Smithsonian as a gift for his World War 2 pilot dad.
“From our vantage point by the big water tanks up the hill from McCall‘s Dairy, we saw a master craftsman fly an old B-17 Flying Fortress about as well as any man could,“ Waters wrote. He reported that he learned that the B-17 pilot that day was 50-year-old Don Clark, who flew a P-47D for the U.S. Air Force during the war.
“Don flew 102 missions over France and Germany and emerged unscathed by the guns of the super-race which was soon to close its gas ovens and start practicing how to smile and be good fellows again,“ Waters wrote 52 years ago.
Mohave County Supervisor Don Martin also fortifies the retardant drop anecdote. Martin said he was in his Kingman Police department patrol car and was racing across the desert to rescue two kids as wildfire flames advanced upon them when his rig was suddenly and decisively disabled by the air drop.
“They laid a line of slurry and when they did they hit my patrol car with that slurry. It‘s so heavy. It caved in the roof of my patrol car and bent the light bar,“ said Martin, reflecting upon the vehicle‘s retardant-colored decoration. “Boy I wish I would of taken a picture of it, but it turned my white Dodge into ‘titty’ pink.”
Bullhead City Volunteer fire chief Larry Adams traveled to Kingman to work the railroad explosion. He recalled that the retardant drops helped save the Doxol Office and the66 Truckstop.
“The pink slurry was everywhere in that area where the bomber had gone over and dropped it,” Adams wrote in an incident reflection statement years ago. “It probably had a lot to do with the 66 Truckstop still standing when we got there.”
Adams said assistant chief Lynn Pember led the charge in the fire battle at the Truckstop.
“I could see his back. It was just solid red,” Adams remembers. “He had run in there and hit the slippery and slimy fire retardant. That just about stopped my heart.”
Chester Chastain died in Kingman more than 30 years ago in January, 1995. His son thinks he‘ll be in tune, and touched, when the Flying Fortress Parkway is completed and dedicated.
“If he was still alive today, he would put on his uniform, which he was cremated in, and most likely go out for the ribbon- cutting,” Craig said. “He will definitely be smiling down from the heavens on that day.”
Becky Foster contributed to this story.
