Army Air Field mystery in California?

It may not be a mystery to all (that's why I'm here), so please excuse my naiveté if this is commonly known. I found a really cool picture (attached) of my great uncle, George H. Bonner in front of a sign that says "Shang Ri La Field." The back of the picture says "taken on August 19, 1943 at Curtiss Wright Technical Institute in Glendale, California."

So I'm usually a really good Googler - I saw one article make mention of a "Shangri La Field, possibly in Glendale" - but other than that I hit a dead end. I have the original envelope the picture was mailed in, and the return address was:

"Shangri-La Studio
1527 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, Calif."

Does anyone know what the deal is with either Shang Ri La field, or Shangri La Studio? My Great-Uncle ended up doing combat crew training at Peterson Field, CO, and ultimately ended up as a tail gunner in the 8th AF, 448th BG, 713th BS based in Seething, UK. He was shot down after only 5 combat missions and was a POW for ~1 year.

Thanks for your assistance in advance!

Steve

 

Jeff & Lou were too quick for me today. I was going to suggest that there was no Shang Ri La Field and that is was set up for taking photos. And Lou already made the point that Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute served as a training facility for airplane mechanics, and the guys in the photo are dressed for the part.

 

All in all...Yes, It is Grand Central/Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute. Was the airfield ever officially named that, no. Likely, it was part of the intended scenery, as the school trained pilots and mechanics under "real" combat conditions.

So, yes, I will gladly take Slip's money that it was a movie or photograph set...As the sign first appeared as early as May-ish, 1943, in several newspapers across the nation...Bartlett Tribune in Texas for instance.
http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth76780/m1/2/sizes/xl/
Back then films were made in days or weeks...Not months or years as they are today.

Nice write up on the history of the airport.
http://laist.com/2008/06/14/laistory_grand.php#photo-1
IIRC, the "graduating project" for mechanics was that they were led to a pile of airplane parts and told to put the aircraft back together.


Biak,
I don't think it is a PT-19...My guess would be a PT-22, but I have not found a photo of one with the radio aerial attachment on the top of the vertical stabilizer.

 

Hi Steve. I did a search here in the UK, and there is a road called Field Walk near Mildenhall, which was a large WW2 airfield, and carried on being a US base until not too long ago. And, strangely enough, there is a house in Field Walk called Sangri la. Mildenhall is not too far from Seething. This may be a complete "red herring", but you never know!

 

Just did a search on Wikipedia and got the following info:
"Throughout World War II, RAF Mildenhall remained very active. In addition to its own airfield, the base held responsibility for satellite airfields at Newmarket, Tuddenham, and Lakenheath. During the course of the war, the base witnessed the transition from the two-engine Wellington, to the four-engine Short Stirling, and finally to the Avro Lancaster. In 1941, RAF Mildenhall was used for the making of the film Target for Tonight. So as not to give away important information to the enemy, RAF Mildenhall took the fictitious name of "Millerton Aerodrome", and several other aspects were altered involving the day-to-day operations. The film, produced by the Crown Film Unit, focused on the planning and execution of an air raid on Germany, as seen by the crew of Vickers Wellington OJ-F 'F for Freddie.' Dickson, the captain of 'F for Freddie', was played by Percy Pickard, who went on to lead the real-life Operation Biting and the later Operation Jericho raid on Amiens Prison, in which his plane was shot down and he was killed.
For the duration of the war, except for a brief period to have concrete runways laid in 1943, RAF Mildenhall was involved in most of RAF Bomber Command's many offensives against Germany. While carrying out its operational duties, the base withstood several attacks by the German Luftwaffe, but was never put out of commission (typically, the base's downtime after an attack lasted until personnel could fill in the damage to the runways).
By the end of the war, aircraft from RAF Mildenhall and its satellite airfields dropped over 23,000 tons of explosives, laid 2,000 mines in enemy waters, and flew over 8,000 sorties. The base also saw the loss of over 200 Wellington, Stirling, and Lancaster aircraft, and more significantly, the loss of over 2,000 aircrew members. Some of those killed, including Pilot Officer Rawdon Hume Middleton, an Australian who was posthumously awarded Britain's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, are buried at St. Johns Church[8] cemetery in Beck Row.[9]"

 

I have gone off at a tangent here, but found the following which you might find interesting. There is a volunteer-run museum at Seething Airfield, and the link is:

http://www.seething-airfield.com/history.php

You will find a picture of ythe 713th Heavy Bombardmet Squadron in the History section.

 

Sorry Steve. The last message did not copy/paste the link properly. it is



http://www.seething-airfield.com/history.php

 

Wow thanks all for the replies - very helpful and very interesting. Grand Central makes the most sense. I wonder (and perhaps some of you know) why my Great-Uncle trained as what appears to be a mechanic, when he went on to be a tail gunner in a B-24? My Grandmother told me that "he wasn't originally going to be a tail-gunner, he was going to be something else (she hadn't heard mechanic), but his eyes were terrible and doctors thought he might go blind." Though this didn't make a *whole* lot of sense to me, because one would think that good eyes were needed to shoot planes down(?)

amiwrong?

Thanks again for all of your input!

 

Hi Judyp, thank you! I am actually a member of the Seething museum - I was in contact with the historian (Pat Everson) at Seething quite often while beginning my research several months ago. If anyone else needs assistance researching the 8th AAF, 448th BG, I'm more than happy to point you toward some fantastic contacts I've made!

 

My guess is that the photos were processed and shipped from the return address location, but were taken separately at Curtiss-Wright. Looking at some of the feedback and checking out the address now, whatever was there appears to be long gone. I bet the photo shop had a set on Curtiss-Wright that the trainees could take pictures in front of and have sent home.

 

Winner winner!

 

I find it interesting and possibly coincidental that Shangri-La is tied to Doolittle. If memory serves, Doolittle went on to be the commander of the 8th AAF during the time which my great-uncle served in the 8th AAF and was captured.

 

I concur with the Ryan PT-22. No wire bracing on the Fairchild.

 

I have a photo of my Father and 8 other men in front of the same exact airfield sign. He was a mechanic on b24 bombers in WW2. I know he did his training and southern California, and spent most of the war in Foggia Italy and some where in Africa. He was from maine.