116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Time Machine: Machines of war
Cedar Rapids added retired military equipment to parks in 1960s
World War I ended when the armistice was signed Nov. 11, 1918. The next year, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 the first Armistice Day holiday in the United States.
In 1954, the United States changed the name of the observance to Veterans Day to honor and celebrate veterans of all the wars the nation has entered.
Americans also found ways to honor veterans in parks and with monuments. In Cedar Rapids, monuments to veterans sit in parks near Memorial Stadium, 950 Rockford Rd. SW, and at Seminole Valley Park in northeast Cedar Rapids.
Veterans Memorial
In the early 1960s, the Army was planned to build a reserve training center on a six-acre plot the Veterans Memorial Commission owned near Veterans Memorial Stadium. But that idea fell through in 1964.
The city’s parks department and the Veterans Memorial Commission then decided to develop the site as a war memorial. The 56-acre site -- which included the baseball stadium, built in 1949, and tennis courts -- was then named Veterans Memorial Park.
In 1965, Veterans Council Chairman Sam Cohen told The Gazette that obsolete or condemned war mementos -- a tank and jet aircraft -- would be donated for permanent display at Veterans Memorial Park when they became available.
In order to get those pieces of military equipment, Cedar Rapids had to supply a $200 demilitarization fee and transportation costs.
On Oct. 26, 1967, a 76 mm Army military surplus combat tank arrived for display on the hilltop at Rockford Road and Eighth Avenue SW in the new park. The city parks department obtained the tank from the Red River Army Depot at Defense, Texas.
It was soon joined by an anti-tank gun and a 3-ton surplus anchor from the Navy.
Adding planes
In December 1967, Air Force officials wrote Mayor Bob Johnson that a T-33 trainer jet was available for display. Cedar Rapids had to pay for disassembly, reassembly and transportation costs of several thousand dollars.
Cedar Rapids was on a priority list to get a plane, according to Parks Commissioner Don Gardner, because the city had requested one two years before but had to wait because the planes were in high demand.
The single-engine trainer plane came from an aircraft and storage disposition center at Davis-Monthan Air Force base in Arizona.
City employees reassembled the jet from crates sent from Arizona. The two-seat plane was mounted on a pylon, with the slanted base simulating ascent. Parks department employees built a fence around the plane.
A second plane, a 1952 F-84F jet, was flown into Cedar Rapids on Nov. 21, 1970, by Lt. Col. Junior L. Lane. Lane, who was from Norwalk in south-central Iowa, was chief of maintenance for the Air National Guard in Des Moines. Parks Commissioner Stan Reinis said the plane was a gift from the Air Force.
The plane was trucked from the airport to Seminole Valley Park via the Edgewood Road Bridge -- a 15-mile trip.
Other bridges and roads were too narrow to accommodate the plane, so railings, posts, mailboxes and fences were taken down temporarily to allow the plane to pass. Even a gate post at the park had to be removed. The trip took seven hours to complete.
Navy plane
In 1979, there was some confusion about an F-11A jet Cedar Rapids was supposed to have gotten from the Navy in 1968.
The Navy wanted a condition report on the jet along with current pictures of it to prove that it was being maintained. Mayor Don Canney reported back that Cedar Rapids hadn’t seen the “phantom” jet and knew nothing about it.
Neither of Cedar Rapids’ jets came from the Navy.
The only other jet Canney knew about was an F-4J Phantom jet that was crashed in a Blue Angels aerobatics performance in 1970. All internal equipment from that plane had been removed by the Navy immediately after the crash, but the fuselage remained behind for a while.
Park upgrade
When the new Veterans Memorial Stadium was being built in 2001, the T-33 jet had to be moved to a temporary location. It was moved back to a place beside the new ballpark fence when the stadium was finished.
The All Veterans Memorial Park also was upgraded, with the addition of benches and a victory wall that honors each branch of service.
The park continues to be home for the jet, an anti-tank gun, the anchor and a tank.
Comments: D.fannonlangton@gmail.com
This T-33 trainer jet arrived in Cedar Rapids from the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona in 1968 to be displayed in Cedar Rapids’ Veterans Memorial Park in southwest Cedar Rapids. It joined a tank, an anti-tank gun and an anchor at the park. This photo, taken Oct. 26, 2022, at the park, which was revamped after the new Veterans Memorial Stadium was completed in 2002. (Diane Fannon-Langton/correspondent)
Cody Jandik, 8, of Cedar Rapids, sits with his teddy bear, Bobby, on the barrel of an Army tank on May 24, 1997, at the All Veterans Memorial Park in Cedar Rapids. (Gazette archives)
An F-84F Thunderjet, a Korean War-era fighter plane display, is surrounded by water during April 4, 1993, flooding at Seminole Valley Park in Cedar Rapids. (Gazette archives)
An anti-tank gun was added to the small collection of military equipment in the late 1960s at Veterans Memorial Park in southwest Cedar Rapids. (Gazette archives)
This F-84F jet was flown to the Cedar Rapids airport in 1970 and then trucked to Seminole Valley Park, where it remains on display. It was a gift from the U.S. Air Force. (Diane Fannon-Langton/correspondent)
An Army surplus combat tank was added to Veterans Memorial Park on Oct. 26, 1967. The tank came from the Red River Army Depot at Defense, Texas, and was soon joined by an anti-tank gun and a Navy anchor. (Diane Fannon-Langton/correspondent)
A surplus Navy anchor sits outside Veterans Memorial Stadium. It was acquired by the city of Cedar Rapids parks department in 1967 for display at the Veterans Memorial Park. (Diane Fannon-Langton/correspondent)
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