wendover report no. 3

(note: the following text is excerpted from this article that details the history of wendover airforce base. the photos were taken may 8, 2007 by me)
Wendover Air Field, along the Utah-Nevada border about 100 miles west of Salt Lake City, was the training site for the 509th Group prior to their mission over Japan to drop the atomic bombs in 1945. On 01 January 1979 the Hill and Wendover Ranges, and part of the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, were consolidated into the Utah Test and Training Range and placed under the management of the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) at Edwards Air Force Base.

By late 1943 Manhattan Project scientists were confident enough to tell the Army Air Forces (AAF) to begin preparing for the atomic bomb’s use. At that time, the AAF decided that the B-29 Superfortress aircraft would be the delivery vehicle. It also selected one of its most able aviators, Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., to form and train a group devoted solely to dropping the device. He selected the remote Wendover Army Air Field (AAFld), Utah, as the training site. The 509th’s training was to be completely shrouded in the deepest secrecy, therefore the desert isolation of Wendover Field was ideal. In September 1944, Colonel Tibbets moved the squadron to Wendover. From November 1944 to June 1945 they trained continually for the first atomic bomb drop. In April 1945, Colonel Tibbets declared the group ready and moved to its new home, North Field, Tinian, the Marianas. By June 1945, the entire group had arrived and once again, it entered a period of intense training. Not until well after the war did the United States Air Force officially admit that the 509th had trained at Wendover Field.


…A mock enemy city was constructed near the mountains on the base using salt from the nearby Bonneville Salt Flats. This made a fine practice target for the many bomber crews, as did the life-sized enemy battleships and other targets elsewhere on the range. Many of the targets were even electrically illuminated for night practice. Various machine gun ranges allowed gunners to either fire at moving targets from stationary gun emplacements or fire at stationary targets from three machine guns mounted on a railroad car moving along a section of track at up to 40 miles per hour (Wendover’s famous “Tokyo Trolley”). Wendover’s realistic challenges for aerial gunners and bombardiers caused them to become the best trained in the world.

By late 1943 there were approximately 2,000 civilian employees and 17,500 military personnel at Wendover. Construction at the base continued for most of the war, and by May 1945 the base consisted of 668 buildings, including a 300-bed hospital, gymnasium, swimming pool, library, chapel, cafeteria, bowling alley, two movie theatres, and 361 housing units for married officers and civilians.
…In August 1961 the Air Force inactivated Wendover Air Force Auxiliary Field, with Hill AFB assigned “caretaker status” for the installation. Then in August 1977 Hill AFB turned over most of Wendover Air Force Auxiliary Field to the town of Wendover, Utah, retaining only a 164 acre radar site on the old base. The military career of this remote yet important airfield was at an end.