The massive runways serves as a civilian airport, while the few dozen intact buildings (including all seven hangars), remain the largest and most complete WWII air force training facility left in the nation. The entire field was handed over to the City of Wendover in 1991.Ĭurrently most of Wendover AFB lies abandoned. In 1976 the base was declared surplus and renamed Decker Field. During the Cold War, Wendover AFB was seen as mostly surplus, only occasionally used for training purposes and frequently manned by a skeleton crew. After the war, JB-2 testing continued at Wendover, as did the use of remote-controlled planes. The war ended before the JB-2 was put into use. The crews each made 50 practice runs at Wendover before Tibbets declared the 509th combat-ready and had them moved to Tinian in the Pacific.Īt the very end of WWII, Wendover served as the main testing ground for the Republic-Ford JB-2, the American copy of the WWII German V-1 flying bomb. Col Paul Tibbets selected Wendover due to its isolation, but also proximity to Los Alamos where the bombs were being made. However the most famous group that trained at Wendover was the 509th Composite, which prepared for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with their new Silverplate modified B-29 Superfortresses in late 1944. P-47 fighter crews of the 72nd Fighter Wing were also trained here.
#B29 ENOLA GAY HANGAR MOVIE#
As well as 668 other buildings, including a hospital, gymnasium, swimming pool, library, chapel, cafeteria, bowling alley, two movie theaters, and 361 housing units for married officers and civilians.ĭuring its 5 years of operation during WWII, 20 bombing groups were trained in individual and crew functions, and group flying formations as well as practice bombing runs. By 1943 Wendover AFB was a massive facility, with 2000 employees and 17500 military personnel working in what would become three 2500 m paved runways, a 28000 m^2 ramp, and seven hangars. There was a major lawsuit by local ranchers, but the military went ahead. In 1940 the Wendover Air Force Base was established, serving as a training facility for B-17 and B-24 flight crews, due to its excellent flying weather and limited local population (100). Not much else occurred in the small community until WWII. In 1914, the transcontinental telephone line was connected at Wendover. Wendover was a small town established in 1908 on the Utah border with Nevada right on the edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert as a train stop for the Western Pacific Railroad.