7-18-2020 Wendover, NV Part I

If you drive around the country as often as we do, I guess you’re bound to encounter one of just about everything, eventually.  All Friday, the wind had been gusty, blowing us all over the road.  Late in the day maybe about 5PM, on Hwy 80 about 20 miles from Wendover just past the little berg of Oasis, we saw black smoke, then a debris field in flames.  A flatbed truck was hauling away a big burned chunk that looked like a wing.  Regretfully, I fear we had just come upon a plane crash and the situation looked grim.  We haven’t found any info on this.

Another note:  Pocatello has an interesting small “monument” with an Indian chief’s head in profile and the word “Chief” on it.  This was the sign that had been created for the movie theater that opened on January 5, 1938.   Mom would have gone to the movies there to neck when she was a teenager.  Admission was 49 cents.  I suspect that this sign will be torn down, now, in accordance with the latest trendy effort to homogenize the human race.  (By the way, rumor has it that New Zealand’s rugby team, the All Blacks, formed and named in the 1890s, is planning to change its name.  Ain’t that special?)

We spent most of our day at the Wendover Airfield.  We knew that there was a museum here but we found abandoned barracks and a few hangars, some weather-worn plaques and one forlorn DC4 firefighter.  Finally, we found the museum which, when the base was active, was actually the Officers’ Club.  Landon, the Curator threw open the doors and gave us a warm welcome.  We were full of questions; Landon was full of answers.

Atomic mission hangar - Note the cut-out
above the hangar doors.  They had to add
this to accommodate the tall tail
of the B29.

The bombsights were unloaded from the
airplanes after each run and stored in
these vaults for security reasons

Original control tower built in 1942

It is still an active airfield but its claim to fame is really its past.  It was the home of thousands of troops who trained for WWII.  At its peak, 18,000 military troops and 2,000 civilians lived on this base.  Construction began in 1939.  By 1941, groups and squadrons were stationed here and by the end of WWII, 20 groups of 4 squadrons each had been trained.  McArthur said that the gunners who came from Wendover were some of the best gunners in the Army. 

Inside the atomic mission hangar - Col.
Tibbet's office is above and behind this F86.

Bomb loading pit

Significantly, this base was the last training stop for the group that was to deliver the atomic bomb.  The hangar that could house two B29s is fully-restored and up in one corner is Col. Paul Tibbet’s office.  The Enola Gay and Bock’s Car were stationed here, their last stop before Tinian Island.  It is here at this base where bombing groups practiced loading the airplanes and making bombing runs.  Dummies of Fat Man and Little Boy were loaded but they were so heavy that the method of loading them onto the B29s consisted of lowering the dummy bombs into pits in the ground, rolling the airplanes over the pits and then lifting the bombs into their bays.  Little Boy weighed 9,000 lb. and Fat Man tipped the scales at 10,000.  A practice run loading, carrying and suddenly dropping this kind of weight was a fine art.  Other skills that were honed were the sighting in and firing of the on-board machine guns from the airplanes which were tethered to the ground.  Recoil, don’tchaknow.

Little Boy dummy bomb in the Officers'
Dance Hall

Original barracks

Living conditions in the Wendover area were harsh.  Oppressively hot summers and unbearably cold winters in the sparsely furnished barracks were a fact of life for these heroes.  Of the hundreds of buildings that were here at this base, only 90 remain:  some barracks, the nurses’ quarters and some of the hospital buildings, a few of the hangars and bath houses.  The severe quarters had no air conditioning, of course, and there were 3 stoves for the cold winter months. 

Typical barracks with porches

Restored barracks

Landon and Lindy on the
porch of a restored barracks

Vargas girls pin-ups in the barracks

Officers' Club cafeteria

Officers' Club - Now the museum

The devotees of the history of the events that occurred at Wendover Airfield do not wish to reconstruct but to restore and as generous donations are received, small projects make some progress.  What we thought would be a brief visit turned into an entire afternoon and Landon was a fine tour guide.  What a fantastic experience and another humbling lesson in gratitude to our brave war fighters.  If this memorial is an indicator, they are gone but they are far from forgotten.💖