Wendover Airfield...Wendover, Utah

DATE:  October 5, 2015

HISTORICAL SITE:  Wendover Airfield

LOCATION:  Wendover, Toole Co., Utah  84083

MARKER #:  75001827

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:  

What an exciting place…so full of history!

There’s a driving tour but we didn't take it. It was hard enough finding the museum. Instead we watched a video in the museum which, in the end, was a vehicle for asking for donations. The exhibits were interesting and I hadn’t realized how much of a connection there was between Wendover Airfield and the bombings of Japan.

In 1940, Congress funded a base that was to be a bombing and gunnery range. Locations were scouted and Wendover was chosen because of availability and barrenness of the land. Ranchers protested saying the loss of 1.8 million acres of grazing land would wipe them out. The federal government kept going and building commenced in 1941.

In August 1941, one officer and 10 men moved in, with another 37 men coming soon after. The first course of business for these initial men was to set up targets on the salt flats. Eventually, because of the amount of salt, a “salt city” was built for bombing practice.

Training for the B-17 and B-24 bombers commenced in 1942. In the end, 21 bomber groups and over 1,000 aircrew were trained. These groups participated in strategic bombing in Germany, flew in support of D-Day and 3 groups are Medal of Honor recipients.

In 1944, the base changed from training bomber groups to fighter pilot training, but only 3 groups were graduated.

Unknown to most, the “Manhattan Engineer District” was established by FDR and a Colonel Tibbets was selected to head the team. Tibbets was one of very few who knew of the project and chose Wendover Airfield because of its isolation and the fact that it was virtually uninhabited.

With very little advanced notice, much haste and no explanation, the fighter pilot training was out and part of a unit based in the Marianna Islands was moved in.

Enola Gay Hanger

On December 17, 1944, 1,767 officers and men moved in, including civilian and military scientists. They were housed separately than the rest of the base. Information on their mission was so restricted that even members of the unit did not know the purpose of their training.

For the next six months, they tested 155 different shapes and sized bombs. As information came in, more and more complicated and sophisticated versions of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” bombs were developed.

On July 16, 1944, there was a successful test of the “Fat Man” bomb in New Mexico.

Not long after, President Truman warned Japan of a bomb of extraordinary destruction…Japan chose to ignore the warning. There has been disagreement over the term “warning”, but it seemed to come in several forms.

The first to the Japanese government which is called the “Potsdam Declaration” ended with:

“We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”

Some argue this is hardly a warning that the atomic bomb will be dropped but rather an ultimatum for peace.

The second “warning” were leaflets dropped on the population of several cities purported to be the ones being considered for bombing. The leaflets say:

"Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or a friend. In the next few days, four or more of the cities named on the reverse side of this leaflet will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories, which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique that they are using to prolong this useless war. Unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's well-known humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities names and save your lives. America is no fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique, which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace, which America will bring, will free the people from the oppression of the Japanese military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and better leaders who will end the War. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked, but at least four will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately."

The argument here is that this warning also says nothing about atomic bombs and that maybe the plan was more along the lines of psychological warfare than a true warning. Some say the Japanese population was already used to being bombed, so how could this have been any different?

On August 6, 1945, at 9:15am, the Enola Gay, having taken off from the Marianna Islands dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan and three days later, “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki. The estimated total causalities were approximately 105,000 killed in the initial blasts with an additional 94,000 injured.

Another bomb shell was being ready to ship to the Marianna islands and there was enough plutonium stored at Los Alamos for one more bomb, but it was halted due to the impending surrender of Japan. 

Japan informally surrendered on August 19^th with formal surrender on September 2, 1945.

Wendover Airfield continued to produce “pumpkin” bombs and components for the atomic bombs until the end of the war

Immediately following the war, the men, and some of the buildings were moved to Oxnard, California to what would become Sandia Base. Wendover Airfield would be activated, re-tooled and then deactivated over the course of next 25 years. It would be instrumental in the development and testing of various bombs and rockets.

While most of the base has been given, first to the city of Wendover and then to Tooele County, there is still a portion that is used by the military and has been renamed the Utah Test and Training Range under the management of Hill Air Force Base.

Regardless of the public opinion of the use of the atomic bomb against civilian and military targets, it cannot be argued that this caused Japan to surrender. The argument is whether the price was worth the cost, but then, how many would have died if the war had continued on as it had? Even Colonel Tibbets said we must try to understand “the necessity for the decisions of the time”.

 

Once Dirk and I were done with the museum, the woman invited us to climb to the top of the control tower which, being from a litigious state such as California, was quite the surprise. I was able to make it about half way before feeling a bit of panic setting it but Dirk made it to the top and made the following SnapChat video.