Wednesday 9/18/24 Historic Wendover Airfield Day 9

September 30, 2024

Wednesday 9/18/24 Day 9

Historic Wendover Airfield & Bonneville Salt Flats

Wendover Airfield was built in the early 1940’s after the outbreak of WWII to train bomber crews in gunnery and bombing. At it’s peak it housed 20,000 airmen, doctors, nurses, ground crews, and support staff in over 600 buildings. It's still used today as an airport but no longer has any scheduled flights since the local casino charter flights stopped during Covid.

We weren't able to tour the whole facility as the Officer's Club and Enola Gay Hanger were being used for a wedding and reception... although we did walk through the hanger after the ceremony.

Both B-29 Superfortress bombers that dropped atomic bombs on Japan - The Enola Gay (named after pilot Paul Tibbets' mother) and Bockscar, trained there including practice dropping mock ups of the two bombs: Little Boy and Fat Man respectively.

But mostly, the base was used to train B-17 and B-24 bomber crews.

The guy who seems to run the place, Landon, and I had been texting for a few days so I asked him if we might get a quick peek into the officer's club and he agreed. He said to talk with Kathy and she'll let us in.

Kathy grew up in the area and was there before the base was built, so she saw all the construction beforehand, and then helped deliver mail when she was about 6. She still remembers going to the officer's club after making her deliveries for hamburgers and milkshakes with some of the pilots.

It was very cool talking with her.

We were also able to see some of the prep for the wedding...

Another claim to fame is that Wendover Airfield was used in a scene in the Nicolas Cage movie ConAir, and they still have the derelict plane there.

A few months after the end of our trip we were watching the movie "The Fastest Indian" staring Anthony Hopkins. It's about a guy who set the land speed record for motorcycles. Some of the movie was filed here.

We also took a look into the "Enola Gay" hanger. It housed that plane as well as others as they were stationed there for training.

Now there is a plan in place to turn it into a museum, but today is was storing a few planes, army vehicles, and was the location where the couple took their vows.

A good walk from the hanger took us to the Army Nurse Corp barracks.

This tells a little of their story...

This chapel was once part of the airbase but has been sold and turned into apartments. There is a movement to buy it back and restore it's original wartime state.

On our way out of town we were able to find another Roadside America attraction…Wendover Will! The world’s largest cowboy. He is 90 feet tall, made of metal and lights up. We then made our way across the state line from Nevada to Utah and to our overnight boondocking location, the Bonneville Salt Flats!