Utah air base saw the birth of Atomic Age

WENDOVER — Wendover Airfield sits in the middle of one of the largest, flattest chunks of nowhere in the United States: millions of acres of salt and saltbush, surrounded by more of the same. In 1944, that made it isolated enough to hide a secret that would change the world.

The mission to drop Little Boy, the atomic bomb detonated above Hiroshima 60 years ago today, and Fat Man, the bomb that hit Nagasaki three days later, was fine-tuned at the Wendover Army Air Corps base — under such a cloak of secrecy that only one man on the entire base knew what was really going on there. Only later was it revealed that Wendover was a crucial part of the bombing missions credited with both bringing an end to World War II and ushering in the atomic age, distinctions that are at once heralded and fraught with controversy.

Sixty years later, the isolation and secrecy that served Wendover and America well in the mid-1940s are what keep the old air base from getting the recognition it now deserves, say those who would like to see it turned into a tourist destination. Even the Enola Gay, the famous B-29 that dropped Little Boy, now resides in a museum 2,000 miles away in Virginia.

That doesn't stop Jim Peterson from dreaming, though. Peterson is president of the nonprofit Historic Wendover Airfield Foundation, which he founded in 2001; his son Tom is the group's volunteer historian. Both Petersons envision a Williamsburg-like living museum full of people in World War II uniforms working on remodeled bombers, as well as period-piece USO shows, sleepovers for tourists in renovated barracks, rides in World War II-era planes, and maybe an aviation camp.

Currently there are a small museum and a renovated building that serves as the terminal for casino jets that bring in gamblers from around the West and Midwest.

The living museum would cost about $80 million, Peterson estimates. In the meantime, the foundation is trying to raise at least $5 million to renovate the cavernous, corrugated metal hangar that once housed the Enola Gay. With that as a centerpiece — kind of the equivalent of an anchor department store at a mall — says West Wendover, Nev., city manager Chris Melville, maybe more money would start coming in.

"Hopefully out there, there's an old veteran who's made millions who would think, 'I was stationed there and I'd like to contribute,' " says Melville, who adds that since the air base is a "national gem," the renovation should be a national effort.

The way it was