'Leftover Field': Clock is ticking to preserve Wendover site's often forgotten legacy

WENDOVER, Tooele County —Carved from salt flats and sagebrush at the intersection of Isolation and Bleak, Wendover Airfield circa 1945 was as key to America's war effort as it was removed from prying eyes.

During a USO performance there, legendary comedian Bob Hope had servicemen in the audience howling with laughter when he jokingly referred to the World War II airbase as "Leftover Field."

Hope's punch line still works describing the airfield's dilapidated remnants. Only it's no longer a laughing matter for Jim Petersen, director of Tooele County's Wendover Airport, which encompasses much of the base's historic footprint.

Like an old soldier, Wendover Field is fading away. And Petersen, an electrical engineer by training, and aviation history buff by serendipity, is burdened knowing the clock is ticking on preserving Wendover's often ignored legacy that helped usher in the Atomic Age and bring World War II to a swifter end.

There's plenty that needs preserving, too. More than 90 vintage Army Air Force buildings remain out of over 600 that once stood during the base's heyday, when upward of 20,000 officers, enlisted men and civilians were at one time stationed there. But it's a half-full, half-empty number given that hundreds of structures have been ripped down for scrap or salvage, or allowed to surrender to age and elements.

"There's nothing to compare with it anywhere," said Peter?sen, sitting behind the wheel of a restored Willys Jeep while giving a tour, much like one he took nearly a decade ago when he fell under the airfield's spell.

"I was captivated," said the 62-year-old, who also wears a second hat as head of the nonprofit Historic Wendover Airfield Foundation, which he formed in 2001. "The more I researched the history and found out, the more convinced I became that it needed to be saved. This is a part of Utah history that a lot of people don't know about."

Petersen recently scored a huge victory in his battle against time when the airfield's hulking main hangar was placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of America's 11 Most Endangered Public Places.

Work also began in early November on a $450,000 Save America's Treasures grant that will stabilize the 50,000-square-foot hangar that housed B-29 Superfortresses Enola Gay and Bockscar, which dropped the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki late in the summer of 1945.

"Most people don't realize the significance of the contribution to the Manhattan Project that took place here," Petersen explained.

OFF THE GRID

The Manhattan Project conjures up images of scientists donning lab coats, scribbling complex formulas on chalkboards to create the original weapons of mass destruction.