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I did call him but he didn't know of a B29 by that name either so "the Dutchess" remained unidentified. We spent about a half hour talking about it but he didn't recall the name and suggested that it might have been a research B29 out of Los Alamos and suggested I call Chuck Sweeney in Boston and gave me his phone number.
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He was quite helpful and told me about the special production run of B29s in Witchita and how to identify them from a regular production model. I simply called Paul Tibbets on the phone (he had a jet charter company at that time) and explained about my researching a B29 named "The Dutchess". The scrap dealer thought it had been one of the "atom bomber" planes so I thought that it should be preserved if that story was true and started checking around to see if anyone could confirm it. The Preserve America program funded a Tooele County project to create a documentary film about WWII home-front training at Wendover Air Force Base. Additionally, funding helped create a master plan to restore the airfield in 2006.Tibbets used to be quite accessible- back in the mid- '70s I was researching a B29 nose that had turned up in a local salvage yard with nose art called "The Dutchess". Visit the National Park Service Travel American Aviation to learn more about Aviation related Historic Sites.
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The frame buildings were neglected after the base's closing, and fell into disrepair until the Historic Wendover Air Field Museum restored them for the benefit of the public. When we arrived at our training site in Wendover, Utah, we were called together to. The buildings that remain are typical of military buildings constructed during World War II. by Major Theodore Dutch Van Kirk, Navigator of the Enola Gay. Wendover Air Force Base was closed by the Air Force in 1963. The American "JB-2," a version of the German V-1 rocket, was also extensively tested at Wendover. Air Force vehicle to break the sound barrier occurred over the Wendover bombing range. National Park Service photo b圜ourtesy of Thomas Peterson, Historian, Historic Wendover Airfield Museumĭuring the final days of World War II and for a short time in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Wendover played a role in the U.S. Interior of B-52 Hangar, Wendover Air Force Base It was Colonel Tibbits, flying his B-29, "Enola Gay," who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.
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The base also served as the test and training site for the atomic bomb and the 509th Composite Group under the command of Colonel Paul W. Additionally, members of three bomb groups trained in Wendover won the Medal of Honor. Twenty-one heavy bomb groups trained in Wendover including the 306th BG (first to daylight bomb Nazi Germany), the famed 100th BG (known as the bloody 100th due to aircraft losses) and the Flying Tigers 308th Bomb Group which served in China, Burma and India. On April 6, 1942, the first training unit arrived and found the area ideal for bombing and gunnery practice due to the terrain of the region and lack of large population centers. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first. However, because of grazing commitments to local ranchers and farmers, only one and a half million acres were allocated. Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of pilot Paul Tibbets. Initially the Air Corps desired some three million acres of land of which 90 percent was public domain. By 1940 a site was located at Wendover, and work began in November of that year. High on the Air Corps list was the construction of adequate bombing and gunnery ranges. The base was first conceived in 1939 when the Army Air Corps commenced an extensive expansion program. Wendover Air Force Base, located just south of the town of Wendover, Utah, played an important role in training heavy bombardment crews and ushering in the atomic age. Damage was estimated at US1.5 million by Colonel Ray Harris, commanding officer, Ogden Air Technical Command. Operations Building, Wendover Air Force BaseĬourtesy of Thomas Peterson, Historian, Historic Wendover Airfield Museum