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The stripped-down planes were necessary to achieve the altitude and speed that would be needed to get away from the exploding bomb. Today, you can cruise around the world at 40,000 feet and think nothing of it.
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These were the best airplanes around at the time. Special engines were added, along with modified bomb bay doors.
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All of the extra weight that could possibly be removed was taken from the plane. To carry the bomb, we used stripped-down and modified B-29s. Some scientists believed that the bomb would start a chain reaction that would blow up the whole universe while some claimed that the bomb wouldn’t do anything at all. We think.†I remember looking at the guy and asking if he could be a little more definite than that! He replied that he didn’t know. One of the scientists said to us, “We think the airplane will be ok if you are eight miles away when the bomb explodes. When we arrived at our training site in Wendover, Utah, we were called together to meet with some of the scientists working on the project. These planes were not going to go out and drop huge numbers of bombs along with the rest of the 20th Air Force. You look at the bomb bays, and there is only one hook up there. If you looked at our airplanes, you knew that we were going to be doing something different. This was primarily because of the secrecy of the project. We couldn’t send our planes out to any other place to get operated on, so we needed crews who could perform maintenance to be stationed with us. In all, the 509th Composite Group had about 1,800 people total, all working to prepare for the deployment of the atomic bomb. We had 15 bombing crews organized and trained to drop atomic weapons. The Enola Gay was not the only thing we had in our arsenal. One of them is that everything was about the Enola Gay, and only the Enola Gay. I am going to puncture a few of them right now. There are a lot of myths that have grown up about the Enola Gay and about the dropping of the atomic bomb. Van Kirk would be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Silver Star, and 15 Air Medals for his service. Six and one-half hours later, they deployed the first atomic bomb in history over the city of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, Van Kirk, Tibbets, and Ferebee, now aboard a B-29 Superfortress called the Enola Gay, took off from Tinian for mainland Japan. While serving in Europe, the crew of the Red Gremlin was given a number of important missions, including transporting Generals Mark Clark and Dwight D. He was soon assigned to the 97th Bomb Group, the first operational B-17 Flying Fortress unit in England, where he served as navigator aboard the Red Gremlin along with pilot Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Ferebee. If anyone has WW II memorabilia, they may be interested in donations of such artifacts for the museum.By Major Theodore “Dutch†Van Kirk, Navigator of the Enola Gay Theodore “Dutch†Van Kirk joined the Army Air Corps in 1941.
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This was a significant training base for aircrews during WW II, not just learning how to manage the atomic bomb in flight, and there is an active effort to preserve the buildings here, they can use donations if anyone is interested in helping preserve history.
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I would recommend avoiding second full week of August for a visit unless speed and salt are what you are after. Unfortunately, I was there during Speed Week on the salt flats and this drives up hotel rates and causes salt to be absolutely everywhere in town. Wendover is an active airfield so limited tours are available to see the hangers and bomb loading pit from the flight line, sorry I could not do that, but 'next time' I will know how to schedule my visit because tours are at 1:30 PM as I recall. There is signage posted in various locations to help identify and explain the use of various hangers and other buildings. Some original buildings have been restored and contain some interesting displays. I had been told about the significance of Wendover Army Airfield and what went on here so on this trip I stopped in and glad I did.