Landracing Forum
Bonneville Salt Flats Discussion => Bonneville General Chat => Topic started by: mtkawboy on January 28, 2011, 01:07:56 PM
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http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/Wendovers-Atomic-Secret.html I thought you guys might enjoy this article on the early days of Wendover
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A fine story. Thanks for the link. I read it during my lunch break - and now I know lots more about the history behind the Wendover airfield. I'd recommend the read to all.
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My 1st trip to Bonneville/Wendover was in 1953. The Air Base was pretty much intact at that time. Not being smart enough to take any pictures at the time I am sorry now. I remember driving around some of it but not a lot of information was availble to the general; public at that time.
The book (Winds of Change) by Ronald R.Bateman ISBN 0-9745983-2-1 soft bound, or ISBN 0-794983-1-3 hard bound are a treasure of the Wendover city and Air Base. A full chapter on the Bonneville salt flats history. Last year the books were available at the Air Port and the visitors center. If you can still get them they are worth every dollar.
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http://www.amazon.com/Wendover-Winds-Change-Ronald-Bateman/dp/0974598321
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Great little read there. Thank you for sharing it.
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I always love reading about old army air fields. Love field here in dallas was the training base for WWI fighter pilots!
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I went through Wendover on a train to Elko yesterday and they have removed about 1/3 of the siding and roof from the big hangar. Looks like the restoration is rolling along still. The SCTA trailers looked alright in the storage lot next to the tracks too...
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The 509th bomber squadron had a reunion in Wendover back in 1990, if my memory serves me correctly & Colonel Tibbets was in town. In all the years I worked for Al Teague, that was the only time I recall him leaving the salt before the day was done & we were in the middle of an engine change. Al has always been a huge history buff & is well versed on the legacy of Wendover & the 509th. I would liked to have witnessed the 'history meets history' event,
Paul Tibbets, Chuck Yeager & Al Teague but Betsy needed a transplant. Sid.
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Treit was there when the monument was dedicated.
FREUD
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Fortunately we had a connection to the history in Ben Jordan, heard a lot of stories on the drives to the salt from Denver, the lakester was not named the Bockscar by accident.
Some of the folks may remember all those old guys around Wendover during speedweek in 1990, that was the 509th reunion. Quite a few of the guys came out to the salt to watch the races. One in particular was an honorary member of our crew, Fred Bock, the normal pilot of the Bockscar, the airplane Chuck Sweeney piloted to drop the bomb that proved we could do it again. As a little tidbit, the Fatman was basically the same size as the 10K LB blockbuster bombs the B-29s from the 509th were dropping. Fred and his crew dropped the last bomb of the war on Koromo Japan, Aug 14th. The bomb totally destroyed the town located on the outskirts of Nagoya.... it was later rebuilt and renamed Toyota.... yep they started making cars there...
Wendover was picked because of the remoteness... easy to spot a stranger in the middle of no where... notice they didn't move it, it's still there :roll:
guess it took too long to write, ya beat me to the 90 info...
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God Bless those boys that hung their .icks out soa many years ago!@
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I am so amazed at the rapid development of aircraft and other technology during that WWII period. Just as an example, it was a less than 15 months between concept of the B-29 and when they started rolling off the Boeing assembly line. I am sure there are even more amazing examples of development too. It just shows what can happen when you are really motivated and the government throws all the money it has at a project.
Don
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The year they had the reuinon there were a bunch of Japanese race teams that had cars shipped over in containers & raced. It was kind of strange seeing the Enola Gay bunch there with all the Japanese at the same time but there were no problems. Im guessing they were too young to even know about it