Wendover Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base in Utah now known as Wendover Airport. During World War II it was a training base for B-17 and B-24 bomber crews. It was the training site of the 509th Composite Group, the B-29 unit that dropped the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. In 2009, a hangar at the base dubbed The Manhattan Project's Enola Gay Hangar was listed as one of the most endangered historic sites in the U.S.
After the war, Wendover was used for training exercises, gunnery range and as a research facility. It was closed by the Air Force in 1969, and the base was given to Wendover City in 1977. Tooele County assumed ownership of the airport and base buildings in 1998, and the County continues to operate the airfield as a public airport. A portion of the original bombing range is now the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) which is used extensively by the Air Force with live fire targets on the range.
Read more about Wendover Air Force Base: Origins, World War II, Postwar Use, Current Uses, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words air, force and/or base:
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—Richard Bentley (1662–1742)
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—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)