6, 1945, the aircraft dropped on Hiroshima the device code-named “Little Boy,” a 10,000-pound uranium-235 bomb whose explosive force killed or severely injured 140,000 people on the ground below.įor years, the isolated old airfield - set on the parched salt flats of western Utah, 360 miles north of Las Vegas - fell into disrepair, its barracks, hospital, control tower, nurses quarters and hangars all crumbling. The hangar where Petersen stands once served the Enola Gay - the plane known as the first aircraft to unleash an atomic bomb in warfare - and its crew.Īt 8:15 a.m. It was also the training site of the 509th Composite Group, the B-29 unit that dropped atomic bombs on Japan to end the war. “But this hangar has the most compelling history of all, because it played a vital role in the Manhattan Project.”ĭuring World War II, Wendover’s airfield served as a domestic base for the elite B-17 and B-24 bomber crews. “This entire base has national significance,” he says proudly.