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A city of salt and other targets were built on the Bonneville Salt Flats by the range detachment. Wendover Army Air Base was activated on 28 March 1942 as a B-17 and B-24 heavy bombardment training base, and the first unit, the 306th bombardment Group of four squadrons of B-17 aircraft arrived in Mid April, 1942.įew buildings were completed and training facilities were scarce when the 306th Bombardment Group arrived. Projects included a pipeline to a spring at Pilot's Peak, thus ending a water shortage. Another 37 men moved there soon after and started setting up targets on the salt desert.Ĭonstruction continued from 1940 through the end of the war, but the most intense building period was completed in 1943. The first unit to be assigned, moved to the desert post on Augwith a detachment of WW2 Historyone officer and ten enlisted men. The site was hailed as the largest bombing and gunnery range in the world. The total site was 18 to 36 miles wide and 86 miles long. This installation became a subpost of Fort Douglas, Salt Lake City, on Jand additional land acquisitions brought the total area to 1,822,000 acres. The Army Air Corps began building structures on Septemin Wendover and this would ultimately become Wendover Field. Wendover, Utah was a town of about 103 people, with railroad lines running between Salt Lake City and three West Coast cities. Wendover was selected because of the Great Salt Lake desert with its shimmering salt flats and other vast uninhabited terrain. WW2 History Wendover Field was conceived during the late 1930s, and Congress appropriated funds in 1940 for the acquisition of land for bombing and gunnery ranges.