Jim Petersen, President of the Historic Wendover Airfield Association, was the guest for this special Space Show program. Please excuse the few rough edits that are a result of my travel and attendance at the SmallSat conference as I am using my laptop and not the full editing facilities and programs available to me in my office. As the President of the Historic Wendover Airfield, Jim met me at Wendover on Sunday, April 12, 2007 and gave me a personal tour and interview of this site. Both Jim and I realize this is radio so it may be hard for some of you to visualize what we describe and what Jim explains about this historic site. He has sent me digital pictures of Wendover which I can send to interested listeners. In addition, while I somehow left home without my digital camera, I did use a disposable camera to take some pictures on my own and they are also digital. If you would like me to email these pictures to you, let me know. As these are pictures, again, make sure the email address you provide me can take a large quantity of data as I do not want them bouncing back or finding that I have to send them one by one to lots of listeners. Jim's pictures are slightly less than 2mb and mine are not yet developed but as I have approximately 25 possible photos to send, assume my pictures are about 5-6mb. Jim Petersen took us through a verbal tour of this historic airfield, but more important, the history that Wendover is associated with as it was part of the Manhattan Project. Listening to Jim you will learn details about the project and the atomic bombing training and missions that you likely did not know as Wendover was the training location and much more. As we go on the tour with Jim, you will hear me describe the bomb loading pits and see pictures of the actual pits. You will hear us standing and talking in the B-29 hanger that housed Enola Gay and Boxcar plus their crews and the other B-29's which were part of the program. The same for parts of the base that were dedicated to B-17's and B-24's. We describe photos for you and some of the innovative things that were done during wartime, like the chair on an important contraption made from a Pepsi carton. We walk through the enlisted men's barracks, we visit the remaining O-club which is first on the restoration projects. We go to the briefing room where the pilots and crews were briefed before missions. Jim takes us to the mock up of Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb, an exact replica of it signed by the crew, including Col. Tibbets. We learn the history of Wendover, its secrecy during the war, even the fact that no flights were ever recorded coming into Wendover. Jim is an excellent historian so if you are at all interested in history, this somewhat different Space Show program will grab your attention. The Historic Wendover Airfield is now a nonprofit and they are seeking contributions to restore the base and preserve it for history. I assure you, this is a worthy, interesting and important project to support if you are looking for good causes to donate to, in addition to The Space Show. Visit their website at www.wendoverairbase.com/. Jim Petersen can be reached for donation information plus your questions and comments at admin@wendoverairbase.com or jimpetersen@att.net. The Wendover mailing address is Mailing Address: 345 S. Airport Apron, Wendover, UT 84083.
Guest
The Space Show
