Wendover Air Force Base

Where it sits. Wendover Air Force Base occupies the flat desert immediately south-east of the town of Wendover, Utah, on the western edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert and directly against the Nevada state line. From the air it is a plain cross of runways with a scatter of tar-paper barracks, hangars and a control tower; from the ground it is a preserved Second World War airfield sitting in one of the emptiest quarters of the United States, with the Bonneville Salt Flats a few kilometres north-east and the Silver Island Range on the horizon. The field is still operational as Wendover Airport, and the historic base occupies the ground around it, maintained by a preservation group after decades of neglect.

The story behind it. Wendover was chosen in 1940 precisely because there was nothing here. The Army acquired an enormous bombing and gunnery range across the surrounding desert — for a time the largest such reserve in the world — and from 1942 the base trained heavy bombardment groups, beginning with B-17 Flying Fortress units and continuing with B-24 Liberators. By May 1945 it had grown into a small city of 668 buildings, including a 300-bed hospital, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, a library, a chapel, a bowling alley, two cinemas and 361 units of married housing, all in the middle of a salt desert. Its place in history, though, comes from the autumn of 1944, when the 509th Composite Group arrived under Colonel Paul Tibbets and trained here in extreme secrecy for the atomic missions against Japan. The hangar in which the Enola Gay was housed still stands; in 2009 it was named one of the most endangered historic places in the country, and preservation work has continued in fits and starts since.

On screen. Wendover's combination of period hangars, wide aprons and absolute emptiness has made it a recurring set for productions that need a secret military installation. The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) shot here, as did Mulholland Falls (1996), Hulk (2003), The Core (2003) and, more recently, Amazon's Fallout series in 2024. Two uses stand out. Independence Day (1996) staged its desert-airbase material on this field, and the ragged assembly of pilots receiving the President's speech before the final counter-attack was filmed against these wartime hangars. Con Air (1997) used the airfield for its desert airstrip sequence, where the hijacked prison transport puts down among the wrecks and the shooting starts — a set-piece that filled a substantial stretch of Wendover's apron with staged destruction. The visual logic is straightforward: the buildings are genuinely of the period, the flat light is merciless, and there is nothing in any direction to keep out of frame.

What you actually see today. Historic Wendover Airfield runs a museum in the restored Operations Building, with exhibits on the training groups, the 509th, and the base's civilian life. Outside, you can walk or drive among the surviving structures — the officers' club, the service club, chapel foundations, barracks in various states of collapse, and the great wooden-trussed hangars, of which the Enola Gay hangar is the one people come for. Much of the site is unimproved: gravel and cracked concrete, weeds through the pavement, doors that have not opened in seventy years. Some buildings are stabilised and interpreted, others are simply standing. It is an unusually honest historic site, closer to an industrial ruin than a manicured park, and it is more affecting for it.

Practicalities. Wendover town, split across the state line into Wendover, Utah, and West Wendover, Nevada, provides fuel, motels, casinos on the Nevada side, and restaurants; it is a stop rather than a destination, but it is the only one for a long way. Admission to the museum is modest, opening hours vary seasonally, and it is worth confirming them before making a special trip. Surfaces on the airfield are uneven and there is no shade at all; summer afternoons here regularly pass 38°C.

Getting there and timing. Interstate 80 runs straight to Wendover: about 190 kilometres west of Salt Lake City and 640 kilometres east of Reno, with the salt flats passing the window on the approach. Spring and autumn are the comfortable seasons. The site pairs naturally with the Bonneville Salt Flats a few minutes up the road, and between them they account for a remarkable share of the screen images of empty America produced since the 1980s. Aviation enthusiasts should check the museum's event calendar; visiting warbirds occasionally use the field, and seeing a period aircraft on this apron collapses eighty years in a moment.