WENDOVER, Utah — March is Women’s History Month, and at the Historic Wendover Airfield, in Wendover, Utah, they celebrate women's contribution to the war effort 80 years ago.
While many of the men were involved in bomber training, including for the mission that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, the women played critical supporting roles.
FOX 13 News asked World War II re-enactor Michelle Murphy, dressed in the women’s uniform of the era, if those women realized the magnitude of their contributions at the time. She said, “Probably not. They would think they were just there to focus, and just do what they needed to do to get the war done and over with.”
Michelle loves to step back in time to when there were 20,000 people stationed at Wendover Army Air base. 2,000 of them were women.
“It was just like all the other people who served here. Not only here, but around the country,” she said.
Landon Wilkey, Curator of the Historic Wendover Airfield Museum remembers, “First of all, there were the WASPS, the Women Air Force Service Pilots. These women were tasked with ferrying aircraft from production facilities to bases, so men didn't have to be taking up time moving aircraft just to move the aircraft for logistics."
But the women also saw their fair share of live action training, which today, may be a little perplexing.Wilkey said, “Because they were deemed maybe a little more expendable, one of their [the women] other tasks was they would fly tow planes. They would drag a target behind them on a cable, and focus on the ground with anti-aircraft or other aircraft in the sky, shooting at these towed targets." He said, “While there is no record of any women being killed, there were times when the planes they were flying would come back with bullet holes in them.”
86-year-old Lynne Kenley lived on base at Wendover from 1942 to 1964, first as a young boy, and then into adulthood. His father, Fred Kenley, was the Base Fire Chief.
Upon retirement years ago, Fred asked for the large tattered American flag that flew over the base fire station. He eventually gave the old flag to his son Lynne, who donated it to the Historic Wendover Airfield Museum, where it hangs today.
Lynne’s sister was a telephone operator on base, whose job it was to connect calls through the switchboard, and then get off the line.
He recalls, “One night, she was just a little bit slow closing and heard two people speaking in German. And they always had an FBI agent in the telephone office, almost 24/7. And she motioned him over. and he listened to what she did. And found out it was a couple of spies, trying to do some espionage here on the base."
Another act of espionage at Wendover resulted in the deaths of two maintenance workers and the destruction of a B-24 bomber.
Kenley said, “Apparently, they put what they call the fire stick in one of the coils of the engine. That started the oil on fire, which started the magnesium in the engine on fire. And you just can't put magnesium out. It just keeps burning."
Wendover Army Air Base averaged one and a half daily crashes then.
The hospital, with its 300 beds, took up an entire block on the base and was always busy. Most of the buildings are still standing. At least one of them still has the original paint and is being restored to how it was during the active years.
The nurses’ quarters are also being restored, and appear today as they did when the base’s 17 nurses called them home.
Wilkey said, “They all had their own private room."
The rest of the base personnel stayed in the barracks. Some stayed in trailers. The married personnel had their own quarters but were segregated by gender at night. The husbands had to stay in the barracks, and the wives could stay in the trailers.
The museum recently obtained a Douglas C-54 “Skymaster,” which was used as a troop transport. Flight Nurses on the C-54 accompanied the wounded back home from overseas.
As we toured the old plane, which is being restored, Wilkey said, “This could carry 24 patients on stretchers like this, stacked four high throughout the fuselage. There were almost two million soldiers transported by air evacuation before the end of the war. And those flight nurses are the ones who kept them alive in the air. They lost very few in transit."
Despite not having many of the benefits available to the regular military. Despite being considered “less than” in many cases. Despite being stereotyped, soft-pedaled, and blatantly discriminated against by today’s standards – the women of World War II at Wendover Army Air Base did their patriotic duty and served with distinction and honor.
“And so there's just a whole bunch of gratitude and thankfulness for them, said Michelle Murphy. “So I'm very humbled to have them serve for us, so that we can be free."
Women made up only ten percent of the population at Wendover back then. But their contribution was immeasurable.
The Women’s History Month tours will continue at the Historic Wendover Airfield every Friday and Saturday through the end of March. For tour times and reservations, call the museum.
