Dalhart Army Air Base
Texas
The only squadron that ever flew an atomic bombing mission trained on the flat land outside Dalhart, Texas.
By March of nineteen forty-four, the crews training here were flying B-29 Superfortresses, because bombers were needed in the Pacific for the campaign against Japan. Several groups came through. One of them included the 393d Bomb Squadron, part of the 504th Bombardment Group. Colonel Paul Tibbets later picked that squadron as the core of an experimental unit. It became the first and only squadron to fly missions with atomic bombs, attacking Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of nineteen forty-five. Fighter pilots trained out here too, on the two satellite fields, learning very long range escort work in P-38 Lightnings and P-47 Thunderbolts to shepherd those B-29s all the way to the Japanese home islands. When the war ended, the training stopped and the base turned into a parking lot for surplus aircraft. Within a year the useful equipment was hauled away and the buildings were taken apart and sold.
This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
The 393d was the first and only squadron to fly missions with Atomic Bombs and attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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