216th Army Air Force Base Unit (Special) Second Air Force

216^th Army Air Force Base Unit (Special) Second Air Force
 
Edit 25Kingman49: In further research the exception noted below by darrelld Darrell Dvorak is extremely accurate and factual. The 216^th AAF Base Unit (Special) was never attached to the 509^th CG. This units reporting responsibility remained with the Second Air Force through CG Maj. Gen. Robert B. Williams with a dual and perhaps primary reporting responsibility to the Manhattan Project (MP) through CO Maj. Gen. Leslie Richard Groves, Jr. and Capt. William Sterling "Deak" Parsons USN. As a result I have edited the title of this thread to properly identify the 216^th AAFBU with the Second Air Force and not being attached to the 509^th CG. I have not edited the body of this thread as to continue to show my original misconceptions about the 216^th AAFBU being attached to the 509^th CG. I do this as these misconceptions may be common among MP researchers as so little record remains for the activities of the 216^th AAFBU
 
Darrell has provided invaluable evidence of these facts with documents from his Father-in Law Col. Clifford J. Heflin, CO 216^th AAF Base Unit (Special). With this new information in hand I filed three Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests two with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and one with the AFHRA, Maxwell, AFB. Due to the possible nuclear security sensitivity of this requested information the first FOIA was filed with NNSA, which lead to the filing of the Air Force FOIA and then back to the NNSA for the third FOIA. I hope the following information is useful to future researchers to show what ground has already been covered. The responses to these FOIA’s will be covered in a separate AAF forum thread titled “216^th AAFBU records purged from history”.
See: http://forum.armyairforces.com/216th-AAFBU-Special-Wendover-Field-records-purged-from-history-m225919.aspx  
 
Below is the list of FOIA’s filed in chronological order with filing and response dates, also including a description of what documents were requested:
1.    NNSA FOIA request: 12-00256-H, filed: 18 July 2012, response: 24 July 2012; requesting: GO’s and SO’s issued by or under Col. Clifford Heflin’s Command from 19 January 1945 – 22 October 1945 at Wendover Field.
2.    USAF AFHRA FOIA request: 2012-05090-F, AFHRA Ref.# RFI # 2012-22105, filed: 24 July 2012 and revised on 6 August 2012 to include a search for: a copy of all GO’s and SO’s signed by Col. Clifford Heflin while commander of the 216^th AAF Base Unit, at HQ Wendover Field, Utah  during the period of 19 January through 22 October 1945.  In the revision, I added a request for the Tables of Organization for the Flight Test Section and the Special Ordinance Detachment of the 216^th AAFBU. Response: 14 August 2012.
3.    NNSA FOIA request: FOIA 12-00303-H, filed 29 August 2012, response: 14 September 2012; requesting:

• All Table(s) of Organization “TO” for the Flight Test Section, 216th Base Unit (Special), Wendover Army Airfield, Utah, under the Command of Major Clyde S. Shields, for the calendar year 1945. 
• Any and all Personnel Rosters for the 216th Base Unit (Special), Flight Test Section for the calendar year 1945. 
• All Table(s) of Organization “TO” for the Special Ordinance Detachment, 216th Base Unit (Special), Wendover Army Airfield, Utah, under the Command of Capt. Henry Roerkohl, for the calendar year 1945. 
• Any and all Personnel Rosters for the 216th Base Unit (Special), Special Ordinance Detachment for the calendar year 1945.

 
The Beginning:
The 216^th Army Air Force Base Unit was already in existence as it was originally affiliated with the original mission of Wendover Field as a training base for B-17 and B-24 bomber groups and even a wing of P-47 fighters. The P-47’s would be the last conventional unit to be trained at Wendover field, departing in August or September 1944. During this interim time period in August 1944 only the permanent cadre and a half dozen administrative aircraft remained. There was some confusion at Wendover as training operations were being suspended and there was some speculation among base personnel that the base might be closing. During this odd period at Wendover, a lone B-29 landed and the pilot came into headquarters declaring his desire to inspect the general facilities of the base. This pilot was at the time Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets on his mission to select a home for the 509^th CG, unknown to base personnel Wendover had already been placed on a very short list of possible homes for the 509^th CG. At the time of this visit the ranking headquarters officer was Captain Thomas L. Karnes who provided the tour of the base for Lt. Col. Tibbets.
 
Tibbets returned a few weeks later having made up his mind that Wendover was the perfect location to headquarter the 509^th CG. Tibbets again met with Karnes this time explaining he was organizing an unusual bomb group that would have a large number of men with rare qualification, but thought many of the base cadre could be utilized as the nucleus of the group and offered Captain Karnes the job of 509^th CG Headquarters Adjutant, which Karnes immediately accepted. This resulted in the genesis of the 509^th CG at Wendover before the official activation of the group. Upon activation on 17 December 1944 approximately 800 personnel from Wendover were immediately transfer into the 509^th CG. From this point forward crews and personnel started to flow into Wendover from all over the country after meeting the strict background security evaluations imposed on all new members.
 
216^th Base Unit evolution:
Upon inclusion into the 509^th this base unit would take on a role unlike any other base unit in the USAAF. Although attached to the 509^th CG it acted in autonomy to the group it fell under the direction of the Los Alamos Weapon Development laboratory, as they were in charge of weapons development and set the test schedule for the unit. Although the unit had other Wendover Field responsibilities, from the weapons test aspect the unit was comprised of two elements.

• 216^th Base Unit, Flight Test Section

As indicated by its name the function of this section was to drop test prototype bomb shapes, as the designs evolved for both Little Boy and Fat Man up to the final nuclear weapon designs as well as pumpkin bombs, the non-nuclear variant of Fat Man. In CONUS there were three bomb assembly locations; Los Alamos, Wendover and Inyokern; the latter two had their own bomb loading pits; The loading of Los Alamos assemblies were performed at Kirtland Field near Albuquerque with its own loading pit. Test drops were performed in a number of locations including the west desert near Wendover, Sandy Beach-(Salton Sea), Inyokern as well as early tests at Muroc Army Air Field.    

• 216^th Base Unit, Special Ordnance Detachment

This Detachment had the duty of assembling test units at Wendover under the stick guidance of the Los Alamos Ordnance Group designated as Z-Division by July of 1945. As changes in design evolved Z-Division would evaluate drop test data adjust designs again and instruct the Wendover Special Ordnance Detachment about what change to incorporate in the next test units and provided the test schedule which was generally updated weekly and near the end, close to combat use the schedule was beyond hectic as answers were needed before combat use. The 216th initially assembled inert bombs or "shapes" which were dropped by B-29s to furnish information on ballistics, electrical fusing and detonators, release mechanisms, and flying characteristics of the aircraft. As the design progressed, personnel assembled more and more complex versions of the "Little Boy" and the "Fat Man" bombs. The 216th base unit at Wendover also continued to improve the assembly procedures and techniques on the "Fat Man". Pits were constructed with hydraulic lifts to hoist the huge bombs into the bomb bay and between October 1944 and August 1945, 155 test units were dropped.
 
Security and secrecy were paramount with fraternization between the bomb assembly teams and the flight test crews being strongly discouraged. The 216^th Base Unit was never deployed to Tinian as test drops continued right up to combat use. After the 509^th CG was deployed to Tinian the majority of the Wendover Special Ordnance Detachment was transferred to the 1^st Ordnance Squadron Special (Aviation) and depoyed to Tinian. This resulted in an influx of new personnel in the SOD to replace them at Wendover. It would appear that the majority of the Flight Test Section remained behind in Wendover continuing their flight test duties.
 
The 216^th is one of two attached unit to the 509^th CG where there appears to be no complete roster or roster photo of personnel assigned to these units, the other being the 1395^th Military Police Company (Aviation). There are some names mentioned with some photos in published works, but this is primarily of the personnel that moved into this role at Wendover after the 509^th CG was deployed to Tinian. If anyone has knowledge of such an overall roster and or roster photo please post it here.
 
This is a very limited history of the 216^th Army Air Force Base Unit (Special), for more detail I highly recommend cited sources 1, 2, 3 and 4 below
 
Photos attached: [1] Little Boy test unit loaded in bomb bay [2] Fat Man test unit being loaded at Wendover [3] Fat Man test unit loaded in the bomb bay
 
Video: Fat Man drop test (unknown date) http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/videos/Pumpkin-Practice.html  
 
Sources: 1) http://www.afhra.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080128-037.pdf 2) “Atomic Bombs The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man”, by John Coster-Mullen 3) “The Silverplate Bombers”, by Richard H. Campbell 4) “The 509^th Remembered” Edited by Robert and Amelia Krauss 4) “Sandia National Laboratories The Post War Decade” by Necah Stewart Furman
 
The book: “Project W-47”, by James Les Rowe, (JA A RO Publishing, Livermore, CA, 1978 ISBN-0-9605562-0-6) covers in amazing detail the assembly of test units at Wendover after the 509th deployed to Tinian. According to Rowe, he was “the Project Officer of the military detachment responsible for the modification and assembly of the flight test units and the final assembly of the A-bomb during the last 107 days of the war”. The problem with this work is Rowe’s assertion that his group at Wendover assembled both the Little Boy and Fat Man combat weapons at Wendover and then shipped them to Tinian ready for combat use. There has now to date been enough documentation released on this subject to render this assertion ridiculous and completely false. One Los Alamos source refers to the book as “seriously flawed” The information contained in this book should therefore be viewed with caution by researchers. There is a much more elaborate description of the pros and cons of Rowe’s book in John Coster-Mullen’s book:  “Atomic Bombs The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man”, end note 45 on page 385.       
 
Scott  
 

Darrell,
First off; welcome aboard, happy to have you join the forum,    
 
I would be in complete agreement of your assessment, with the caveat that inside Manhattan there was a fine line between attachment an associated with; considering the reporting responsibilities to Parsons and Groves. The 216^th AF Base Unit was at Wendover prior to the arrival of the 509^th CG and continued there after the 509^th CG deployed to Tinian. It became rather a unique umbrella organization over many and various base activities. The uniqueness of the base unit over others was its connection to the Manhattan Project with two of its units formed specifically to establish and operate test facilities under the direction of Los Alamos. The Flight Test Section and Special Ordnance Detachment were the two specific units inside the 216^th that made it so special.
 
Once the 509^th CG deployed to Tinian the full brunt of testing fell to the 216^th, which was made more difficult as many of the Special Ordnance Detachment were realigned and deployed with the 509^th, this is where James Les Rowe cames on the scene and allegedly took command of the Special Ordnance Detachment. There is some controversy here with Rowe not only stating but publishing a work saying that the combat Little Boy and Fat Man weapons were fully assembled at Wendover for combat used and then delivered to Tinian. This is a controversy I would prefer not to do battle with but will if I must, as these claims are totally erroneous.
 
Moving beyond that; the mission of the 216^th Base unit was far from over with the 509^th CG’s deployment to Tinian, if anything the test schedule accelerated. The Little Boy design was finalized as this might be considered a dumb nuclear weapon and the design was never even tested before combat use, as it was so simple the chance of failure was negligible. Fat Man was a whole different animal with many aspects of the final design still being tested and verified by the 216^th almost right up to combat used.
 
I look forward to anything you can add to the 216^th Base Unit history and the role of Col. Clifford J. Heflin as its CO, your father-in-law; Remarkable! To say that information on this subject is hard to come by would be an understatement.
 
If you don’t mind me asking, what are your plans for your manuscript? Do you have a publisher? What is the time frame to completion?
 
Sorry for all the questions, but I’ve been alone here for quite some time and am always excited about the possibilities of discovering new information.
 
Best Regards,
Scott
 
Edit: Darrell I just realized that this is your second post; the first one directed to me here: http://forum.armyairforces.com/tm.aspx?high=&m=218451&mpage=2#218841 on 10 April 2012. I do hope you are able to come back to the forum more regularly.    
    

Darrell, 
   
As with you I suppose I stumbled into this; a friend told me of the efforts to restore the base by the Historic Wendover Air Field Foundation. I got involved from a research standpoint and through this developed a friendship with Jim Petersen the President of the foundation, who in turn put me in contact with John Coster-Mullen and a friendship developed there as well. From that point on I was hooked and the race to bring me up to speed on all things Manhattan was on. John tutored me in all aspects of the program and the weapons giving me tools and access to be able to review LANL documents and even helped with the intricacies of filing my first FOIA request with DoE/NNSA on information I was seeking. My Manhattan library started to grow and all of the above lead to my, albeit limited knowledge of Manhattan today. On a side note one of the last books acquired was Project W-47 by Rowe. I had held off on this book because I was warned about some of its factitious content and wanted to know enough to be able to tell fact from fiction. Even with this warning I was shocked by some of its content and erroneous allegations. As you stated there is content in Rowe’s book that is spot on regarding the day to day activities and struggles of SOD and is possibly one of the best sources of information on this portion of activity of this unit of the 216^th during that time frame. I concur with all your statements regarding the importance of the previous SOD activities and changes in CO’s of SOD and the level of drop testing of LB vs. FM units.  
 
I’m sure you are aware that after the end of the war the 509^th CG returned to the States in November 1945 and was reassigned to their new home base at Roswell New Mexico. At the same time the demobilization of nuclear test activities at Wendover were in full swing with this activity being transferred closer to Los Alamos at the new Sandia Base near Albuquerque, eventually becoming the Sandia National Laboratory. Here in lays the problem with the history of the 216^th Base Unit as nearly all records were removed from Wendover and sent to Sandia. Beyond this; apparently under Rowe’s direction the bomb assembly buildings at Wendover were disassembled crated and relocated to Sandia as well. I have at times thought of this activity as almost a scorched earth policy to wipe the Wendover activities from the history books. Much of this information is now known, but there are still so many unanswered questions. Trying to get information out of Sandia with regard to previous activities at Wendover is much like trying to getting blood out of a turnip.
 
This is where I hope your new information contained in Col. Clifford J. Heflin’s records may help add to this part of the history at Wendover. Critical here is Col. Heflin’s involvement in this transition to Sandia from Wendover. As with my previous caveats regarding attachment and association with all things Manhattan I look forward to the information of the command relationship between the 216^th and 2^nd Air Force. Again here the information is slim, but knowing enough about Tibbets, Parsons and Groves there is little doubt in my mind that at Wendover on the ground and in the air the 509^th was in charge until they deployed to Tinian. My largest question is what the true command relationship between the 216^th and 2^nd Air Force was as it related to base activities? At this point I am assuming “a dangerous thing to do without facts” is that this was somehow administrative in nature only with regard to Wendover base activities, not necessarily related to Manhattan activities. This is why your information is so important to set the record straight and add detail to the overall structure and activities of the 216^th at Wendover, hopefully right up to the bomb assembly buildings being spirited away to Sandia.
 
That Col. Clifford J. Heflin and so many others were not mentioned in any of the published works is not only a tragedy, but a miscarriage of history. The two primary publications here that come to mind are those of Col. Tibbets and Gen. Groves and the omissions of the names of so many that made Manhattan a success. I will not disparage these men as they were both key and driven to the success of the project, but this was not done alone and their omissions are a mystery to me and that is where I will stop on this subject.
 
If you are not already in contact with Jim Petersen at HWA please send me a forum PM and I will provide you with his contact information. Jim is the most knowledgeable person I know with regard to Wendover history and has access to many of the test schedules and details of the approximate 155 test drops. He may be able to help tie up any lose ends you may have. Jim has been instrumental in all of the ongoing Wendover Air Field restoration efforts and is very fact based and I believe will welcome your input of new information.
 
Best Regards,
Scott
 
Edit: 25Kingman49: For the record: I am and always have been an independent not for profit researcher, and have no official or unofficial affiliation with the Historic Wendover Air Field Foundation and or Museum. Any comments, statements, posts or opinions are mine and mine alone and are in no way reflective of the views and or opinions of the Historic Wendover Air Field Foundation and or Museum.
 
Scott