HILL AIR FORCE BASE — Though the seeds to establish the installation were planted well before the world’s deadliest conflict began, Hill Air Force Base will always be closely tied to the Second World War.

Hill celebrates its 80th anniversary this year. According to Hill’s 75th Air Base Wing History Office, the base traces its beginnings to 1934, when members of the Ogden Chamber of Commerce joined Utah’s congressional delegation to promote the Northern Utah region as a potential site for a national air depot.

In July of that year, the military’s Air Corps Materiel Division recommended its “Rocky Mountain Air Depot” be located in Northern Utah. Congress authorized the selection in 1935 and the OCC began buying thousands of acres of land, eventually donating much of it to the U.S. military. By April 1939, the federal government had acquired nearly 3,000 acres of ground upon which to build the base.

That same year, the U.S. War Department chose to memorialize Major Ployer P. Hill by naming the new installation Hill Field. On Oct. 30, 1935, Hill died after he crashed flying the Boeing experimental aircraft Model 299, a plane that served as the prototype for what would eventually become the famous B-17 Flying Fortress of World War II.

But that’s just the beginning of the base’s strong ties to the monumental war.

According to the history office, Hill’s personnel total surpassed 20,000 during WWII. The workforce included 15,780 civilians and about 6,000 military, and Hill’s depot repaired aircraft like the B-17, B-24 and P-47, as well as several widely used engines. Base personnel also contributed to the war effort at the Wendover Range, the precursor to today’s Utah Test and Training Range. At the range, crews performed practice bombing runs for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions that helped end WWII.

During the final months of the war, the 509th Composite Group was activated at the Wendover Field in late 1944, according to the history office. The group was the first Army Air Force Group to be equipped and trained for atomic warfare.

The group trained in Wendover until April 26, 1945. In August of that year, one of the group’s B-29s, the “Enola Gay,” which was flown by Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later another B-29 from the group, known as “Bock’s Car” and flown by Maj. Charles W. Sweeney, dropped another atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki, Japan.

Additionally, Capt. Claude “Buck” Eatherly flew a B-29 called the “Straight Flush” with the 509th Composite Group, according to a Hill news release. After training in Utah, Eatherly eventually flew the plane to Tinian, a small Pacific Ocean island from where the aforementioned B-29s would drop two atomic bombs on mainland Japan.

From June to August 1945, Eatherly and his Straight Flush flew 11 training missions and six combat missions, dropping bombs on Japanese targets. On Aug. 6, Eatherly flew the plane on a weather reconnaissance mission over Japan, ultimately giving the go-ahead for the Enola Gay to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.

A replica of the straight flush can be seen at the Hill Aerospace Museum.

Col. Jon Eberlan, 75th Air Base Wing commander, said the base’s eight decades of history, including the important work done during WWII, serves as motivation for airmen at Hill to continue the legacy.

“(Our) heritage over the past 80 years was founded on hard work, commitment, sacrifice, patriotism, and excellence,” Eberlan said in a statement. “As we have done from the beginning, we continue to generate world-class readiness and provide combat air power anytime, anywhere.”