Nevada, WW2 During World War

Nevada, WW2

During World War II, the stat5e of Nevada made three significant contributions to the war effort. The desert north of Las Vegas provided the perfect location for the Las Vegas Army Air Force Gunnery School. The town of Henderson was located near both crude magnesite and the power generated by the Hoover Dam. In addition to the geographical resources, the state of Nevada also lost 592 men in combat. This essay will explore the history of the Nellis Air Force Base and Basic Magnesium Inc.

In January of 1941, Mayor John L. Russell of Las Vegas sold a large parcel of land to the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps for the development of the flexible gunnery school. The school would provide as training to aerial gunners to make them combat ready. This land had several qualities that made it an attractive location for the school: flying weather was ideal year-round; more than 90% of the area to the north was unpopulated public domain and available at $1 per acre; the inland strategic location was excellent; rocky hills, approximately six miles from the base afforded a natural backdrop for cannon and machine-gun firing; and dry lake beds were available for emergency landings.

When the army purchased this land it consisted of a dirt runway, a well and a small shack. Five officers, living in the basement of the Las Vegas federal building, began the school, which by mid-1941 had 3,000 students with ten at-6 "Texan" trainers and seventeen B-10 "Martin" bombers. B-17s arrived in 1942 and B-29s arrived in 1945. Training at the school lasted five weeks and would have six hundred gunnery students and 215 co-pilots per term. By the end of 1945, the base's population rose to nearly 11,000 officers and enlist men. When the war ended in May of 1945, the base was turned into a center for separating (discharging) army personnel. The Las Vegas Air Force base was closed in 1947. A year later it reopen and served as a jet fighter-training base for the Korean War.

In 1950, the Las Vegas Air Force base was renamed the Nellis Air Force base after a southern-Nevada war hero. William Harrell Nellis who ran seventy aerial combat missions for General George S. Patton. He was shot down in the Battle of the Bulge in December 27, 1044. In May 2009, President Barack Obama chose Nellis as the location to give a speech on the U.S. energy policy.

Basic Magnesium, Inc., a mining company, established a magnesium processing plant in Henderson, Nevada in 1937. This site was select because of proximity to sources of electricity and magnesium mines. The processing facility was built with federal funds approved by Franklin D. Roosevelt on the urging of Senator Patrick McCarran and BMI owner Howard P. Eells.

Magnesium was in great demand during World War II. It was described as the wonder metal and used for incendiary munitions casings and airplane engines, frames, and other parts. The processing of magnesium is multi-step task using significant amounts of energy. In the June 1944 issue of the Desert, Lelande Quick provides the following pictorial of how magnesium is processed:

Several employees of Basic Magnesium spent much time in England learning the skills required for the above process. Ironically, the Germans assisted England in building the plant prior to war. Locating the processing plant near Hoover Dam resulted in low cost energy. When the facility was at full capacity it produced over five million pounds of magnesium nuggets per day and employed over 13,500 people. This made BMI bigger than the employee base of the Hoover Dam and BMI's weekly payroll was greater than a month's payroll at the dam.

Below is a series of photographs taken inside the factory, which were found at the website: http://www.mypubliclibrary.com/catalog/history/bmi_plant.html.

BMI Plant Bundling Magnesium Ingots for Shipping

October 1, 1943

BMI Plant Casting Magnesium Ingots

June 11, 1943

BMI Plant Crew Members of the Army Air Force Bomber Memphis Belle with Plant Workers

July 13, 1943

The last photo brings together the two major contributes Nevada was able to provide to the war effort. Nevada's natural resources and landscape provided for two very valuable contributions to winning the war: the metal from which planes and bullet/bomb casing were made and the pilots who learned how to fly the airplanes, which dropped the bombs.