Paul W. Tibbets Jr., a twenty-nine-year-old lieutenant colonel, led the group. Tibbets had been provided with virtually unlimited resources to fulfill his mission. He had the power to requisition materials, equipment, or personnel as he chose, and he built his team by lifting entire B-29 squadrons out of other air groups, without explanation. In December 1944, the 509th had set up shop at Wendover Army Airfield in Utah—a bleak, arid airbase wedged between the Utah salt flats and the Nevada border.
