The Abandoned WWII Airfield The US Air Force Is Rebuilding Into A Forward Pacific Base

Until only recently, jungles covered the historic US Air Force (USAF) runway that once hosted the Boeing B-29 bombers chosen to drop the only atomic weapons ever used in anger in the final days of WWII. The once-abandoned North Field of Tinian lies on a small island in the Northern Mariana Islands, which was once so dominated by planes that soldiers jested the island had transformed into an 'aircraft carrier.' Over the subsequent eight decades, it has been completely consumed by tropical overgrowth. Now, US Air Force engineers are aggressively repaving that old coral ground, completing a huge rehabilitation project.