Adjacent to suburban Bellevue in Sarpy County, the plant was operational during World War II, from 1942 to 1945.

In 1940, as American involvement in World War II loomed, the U.S. Army Air Corps chose Offutt Field as the site for a new bomber plant that was to be operated by the Glenn L. Martin Company.

The plant's construction included a two-mile-long (3.2 km) concrete runway, six large hangars, and a 1,700,000-square-foot (39-acre; 160,000 m2) aircraft assembly building.

Martin began producing its bombers in January 1942, with the plant reaching full-scale production 8 June 1942.

Among these were the Enola Gay and Bockscar, the aircraft that dropped the first atomic weapons to be used in a military action (against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan).