Leeuwarden Air Base

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The Vliegbasis Leeuwarden is a military airfield in the Dutch Air Force. The base is located in the province of Friesland in the north-west of the urban area of the city of Leeuwarden. It serves the Dutch armed forces ( KLu ) in particular as one of two fighter aircraft bases.

History

The airfield was opened in 1938 as a civilian airport between Schiphol and Eelde, but at first hardly used.

After the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht in May 1940, the Air Force used the place as a military airfield and stationed here fighters and bombers. Between late June and early August 1940 here were successively the Bf 109E and I. group of Jagdgeschwader 51 (I. / JG 51) and Group II of Jagdgeschwader 27 (II. / JG 27). In January 1941, the III. Group of combat squadron 4 (III. / KG 4) reorganized with He 111H and attacked in a row by the end of July in the Battle of Britain a. In addition, here was from May to July 1941, the Group I of Jagdgeschwader 52 (I. / JG 52) and in October / November 1941, the group II of the same squadron (II. / JG 52), which at that time already the Bf 109F flew.

From November 1941 Leeuwarden was an important night fighter base and was initially home to the Ju 88C group II of the Night Fighter Squadron 2 (II. / NJG 2), which remained stationed here one year. Between October 1942 and March 1944 it was followed by the Bf 110, the IV of the Night Fighter Squadron 1 (IV. / NJG 1 ), followed from May to September in 1944 by a part of the III. Group (III. / NJG 1), which is also the Ju 88G was next to the Bf 110 in stock. The base was in connection with the Operation Market Garden attack on 16 and 17 September 1944, the RAF Bomber Command and severely damaged.

After the liberation of the Netherlands, the base was put in order and first used, in turn, civil, KLM flew from here to Schiphol.

As early as 1949, however, the airfield was used again militarily, this time by the Koninklijke Luchtmacht the Netherlands. Since this year Leeuwarden is a major base of operations of jet fighters. First Meteor F8 here were stationed, who were replaced in 1956 by Hunter F6A. This in turn made ​​1964, the F- 104G Starfighter space and 1979 began the introduction of today flown F-16A / B.

In the wake of the further reduction of the F -16 fleet and the small number of ordered F -35A was in 2013 briefly considered the basis of the status of a main base of operations (main operating base ) to the lower status of a base of operations (deployed operating base ) to reduce. This plan was discarded after a short time, although the fighter aircraft fleet reduction should take place as planned.

Use

The base is currently used (2013 ) by following the flying squadrons:

• 322 and 323 Squadron, equipped with multi-role combat aircraft Lockheed Martin F -16A / B MLU ( from 1979, then in 1984 resolved Umschuleinheit Transitie s conversie afdeling ), the latter is dissolved on November 1, 2014 F -16 unit
• 303 Squadron, equipped with SAR helicopters Agusta AB- 412SP, until the end of 2014

There are also other non-flying associations.