Narsarsuaq Air Base
| Narsarsuaq Air Base | |||||||||||||||
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Bluie West One, June 1942
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Narsarssuak Air Base 1956
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| Summary | |||||||||||||||
| Location | Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland | ||||||||||||||
| Built | 1942 | ||||||||||||||
| In use | 1942-1958 | ||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 112 ft / 34 m | ||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 61°9′38.29″N 45°25′33.16″W / 61.1606361°N 45.4258778°WCoordinates: 61°9′38.29″N 45°25′33.16″W / 61.1606361°N 45.4258778°W | ||||||||||||||
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Bluie West One airfield, later known as Narsarsuaq Air Base and Narsarsuaq Airport, was built on a glacial moraine at what is now the village of Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland. Construction by the U.S. Army began in June 1941 with the Army's Greenland force consisting of a battalion of the 21st Engineers (AVN), less one company, reinforced by a composite battery from the 62d Coast Artillery (AA) landed from USS Munargo and USAT Chateau Thierry in July 1941.
The first aircraft landed there in January 1942, as a link in the North Atlantic air ferry route in World War II. The base had a peak population of about 4,000 American servicemen, and it is estimated that some 10,000 aircraft landed there en route to the war in Europe and North Africa.
Soon after the United States entered the war, the War Department decided to deploy Major General Carl Spaatz's Eighth Air Force to Britain, putting the North Atlantic ferry route facilities constructed by the Corps to an early test.
Radioing from Bluie West 1, while crossing the Atlantic in mid-June 1942, Spaatz ordered the movement to begin. The P-38 and P-39 fighters, piloted by combat crews who had been given special training in long-distance flying, were escorted by the longer-range B-17 bombers.
With stops at the Canadian-built base at Goose Bay in Labrador, Bluie West 1 in Southern Greenland, and Reykjavik or Keflavik in Iceland, the aircraft could fly from the new Presque Isle Army Airfield in northern Maine to Prestwick Airport in Scotland with no leg of the journey longer than 850 mi (740 nmi; 1,370 km).
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Wikipedia