Thule Air Base

Thule Air Base
Characteristics
ICAO code	BGTL
IATA code	THU
Coordinates	76 ° 31 '52 "  N , 68 ° 42' 11"  W Coordinates: 76 ° 31 '52 "  N , 68 ° 42' 11"  W.
Height above MSL	77 m (253  ft )
Basic data
opening	1951
operator	US Air Force
Start-and runway
08T / 26T	3047 m × 43 m asphalt

The Thule Air Base ( Greenlandic Pituffik [ pitufːik ], German  , Where Moors something ' ) is a military airport of the United States in the southern part of the Hayes Peninsula in Avanersuaq , Greenland . The airfield was built after the end of the Second World War on January 12, 1951. Administratively, the Air Base and its surroundings form a 658 km² community-free enclave surrounded by the Avannaata Kommunia area .

The system serves u. a. for monitoring rocket launches and space activities in the Northern Hemisphere.

history

In 1951, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began building a 10,000 foot runway and base on behalf of the United States Air Force under the code name ROBIN (later BLUE JAY)  . This was put into operation on March 1, 1951 on the basis of the Thulesag 2 agreement between the United States and Denmark . In the Cold War , the base served the Strategic Air Command , first as a base for B-36 - and B-47 - long-range bombers before them in the 1950s and 1960s by B-52 were replaced -Bomberverbände. From 1961 the base was part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), which was replaced by the PAVE PAWS system after the Cold War . The system, which is equipped with an AN / FPS-132 system, is operated by the 12th Space Warning Squadron. In addition to the 12th Space Warning Squadron, other units are also stationed at Thule Air Base. These are the units responsible for operations, entertainment and security, the 821st Air Base Group, 821st Support Squadron and 821st Security Forces Squadron, as well as Detachment 1 of the 23rd Space Operations Squadron, responsible for communications with satellites that fly over the northern polar region.

Thule began in the late 1950s with the construction of the 240 kilometers away Camp Century , a US base located under the ice sheet, which was to serve as the prelude to Project Iceworm for the stationing of US nuclear missiles on Greenland.

Forced relocation

The larger town closest to the military base is Qaanaaq in the north, 108 km as the crow flies , where the former residents were forcibly relocated in 1953, two years after the base was built. It was not until 1999 that they were able to obtain modest compensation from the Danish state. Jean-Noël Malaurie , a French ethnologist and geographer , also reports in detail in the book about his Greenland expedition from 1950 to 1951 about the structure of the air base and the effects on the polar Inuit resident there .

Meteorite explosion near Thule Air Base

On July 25, 2018, a meteorite with an explosive force of 2.1 kilotons exploded about 21 kilometers west of the Avanersuaq peninsula at an altitude of 43 kilometers - slightly less than that of a small atomic bomb .

Incidents

Crash of a B-52

→ Main article : Crash of a B-52 near Thule Air Base in 1968

On January 21, 1968, a B-52 with pilots John Haug and Joe D'Amario crashed eleven kilometers south of Thule Air Base . Three of the four hydrogen bombs on board fell into the Arctic Ocean and were found frozen. After massive protests by the Danish government, the USA also undertook an extensive search for the missing fourth bomb, initially without success. Whether the US Special Forces Navy SEALs and soldiers of the US Navy Construction Regiment ( Seabees ) were able to recover the fourth bomb in Baffin Bay in 1979 has recently been questioned according to research by the BBC. As a consequence of the media reports, in 2009 the Danish Foreign Minister commissioned the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) to prepare a new report on the crash. This report refuted the fact that a weapon was lost. Years later, the accident led to compensation litigation, see Qaanaaq .

Facilities

The National Missile Defense (NMD) missile defense program initiated by President George W. Bush was to be partly installed there. Since 1961, the base with Detachment 3 of the 22nd Space Operations Squadron has been home to the largest and northernmost of the Air Force's eight global satellite ground stations . It has a special feature of a tugboat that is used to tow icebergs that get into the approach lane.

Thule Air Base also had a 378.25 meter high, ground-insulated transmission mast for military long-wave radio , the foundation of which required special measures due to the frozen ground. It was the tallest mast north of the Arctic Circle in the Western Hemisphere . After being idle for a long time, the tower was blown up in 1992.

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  Range of the early warning system

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  Thule Air Base

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  Thule Air Base - aerial view

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  Detachment 3, satellite ground station

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  Double-sided, fixed radar station of the 12th Space Warning Squadron

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  Location of the station area

See also

• Defense of Greenland
• The Idealist - Secret Files Greenland , feature film from 2015

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Harry R. Fletcher: Air Force Bases. Air Bases Outside the United States of America (=  Reference series . Volume 2 ). Center for Air Force History, Washington, D. C. 1993, LCCN  88-600231 , p. 183 (English, media.defense.gov [PDF; 8.8 MB ; accessed on July 17, 2018]).
2. ^ US Air Force Fact Sheet, 821st Security Forces Squadron. Retrieved February 21, 2020 .  254 square miles
3. ↑ Valerie Insinna: Watch the skies: How a US base in Greenland tracks ballistic missiles. August 5, 2019; Retrieved June 7, 2020 (American English). 
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Harry R. Fletcher: Air Force Bases. Air Bases Outside the United States of America (=  Reference series . Volume 2 ). Center for Air Force History, Washington, D. C. 1993, LCCN  88-600231 , p. 184 (English, media.defense.gov [PDF; 8.8 MB ; accessed on July 17, 2018]).
5. ↑ Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark (English)
6. ↑ 12th Space Warning Squadron. United States Air Force , Peterson Air Force Base , August 16, 2012, accessed July 17, 2018 . 
7. ↑ 821st Air Base Group. In: peterson.af.mil. United States Air Force , Peterson Air Force Base , accessed February 27, 2020 . 
8. ^ Jean Malaurie: The last kings of Thule, VEB FABrockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1957
9. ↑ Manuel Escher: Meteor exploded directly over the base of the US nuclear warning system . The standard on August 2, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018.
10. ↑ cf. www.taz.de - The missing atomic bomb
11. ↑ www.bazonline.ch - USA lost atomic bomb in Greenland
12. ^ The Marshal's Baton - There is no bomb, there was no bomb, they were not looking for a bomb - DIIS Report on the 1968 crash of a B-52 bomber near Thule Air Base in Greenland. Retrieved February 27, 2020 . 

Web links

Commons : Thule Air Base  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of Thule Air Base
• Thule Air Base website
• Article about Thule Air Base