Nouasseur Air Base
Nouasseur Air Base | |
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Located near Casablanca, Morocco | |
Coordinates | 33°22′00″N 7°35′00″W / 33.36667°N 7.58333°W |
Type | Air Force Base |
Site history | |
Built | 1951 |
In use | 1951-1963 |
Nouasseur Air Base (
Origins
USAF air base siting in the former
Initially dispatched was a repair unit, the
SAC use
In December 1951, the
Nouasseur Air Base was critically important for SAC during its forward deployment exercises. Nouasseur was quite capable of hosting any of SAC's aircraft, with an asphalt-concrete runway of 12,000 feet (3,700 m). The airfield became operational in July 1951.[3]: 61
The aircraft flown by SAC to Morocco from the
During the middle and late-1950s, SAC adopted a dispersal program—spreading out its potential as a Soviet target by placing its aircraft, weapons, and personnel on many more bases, with each bombardment wing having two additional installations to which it could disperse. Nouasseur was one of a ring of overseas SAC air bases located from Greenland to North Africa.
In addition, SAC devised a deployment program to use its shorter-range
USAFE
The 5th Air Division was inactivated on 15 January 1958. It was replaced by the 4310th Air Division, which remained the host unit until the base closed in 1963.
With the destabilization of the French government in Morocco, and Moroccan independence in 1956, the government of Mohammed V wanted the US Air Force to pull out of the SAC bases in Morocco, insisting on such action after American intervention in Lebanon in 1958.
The United States agreed to leave as of December 1959, and was fully out of Nouasseur Air Base, closing the facility in December 1963.
References
- ^ "News". Scramble.nl. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
- ^ United States Air Force, Biography of Brig. Gen. Wilfred H. Hardy
- .
External links
- Nouasseur-Nelson C. Brown Elementary & High School Alumni Association
- Nouasseur Air Base Map
- 3973d Combat Defense Squadron's Webpage for the SAC's 16th Air Force Units and Bases, Nouasseur AB, Morocco