Sondrestrom Air Base, originally Bluie West-8, was a
United States Air Force base in central
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...
. The site is located north of the
Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the most northerly of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth. Its southern equivalent is the Antarctic Circle.
The Arctic Circle marks the southernmost latitude at w ...
and from the northeast end of
Kangerlussuaq Fjord
Kangerlussuaq Fjord (old spelling: ''Kangerdlugssuaq'', da, Søndre Strømfjord) is a long fjord in the Qeqqata municipality in central-western Greenland. The fjord is long and between and wide, flowing from the estuary of Qinnguata Kuussua r ...
(formerly known by its
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
name ''Søndre Strømfjord''). The base is approximately west-northwest of
Ravneklippen and east of
Sisimiut
Sisimiut (), formerly known as Holsteinsborg, is the capital and largest city of the Qeqqata municipality, the second-largest city in Greenland, and the largest Arctic city in North America.The term 'city' is loosely used to describe any popula ...
.
Following World War II, the base was briefly returned to Danish control between 9 October 1950 and 20 July 1951. The 1951 Greenland bases treaty led to the return of Sondrestrom to American control. The base was turned over to the
Greenland government in 1992 and is now the civilian community of
Kangerlussuaq
Kangerlussuaq (; ; da, Søndre Strømfjord), is a settlement in western Greenland in the Qeqqata municipality located at the head of the fjord of the same name. It is Greenland's main air transport hub and the site of Greenland's largest commer ...
and
Kangerlussuaq Airport
Kangerlussuaq Airport ( kl, Mittarfik Kangerlussuaq, da, Søndre Strømfjord Lufthavn) is an airport in Kangerlussuaq, a settlement in the Qeqqata municipality in central-western Greenland. Alongside Narsarsuaq Airport, it is one of only two c ...
, although the USAF operates a small
Air National Guard
The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the ter ...
detachment in the former base.
History
Names
* Established on 20 October 1941 and named Bluie West Eight (BW-8); codenamed "Bodkin" in communications.
: Renamed: Sondrestromfjord Army Air Base, 1945
: Renamed: Sondrestromfjord Air Base, 25 October 1947
: Renamed: Sondrestrom Air Base, 10 January 1952
Base operating units
* 417th Base HQ & Air Base Squadron, 26 September 1942
* 1385th Army Air Force Base Unit, 1 October 1945
* 1004th Air Base Squadron (redesignated: 1234th Air Base Squadron, 1 October 1948), 1 June 1948
* Greenland Base Command, 21 June 1949 – 9 October 1950
* 6621st Air Base Squadron, 20 July 1951
* 6621st Air Base Group, 25 September 1955
* 4084th Air Base Group, 1 April 1957
* 4684th Air Base Group, 1 July 1960 – 1 June 1992
* 1015th Air Base Squadron, a subordinate unit to the 1012th Air Base Group at Thule, was the unit designation from at least March, 1985 to closing in September, 1992
* 2004th Airways & Air Communications Squadron(AACS)(MATS)
Major commands to which assigned
*
First United States Army
First Army is the oldest and longest-established field army of the United States Army. It served as a theater army, having seen service in both World War I and World War II, and supplied the US army with soldiers and equipment during the Korea ...
, 15 January 1941
*
Eastern Defense Command
The Eastern Defense Command was first established as the Northeast Defense Command on 17 March 1941 as one of four U.S. Army continental defense commands to plan and prepare for and execute defense against enemy attack in the months before Ameri ...
(U.S. Army), 12 December 1942
*
Air Transport Command
Air Transport Command (ATC) was a United States Air Force unit that was created during World War II as the strategic airlift component of the United States Army Air Forces.
It had two main missions, the first being the delivery of supplies and ...
, 1 January 1946
*
Military Air Transport Service
The Military Air Transport Service (MATS) is an inactive Department of Defense Unified Command. Activated on 1 June 1948, MATS was a consolidation of the United States Navy's Naval Air Transport Service (NATS) and the United States Air Force's ...
, 1 April 1948
*
Northeast Air Command
The Northeast Air Command (NEAC) was a short-lived organization in the United States Air Force tasked with the operation and defense of air bases in Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland. It was formed in 1950 from the facilities of the United St ...
, 1–9 October 1950; 20 July 1951
*
Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command (SAC) was both a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile ...
, 1 April 1957
*
Air Defense (redesignated: Aerospace Defense) Command, 15 January 1968
*
Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command (SAC) was both a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile ...
, 1 December 1979 – 30 June 1983
*
Air Force Space Command
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...
from 1 July 1983 to September 1992 closing
Founding and construction
Following the
fall of Denmark to
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, responsibility for the security of Greenland passed to the American military under the terms of a 9 April 1941 treaty with the defected Danish ambassador in Washington,
Henrik Kauffmann
Henrik Kauffmann (26 August 1888 – 5 June 1963) was the Danish ambassador to the United States during World War II, who signed over part of Greenland to the US.
Career
Kauffmann started his foreign career by serving as envoy in Rome, 1921 ...
. Military leaders responded by building several bases in Greenland, the largest of which were Bluie West One in
Narsarsuaq
Narsarsuaq (lit. ''Great Plan'';''Facts and History of Narsarsuaq'', Narsarsuad Tourist Information old spelling: ''Narssarssuaq'') is a settlement in the Kujalleq municipality in southern Greenland. It had 123 inhabitants in 2020. There is a thri ...
in southern Greenland and Bluie West Eight along the Kangerlussuaq fjord.
The site of BW-8 had already been contemplated for an airfield, and Professor
William Hobbs of the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
had operated a meteorological station there in 1927–28. That station was named Mount Evans, while the supporting base camp at the site of the present seaport was named Camp Lloyd. A 1,500 foot long dirt airstrip eight miles east was prepared for the expected aircraft of Atlantic flyers
Bert Hassell
Bert or BERT may refer to:
Persons, characters, or animals known as Bert
*Bert (name), commonly an abbreviated forename and sometimes a surname
*Bert, a character in the poem "Bert the Wombat" by The Wiggles; from their 1992 album Here Comes a Son ...
and
Parker Cramer Parker may refer to:
Persons
* Parker (given name)
* Parker (surname)
Places Place names in the United States
*Parker, Arizona
*Parker, Colorado
* Parker, Florida
* Parker, Idaho
* Parker, Kansas
* Parker, Missouri
* Parker, North Carolina
*Park ...
. They, however, ran out of fuel and walked the remaining distance to Sondrestrom. The location at the bottom of Sondrestromfjord is about as far from the coast as one can get on land in Greenland, and though the climate is severe, it is much more favorable for aviation than the coast. The approaches are clear, although the runway has a slope.
During August 1940, the
U.S. Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...
Cutter supported an aerial survey commanded by Army Captain Julius K. Lacey. From Lacey's
Curtiss SOC-4
The Curtiss SOC Seagull was an American single-engined scout observation seaplane, designed by Alexander Solla of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation for the United States Navy. The aircraft served on battleships and cruisers in a seaplane configura ...
, numerous photographs were obtained of promising runway alignments in the area. From 6 to 11 May 1941, the South Greenland Survey Expedition led by Lieutenant Commander William E. Sinton further examined the area from the , which now carried the same SOC-4 for aerial surveys. Charts and plans were drawn up in expectation of a major construction expedition that fall. The expedition also charted seaplane operating sites at Monroe Bay (Tatsip Ata) and Angujartorfik downfjords from Sondrestrom.
Bluie
Bluie was the United States military code name for Greenland during World War II. It is remembered by the numbered sequence of base locations identified by the 1941 United States Coast Guard South Greenland Survey Expedition, and subsequently us ...
West-8 was founded on 7 October 1941 by a 31-man expedition commanded by Captain (later Colonel)
Bernt Balchen
Bernt Balchen (23 October 1899 – 17 October 1973) was a Norwegian pioneer polar aviator, navigator, aircraft mechanical engineer and military leader. A Norwegian native, he later became an American citizen and was a recipient of the Distingu ...
of the
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
(USAAF). A major sealift followed. The airport was ready for operation in the spring of 1942. A road of about ten miles length connected the airfield site with the port location (Camp Lloyd) farther down the fjord. Seasonal access for ships is during late summer and early autumn, but during the early days the fjord ice was broken for a much longer period.
To identify and guide the approach to BW-8, an auxiliary station was placed at Cruncher Island, also known as
Simiutak
Simiutaq, old spelling Simiutak, is an uninhabited island in the Kujalleq municipality in southwestern Greenland. During the Second World War and after Simiutak was the site of a U.S. Navy facility code-named 'Bluie West 3'.
Geography
Simiutaq i ...
, at the entrance to Sondrestromfjord. This station, operational 4 September 1942, provided meteorological reports, radio communications, radio beacon and lights for air and sea traffic. It was known as BW-9.
Operations
BW-8 was intended as a link in a northern air ferry route known to U.S. planners as the
Crimson Route The Crimson Route was a set of joint United States and Canada transport routes planned for ferrying planes and material from North America to Europe during World War II. The project was ended in 1943 and never fully developed.
Overview
The 1940 fa ...
, but it transpired that few aircraft were ferried to Europe through it. Instead, the base earned its keep as an alternate field, a radio and weather reporting station, and as a departure point for search-and-rescue operations elsewhere in Greenland. During the two years Colonel Balchen was in command, he led numerous expeditions throughout the island, primarily in rescue operations for downed aircrew.
As a reliever for the Greenland Command headquarters base in Narsarsuaq,
Bluie West One
Bluie West One, 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 United States Army began in June 1941. The ...
, BW-8 was by late 1942 assisted by small fields at
Bluie East Two
Bluie East Two was a minor United States Army Air Forces airfield at Ikateq in eastern Greenland. It was operational from 1942 to 1947.
Founding and construction
After the United States assumed responsibility for the defense of Greenland in Ap ...
in East Greenland, and
Teague Field on the west coast about midways between BW-8 and BW-1.
The Danish government briefly controlled the base in 1950, but following a renewed base treaty (also resulting in the construction of
Thule Air Base
Thule Air Base (pronounced or , kl, Qaanaaq Mitarfik, da, Thule Lufthavn), or Thule Air Base/Pituffik Airport , is the United States Space Force's northernmost base, and the northernmost installation of the U.S. Armed Forces, located north o ...
), the United States reopened BW-8 under the name of Sondrestrom Air Base on 27 April 1951. Sondrestrom AB then became instrumental in the airlift to build Thule AB, although it had little function of its own, and rarely had permanently stationed aircraft. However, the base also served to support air refueling tankers, and trans-Atlantic ferry flights for short-ranged jet fighters continued to transit in the post-war period.
When the
Distant Early Warning Line
The Distant Early Warning Line, also known as the DEW Line or Early Warning Line, was a system of radar stations in the northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the north coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska (see Proj ...
was constructed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sondrestrom AB received a new lease on life. It assisted especially in the building of the four radar stations spanning Greenland (
DYE-1 through 4).
![Sondrestrom Air Base, August 1974 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Sondrestrom_Air_Base%2C_August_1974_02.jpg)
In the mid-1950s,
Scandinavian Airlines System
Scandinavian Airlines, more commonly known and styled as SAS, is the flag carrier of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. ''SAS'' is an abbreviation of the company's full name, Scandinavian Airlines System or legally Scandinavian Airlines System Denmark ...
(SAS) began using the base as a refueling station on their then-new "
Polar route
A polar route is an aircraft route across the uninhabited polar ice cap regions. The term "polar route" was originally applied to great circle navigation routes between Europe and the west coast of North America in the 1950s.
The Arctic Early ye ...
" between Scandinavia and the United States. In 1956, SAS was operating three round trip flights a week with
Douglas DC-6B
The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with ...
propliners on a routing of
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
– Sondrestrom –
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
–
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. In the early 1960's, SAS' new DC-8-33 jets operated a Copenhagen-Sondrestrom-Los Angeles route. This use declined in the mid-1960s, as fan-jet airliners gained greater range. In the 1970s,
Boeing 707-320B
The Boeing 707 is an American, long-range, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype first flown in 1954, the initial first flew on December 2 ...
jetliners operated by
Dan-Air
Dan-Air (Dan Air Services Limited) was an airline based in the United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of London shipbroker, shipbroking firm Davies and Newman. It was started in 1953 with a single aircraft. Initially, it operated cargo a ...
between the United Kingdom and Vancouver stopped to refuel. The base also became the hub of Greenland air traffic and was the destination for almost all regular air service from and to Copenhagen. The
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
continued to use the base for occasional traffic, and in particular for the yearly resupply of the DYE stations. It was also a center for seasonal scientific activity.
Following the
fall of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
and the abandonment of the DYE stations in 1991, the usefulness of the base was greatly diminished. The last
US Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
personnel left the base on 30 September 1992. It then became Kangerlussuaq airport: still the main hub for Greenland air travel.
Rocket launches
Since 1971, rockets such as the
Nike Apache
The Nike Apache, also known as Argo B-13, was a two-stage sounding rocket developed by Aerolab, later Atlantic Research, for use by the United States Air Force and NASA. It became the standard NASA sounding rocket and was launched over 600 times ...
,
Petrel
Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes.
Description
The common name does not indicate relationship beyond that point, as "petrels" occur in three of the four families within that group (all except the albatross f ...
,
Nike Tomahawk
The Nike stage or Nike booster, a solid fuel rocket motor, was created by Hercules Aerospace for the Nike Ajax (M5) Nike Hercules (M5E1) (and M88 late in Hercules career). It was developed for use as the first stage of the Nike Ajax and Nike He ...
,
Black Brant
The brant or brent goose (''Branta bernicla'') is a small goose of the genus '' Branta''. There are three subspecies, all of which winter along temperate-zone sea-coasts and breed on the high-Arctic tundra.
The Brent oilfield was named after ...
,
Terrier Malemute
The Terrier Malemute is a two-stage American sounding rocket typically used for smaller payloads (less than ). Both the Terrier first stage and the Malemute second stage use solid fuel. The Terrier burns for approximately 5.2 seconds, and the Male ...
,
Taurus Orion, and
Taurus Nike Tomahawk TNT have been launched from a site close to Kangerlussuaq (specifically, at ) for examination of the upper atmosphere.
Sonde Stromfjord
Launch Log
Launch list
See also
Citations
References
* Fletcher, Harry R. (1989) Air Force Bases Volume II, Active Air Force Bases outside the United States of America on 17 September 1982. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History.
* Balchen, Bernt: ''War Below Zero''. US Army, 1944.
* Hobbs, William Ernest: ''The North Pole of the Winds''. G.P. Putnam's Sons. New York, 1930.
{{authority control
Installations of the United States Air Force in Greenland
Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command on the North Atlantic Route
Airports in the Arctic
Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Greenland
Military installations closed in 1992
Kangerlussuaq
Airports established in 1941
1941 establishments in Greenland
1992 disestablishments in Greenland