Dyess Army Airfield (, also known as Freeflight International Airport) is a

military airfield An air base (sometimes referred to as a military air base, military airfield, military airport, air station, naval air station, air force station, or air force base) is an aerodrome used as a military base by a military force for the operation ...

Roi-Namur Roi-Namur ( ) is an island in the north part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Today it is a major part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, hosting several radar systems used for tracking and characterizing missi ...

, Kwajalein Atoll,

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Intern ...

. It is owned by the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

. Approximately 60 U.S. personnel reside on the base, with an additional 100 personnel commuting from

Bucholz Army Airfield Bucholz Army Airfield is a United States Army airfield located on Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands. Its position is ideal for refueling during trans-Pacific flights, and the airport is available to civilians through Air Marshall Islands and Un ...

daily by plane.

History

When the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

took control of the island during

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 opposing ...

they built an airfield that took the form of the number "4." After the

4th Marine Division The 4th Marine Division is a reserve division in the United States Marine Corps. It was raised in 1943 for service during World War II, and subsequently fought in the Pacific against the Japanese. Deactivated after the war, the division was re-fo ...

landed the Seabees of 3rd Battalion,

20th Marines 20th Marine Regiment was a Composite Engineer Regiment of the United States Marine Corps that fought during World War II.U.S. Marine Corps World War II Order of Battle Fleet Marine Force Ground Units, Rottman p. 220''/ref> Subordinate units T ...

and the 109th Naval Construction Battalion made the field operational again. The Japanese designated the runways A, B, and C, with A being the vertical leg, B being the diagonal and C intersecting at a right angle to A. The Seabees of the

Naval Base Kwajalein Naval Base Kwajalein was United States Navy base built on Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands to support the World War II efforts in the Pacific War. The base was built after the Battle of Kwajalein ended 3 February 1944. The US Navy buil ...

repaired runways A and C. Today the only runway that remains is A.

Facilities

Dyess Army Airfield is at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...

of 10 feet (3 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. The

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

is designated 04/22 with an

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

surface measuring 4,499 by 150 feet (1,371 x 45.5 m).

References

External links

* {{authority control Airports in the Marshall Islands Kwajalein Atoll United States Army airfields