Muskö Naval Base is a Swedish underground naval facility on the island of

Muskö Muskö is an island in the southern part of Stockholm archipelago, which forms part of Haninge Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden. It is best known for the Muskö naval base. There are also two urban areas (''tätort'') on the island: Musk� ...

just south of

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

Haninge Municipality Haninge Municipality (''Haninge kommun'') is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. Its seat is located in Handen, a part of the Stockholm urban area. Haninge Municipality was formed in 1971 when ''Västerhaninge'' and ''Öst ...

(Haninge Kommun). The construction of the base started in 1950 and was completed 19 years later in 1969. During the construction about 1.5 million tons of rock were removed. It has 3 docks, originally designed for

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

s and

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

s. The underground base itself has an area of several km² and is connected by of underground roads. In order to connect the base to the mainland, the was built at the same time as the base. This crosses several bridges and intermediate islands before finally accessing the island of Muskö through the , a long road tunnel running some under the sea. During the

Cold war The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

the underground facility was kept highly secret and not much information about it was known to the public. In 2004 the Swedish government decided that the navy should be concentrated to two bases only, the

Karlskrona Naval Base The Karlskrona naval base ( sv, Karlskrona örlogsbas) is the largest naval base of the Swedish Navy. Located in Blekinge in southern Sweden, the base has close ties with the city of Karlskrona. It has an exceptionally well-sheltered location: a ...

and the Berga Naval Base, and much of the Muskö base was closed. However some parts of the facility were still used by the military. The underground shipyards were being operated under contract by

Kockums AB Saab Kockums AB is a shipyard headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, owned by the Swedish defence company Saab Group. Saab Kockums AB is further operational in Muskö, Docksta, and Karlskrona. While having a history of civil vessel construction, ...

and Muskövarvet AB. In the autumn of 2019, as part of an upgrade of defence facilities and manpower, the naval base was revived, and it was announced that it would also serve as seat of the main headquarters of the

Swedish Navy The Swedish Navy ( sv, Svenska marinen) is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet () – as well as marine units, the Amphibious Corps (). In Swedish, vessels o ...

. One of the Swedish submarine incidents in October, 1982, took place just off Muskö naval base. A survey carried out in 2000 concluded that sedimentation in the tunnels leading to docks contained PCBs,

organotin Organotin compounds or stannanes are chemical compounds based on tin with hydrocarbon substituents. Organotin chemistry is part of the wider field of organometallic chemistry. The first organotin compound was diethyltin diiodide (), discovered by ...

compounds and heavy metals, mainly mercury and copper. In 2019, Swedish naval command in the form of the Naval Staff returned to Muskö. In early 2020 it was confirmed that the base would be fully reactivated.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Musko naval base Haninge Garrison Swedish Navy installations Buildings and structures in Stockholm County 1955 establishments in Sweden Cold War military installations Subterranean buildings and structures