Latrar Air Station (ADC/NATO ID: H-4), also known as Straumnes Air Station, is a former

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

General Surveillance Radar station, located at the top of Mount Straumnes and in the former village of Látrar in the bay of

Aðalvík Aðalvík is a bay located in the southwest part of Hornstrandir on Iceland. The bay splits into three main locations, the former fishing villages of Látrar (120 inhabitants in 1920) and Sæból (80 inhabitants in 1900) and Miðvík. All of the ...

Hornstrandir Hornstrandir () is Iceland's northernmost peninsula, covering at the northern end of the Westfjords, to the north of the Jökulfirðir and to the northwest of Drangajökull glacier. Ecosystem The area covers of tundra, fjord, glacier and alp ...

. The site was operated by the 934th Aircraft Control and Warning (later Air Defense, Later Air Control) Squadron, and was equipped with

AN/FPS-3 The AN/FPS-20 was a widely used L band early warning and ground-controlled interception radar system employed by the United States Air Force Air Defense Command, the NORAD Pinetree Line in Canada, the USAF CONAD in the continental United State ...

, AN/FPS-8 and AN/FPS-4 radars.

History

Construction of the air station started in 1953 and it started operations in 1956. After only being in operation for four years, a decision was made to close the site in 1960 due to high operation costs and the last air force and civilian staff left the following year. In 1962, the Icelandic government took over ownership of the remaining buildings. The Greenland, Iceland and United Kingdom air defense sector, better known as the

GIUK gap The GIUK gap (sometimes written G-I-UK) is an area in the northern Atlantic Ocean that forms a naval choke point. Its name is an acronym for ''Greenland, Iceland'', and the ''United Kingdom'', the gap being the two stretches of open ocean amo ...

, was routinely utilized by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

's long-range heavy bombers and maritime reconnaissance platforms as a transit point towards the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. From bases located at

Arkhangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near its mouth into the White Sea. The city spreads for over along the ...

and

Murmansk Murmansk () is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far Far North (Russia), northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of a modest fjord, Ko ...

, Soviet aircraft would stream down to the North Cape in Norway towards the Gap which was use as a doorway to the vast Atlantic. Most of the Soviet missions were destined to probe United States’ air defense along the North Atlantic and after 1960 in the Caribbean where

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

, the USSR's most important satellite state outside continental Europe, was located. Such was the perceived threat from the Soviet incursions that it became a priority for NATO to demonstrate to that the strategic Giuk passage would be monitored at all times. The mission of the station was to intercept and shadow all Soviet aircraft in transit in and from the Gap which passed through the detection range of its radars and pass the information to interceptor aircraft deployed at Keflavik Airfield. After the site was closed, the facility was abandoned. The buildings are difficult to reach and remain in a deteriorating condition, most without windows, abandoned to the elements. In 1991, a major cleaning operation was performed at the site, involving the Icelandic Defence Force and local SAR units. The site remains a popular hiking destination.

History

See also

References

Further reading