Wheelus Air Base

Wheelus Air Base was a United States Air Force base located in the Kingdom of Libya. Wheelus Air Base was originally built by the Italian Air Force in 1923 and known as Mellaha Air Base. Today the facility is known as Mitiga International Airport.

World War II
Prior to the war, the airbase was constructed in 1923 and used by the Italian Air Force. In 1933 the roads around the air base and the neighbouring Mellaha Lake became the new home for the popular Tripoli Grand Prix motor race.

Mellaha was used by the German Luftwaffe during the North African Campaign, with the Germans using it for short range recon units, as well as coastal and naval recon units. Special weather recon units also existed at Mehalla. The main Luftwaffe unit stationed at the base was the 2nd Staffel of the Aufklärungsgruppe (H) 14 or 2.(H)/14.

The squadron was equipped with twelve single-engined Henschel Hs 126, an aircraft with 2-man crews, which could cover approx 710 km, with a maximum speed of 360 km/h, as well as three Fieseler Fi 156 Storch liaison aircraft, and a Junkers Ju 52 for transport of men and materiel.

The airbase was captured by the British 8th Army in January 1943.

The US Army Air Force began using Mellaha as a base in January 1943. It was used by the 376th Bombardment Group (Heavy) of the 12th Air Force for B-24 bomb missions into Italy and southern parts of Germany.

In addition, Mellaha Field was used by Air Transport Command. It functioned as a stopover en route to Benina Airport near Benghazi or to Tunis Airport, Tunisia on the North African Cairo-Dakar transport route for cargo, transiting aircraft and personnel.

On 15 April 1945 Mellaha AAF was taken over by USAAF’s Air Training Command. It was renamed Wheelus Army Air Field (AAF) on 17 May 1945 in honor of USAAF Lieutenant Richard Wheelus who had died earlier that year in a plane crash in Iran.

Cold War usage by the USAF


Wheelus AAF was inactivated on 15 May 1947, then reactivated as Wheelus Air Base (Wheelus AB) on 1 June 1948 and transferred to the USAF Military Air Transportation Service (MATS). Its host unit under MATS was the 1603d Air Transport Wing.

With the crowning of Idris I in 1951, United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE)-based fighter-bomber units also began using Wheelus AB and its nearby El Uotia Gunnery Range for gunnery and bombing training. A further agreement between the United States and Libya, signed in 1954, granted the U.S. the use of Wheelus and its gunnery range until December 1971.

With its 4,600 Americans, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya once called it "a Little America...on the sparkling shores of the Mediterranean," although temperatures at the base frequently reached 110 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (43 to 50 degrees Celsius).

Military Air Transport Service use
The Military Air Transport Service (MATS) activated the 1603rd Air Transport Wing at Wheelus on 1 June 1948. The 1603rd flew C-47 and C-54s to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Cyprus, and operated the base transport control center until 1952.

Headquarters, 7th Air Rescue Group was assigned to Wheelus along with the 58th Air Rescue Squadron at about this time. They flew SA-16s and H-19s. The 56th Air Rescue Squadron, stationed at Sidi Slimane, Morocco, the 57th Air Rescue Squadron stationed at Lajes Field, Azores, and the 59th Air Rescue Squadron, stationed at Dahran AB, Saudi Arabia, were units of the 7th ARGp along with the 58th ARS. At the time the Air Rescue Service was under the command and control of the Military Air Transport Command and Brigadier General Thomas J. Du Bose was Commander of the Air Rescue Service. (Added by TSgt Paul Garner, USAF (Ret) 7th ARS 1955 and the 56th ARS 1956)

The 58th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron (58 ARRS) operated out of Wheelus until 1970 when they were relocated to the 67th ARRSQ in the UK. The 58 ARRS flew three HH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopters, and three HC-130 refueling tankers.

MATS aircraft and personnel from Wheelus participated in Operation Hajji Baba in 1952. Also in 1952 the MATS 580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing was reassigned to Wheelus from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The Wing (later Group) supported special operations in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Southwest Asia until being inactivated in 1956.

MATS withdrew and relocated to Rhein Main AB, Germany in January 1953. However, MATS and later Military Airlift Command (MAC) aircraft were frequent visitors at Wheelus and maintained a small detachment there until the base's closure in 1970.

Strategic Air Command use
As the Cold War overtook post-World War II international politics, on 16 November 1950 USAF's Strategic Air Command (SAC) began deploying B-50s, B-36s, B-47s and support aircraft (KB-29, KB-50, and KC-97 tankers) from US air bases to Wheelus. The base became one of several SAC forward operating locations (FOLs) in North Africa, becoming a vital link in SAC war plans for use as a bomber, tanker refueling and recon-fighter base.

Wheelus hosted SAC bomber deployments in 45-day rotational deployments, using Wheelus as a staging area for planned strikes against the Soviet Union.

SAC's use of Wheelus continued until 1970, when as part of the USAF withdrawal from the base, its rotational deployments ended.

USAF use
Wheelus AB was reassigned from MATS to United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) on 16 October 1951, under USAFE's 7272nd Air Base Wing. The 7272nd was later designated the 7272nd Fighter Training Wing and became the host unit at Wheelus AB until the base's closure on 11 June 1970.

431st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron
The 431st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was activated when the 107th Fighter Squadron of the Michigan Air National Guard was ordered to active duty in June 1953. The squadron was reassigned from Selfridge AFB and deployed to Wheelus, where it was equipped with twenty-five F-86Fs, two T-33s, and one C-47. The squadron insignia adorned each side of the center fuselage, just over the wing. The tail markings consisted of a red-and-white comet design on the vertical tail. A white lightning flash decorated the red portion of the comet's tail.

In January 1955 the F-86D began to replace the F-86Fs, which were sent to NATO air forces. The squadron's tail markings changed with the F-86Ds having two or three horizontal red chevrons starting at the base of the rudder, with the chevron point touching the vertical fin's leading edge and angling towards the upper trailing edge of the rudder. Inside the rearmost chevron was a solid blue triangle.

In September 1958, the 431st FIS moved to Zaragoza Air Base, Spain, and was transferred from USAFE to SAC's 16th Air Force.

On 1 August 1956, the Headquarters of 17th Air Force moved to Wheelus Air Base, Libya, from Rabat, Morocco, where it remained until relocating to Ramstein AB, Germany, on 15 November 1959.

Annual Missile Launch Operation (AMLO)
The expanse of Libyan desert was used first by the 701st TMW, then later its successor, the 38th Tactical Missile Wing, United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), beginning in October 1954, with three separate live launch operations for all of the operational squadrons using the TM-61 Matador. Operations Suntan (October 1954), Sunburst (June 1955), and Sunflash (March 1956) became annual qualification firings for all Matador squadrons based in Europe. There were 36 Matador launches from Wheelus in 1957, while there were only 13 launches at Cape Canaveral and only 25 from Holloman AFB in Alamagordo, New Mexico during the same time. The 1958 exercise from October 6 through the 19th of November, called "Operation Marblehead," utilized 19 C-130 Hercules and seven C-124 Globemasters just to move the 339 personnel and equipment of the 71st TMS from Bitburg to Wheelus and back. C-47 twin engined transports carried personnel back and forth as well. Not only did the 71st take 13 missiles and the required launchers and checkout vans, but also two complete MSQ units, plus personnel to back up the two Shanicle base units that were permanently installed at Wheelus. The exercise was followed by similar deployments from Hahn Air Base, and later Sembach Air Base, all units of the newly formed 38th TMW. The exercises were moved to Patrick AFB, FL, in 1959 for launches at Cape Canaveral.

The missile launch area was located 15 miles east of Tripoli, the remote southern section of the base, away from flight operations.

Detachment 1, 20th Fighter-Bomber Wing
The 20th Fighter Bomber Wing, based at RAF Wethersfield UK, established an operational detachment at Wheelus AB, in February 1958. This detachment managed the USAFE Weapons Training Center for month-long squadron rotations by the Europe-based USAFE tactical fighter wings.

This facility allowed USAFE units from Germany, such as the 36th and 49th TFWs in joint operations with their F-84 "Thunderjet" and the 50th TFW with F-100 Super Sabres trained at Wheelus. In addition, the United Kingdom based 20th and 48th TFWs with F-100Ds, and the 81st TFW trained in air-to-air and air-to-ground gunnery and delivery of conventional ordnance and nuclear "shapes" at the weapons range about 10 nmi further east of the air base.

As the F-4 Phantom II replaced most USAFE fighters in the 1960s, Phantom detachment operations became the predominant activity at Wheelus. USAFE's use of Wheelus continued until 1970, when as part of the USAF withdrawal from the base, desert weapons range training ended.

United States withdrawal
Oil was discovered in Libya in 1959, and what had been one of the world's poorest countries became comparatively wealthy. The United States continued a generally warm relationship with Libya and pursued policies centered on interests in operations at Wheelus Air Base and the considerable U.S. oil interests. During the early 1960s, many children of U.S. oil personnel sent to develop the oil field installations and pipelines were allowed to attend the high school facility at Wheelus, typically riding buses from residential areas in or near Tripoli. Classes often had to pause briefly while large aircraft were taking off.

The strategic value of the facility had declined with the development of nuclear missiles that had effectively replaced many bomber bases. Indeed, Wheelus had primarily served as a tactical fighter training facility in the 1960s.

In September 1969 King Idris I was overthrown by a group of military officers centred on Muammar Gaddafi. Before the revolution, the U.S. and Libya had already reached agreement on U.S. withdrawal from Wheelus; this proceeded according to plan, and the facility was turned over to the new Libyan authorities on June 11, 1970.

After 1970
Following the U.S. withdrawal, the base was renamed Okba Ben Nafi Airfield (seemingly after the legendary hero Uqba ibn Nafi) and went into use by the Soviet Union, as well as becoming the headquarters for the Libyan Air Force. The base was bombed by the United States in 1986 during Operation El Dorado Canyon.

The airfield was subsequently renamed Mitiga International Airport.