RAF Gan

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RAF Gan was a Royal Air Force station on Gan Island, a southerly island of the Maldive Islands, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It was first established in the late 1950s as a stopover on the reinforcement to the RAF Far East Air Force based in Singapore. The previous reinforcement route had passed through countries that had formerly been British territory but were now independent nations.

It was extensively used by bombers, fighters and transports on their way to Singapore and other destinations in east Asia during the late 1950s and the 1960s. Other foreign military forces, like the US, occasionally used the facilities. However as the 1970s dawned the United Kingdom was withdrawing from its commitments east of the Suez. By the end of 1971 the Far East Air Force was disbanded and the major rationale for Gan was gone. Traffic was now much less frequent but the base still remained open for a few more years. By 1975 British military aircraft using the base were an extreme rarity. Gan was thus closed and turned over to the Maldivian civil authorities of the area. At the same time as RAF use of the airfield ceased, the RAF gained access to the then newly built US airfield two hundred miles to the south of Gan on the British island of Diego Garcia.