Rhein-Main Air Base
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Rhein-Main Air Base (located at ) was a U.S. Air Force / NATO military airbase near the city of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It occupied the south side of Frankfurt International Airport.
Established in 1945, Rhein-Main Air Base was the primary airlift and passenger hub for U.S. forces in Europe. It was billed as the "Gateway to Europe". It closed December 30, 2005.
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[edit] History
In 1909 Count von Zeppelin used Rhein-Main as a landing site for his dirigible Z-II. The facility was planned by Germany to be one of the most important European air terminals,
The base opened as a German commercial airport in 1936, with the northern part of base used as field for airplanes and the extreme southern part near Zeppelinheim serving as a base for rigid airships. That section of Rhein-Main later became port for the Graf Zeppelin, its sister ship LZ-130, and, until 6 May 1937, for the ill-fated Hindenburg.
The airships were dismantled and their huge hangars demolished on 6 May 1940 in conversion of base to military use. Luftwaffe engineers subsequently extended the single runway and erected hangars and other facilities for German military aircraft. During World War II the Luftwaffe used the field sporadically as fighter base and as experimental station for jet aircraft.
[edit] USAF Use
After the U.S. 7th Army moved through the Frankfurt area, the 826th Engineer Aviation Battalion (EAB), a unit of the IX Engineer Command, arrived at Rhein-Main in April 1945 to begin task of clearing rubble and reconstructing major buildings. The Army engineers also built new runways and extended and widened the existing runway, constructed aprons and hardstands as well as taxiways leading to the terminal.
Units assigned to Rhein-Main were:
- HQ, 826th Engineer Aviation Battalion, 26 Apr 1945 – 20 Nov 1945 (Facilities Reconstruction)
- 466th Air Service Group, 20 Nov 1945 - 20 Nov 1947
- 61st Troop Carrier Group 11 Feb 1947 - 21 Jul 1950
- 513th Troop Carrier Group (Special) 19 Nov 1948 - 16 Oct 1949
- 60th Troop Carrier Wing 2 Jun 1950 - 18 Apr 1955
- 7310th Air Base Wing 18 Apr 1955 - 1 Jul 1969
- 435th Air Base Wing 1 Jul 1969 - 1 Apr 1995
- 469th Air Base Group 1 Apr 1995 - 12 Oct 2005
- 626 Air Mobility Support Squadron - 1995 - 2000
- 726 Air Mobility Squadron - 2000 - 30 Dec 2005 (Later Redeployed to Spangdahlem AB)
The USAF Rhein-Main passenger and cargo terminal was completed in 1946, and air traffic into Rhein-Main increased after the closure of the military passenger terminal at Orly Field, Paris in October 1946.
Although originally envisioned as a bomber base by USAFE, Rhein-Main became a principal European air transport terminal, and was the main western base for the round-the-clock Berlin Airlift operations from June 1948 to September 1949. A special group, the 513th Troop Carrier Group, was formed to manage Berlin Airlift flights. Many of these missions were flown by the following squadrons of the 513th TCG:
- 330th Troop Carrier Squadron (C-54)
- 331st Troop Carrier Squadron (C-54)
- 332d Troop Carrier Squadron (C-54)
With the end of the Berlin Airlift in 1949, the 513th was deactivated.
USAFE turned over the northern part of the base to the German government for use as Flughafen Frankfurt am Main, the chief commercial airport for the greater Frankfurt area, in April 1959, with the remainder of the base remaining in the hands of USAFE as the principal aerial port for U.S. Forces in Germany.
On 1 July 1975, Rhein-Main Air Base was base assigned to Military Airlift Command, and under terms of an agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany, only transport aircraft have been stationed at Rhein-Main since 1 May 1975.
On January 20, 1981, the American hostages taken by the Iran hostage crisis were flown to Rhein-Main in a C-9 Nightingale aircraft.
On August 8, 1985, The Red Army Faction terrorist group snuck a car laden with explosives onto the base and parked it behind the headquarters building. At approximately 7:15 AM the car exploded killing Airman First Class Frank Scorton of Michigan, Ms. Becky Jo Bristol of San Antonio, Texas, and wounding 20 others.
In 1990, it was the staging base for supplies and equipment heading to the Gulf War.
During its operational lifetime few aircraft were permanently assigned to the base, however it saw a large number of C-5 Galaxy and C-141 Starlifter flights each day.
At its peak, the base had a population of 10,000. However by 1993, officials announced the intent to downsize the base by half. This was completed in 1995, and set the stage for a complete closure in 2005.
[edit] 7406th Operations Squadron
The 7406th Operations Squadron was activated at Rhein-Main on 10 May 1955 and received its first aircraft (RB-50s) in March 1956. The RB-50s were replaced with specially configured C-130A-II reconnaissance aircraft in 1958.
The mission of the 7406th was airborne reconnaissance. The 7406th owned and maintained the aircraft and provided the flight crews. A separate USAF Security Service squadron provided the recon crew that manned the intelligence collection positions on the aircraft.
One of these C-130s (56-0528) was shot down with the loss of a crew of seventeen over Yerevan, Soviet Armenia on 2 September 1958, becoming the first C-130 lost to hostile fire. Four Soviet MiG-17 pilots took turns firing on the unarmed C-130 when the American aircraft inadvertently penetrated Soviet airspace while on a recon mission along the Turkish-Armenian border.
On 2 September 1997 the National Security Agency dedicated at National Vigilance Park, Fort Meade, Maryland an Aerial Recon Memorial consisting of a refurbished C-130A tail number 57-0453 that has been restored to look identical to 56-0528 when it was shot down. The Aerial Recon Memorial honors all SILENT WARRIORS (all military airborne recon crews) who paid the ultimate price while defending their country.
The 7406th continued flying recon missions from Rhein-Main in the C-130B models until 30 June 1973 when the squadron's sister Security Service flying squadron moved to Hellenikon AB, near Athens, Greece. Operational missions were flown until 13 June 1974 from Greece when the unit was deactivated.
[edit] 7th Special Operations Squadron
With the relocation of the 7406th to Greece, the 7th Special Operations Squadron was moved from Ramstein to Rhein-Main as one of the units shuffled as part of operation Creek Action. The 7406th's Hercules had been used for covert COMINT missions along the Eastern Bloc borders. The 7th SOS's MC-130Es, code-named Combat Talon, were no less mysterious and were also striking to look at with their matt black camouflage scheme and two large hooks on the nose.
It is these hooks that provided the clue to the covert task of these aircraft because they were the most visible element of the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system invented at the beginning of the 1960s and originally intended for fast and safe recovery of downed pilots from the ground or the sea as well as for the recovery of reconnaissance satellite capsules parachuting to earth.
The recovery system was not generally known about until around 1965 when several C-130s went into action in the Vietnam War. Being also equipped with terrain following radar and a vast amount of ECM equipment, these special EC-130Es were ideally suited for dropping infiltrators and agents behind enemy lines and picking them up again.
This, then, was the type of aircraft used in Europe by the 7th SOS as MC-130E Combat Talons. Although even today very little is known about this special unit. According to a Fact Sheet issued by the 1st SOW, the MC-130Es can be used for infiltration operations in which commando and sabotage units are dropped in enemy territory and for difficult air drops. These drops were often from an extremely low altitude - drops from below fifteen meters were not exceptional.
The 7th SOS's MC-130Es were been spotted in every corner of Europe. One of the most bizarre sightings dates from January 1976 when a traveller from West Berlin saw a low-flying C-130 over the Transitstrasse, the transit route, near Magdeburg in the German Democratic Republic (DDR). Flying at an estimated fifty meters over the motorway, the Hercules disappeared northwards at great speed. It was certainly an MC-130E from the 7th SOS but what it was doing in the DDR makes one believe it was on a clandestine mission.
The 7th SOS was reassigned to the 39th Aerospace Rescue & Recovery Wing, on 1 February 1987 and to the 352d Special Operations Group, on 1 December 1992 relocating in the process to RAF Alconbury, England.
[edit] Closure
On December 23, 1999, the U.S. and German governments agreed to close the facility. The last military passenger and cargo flights took place in late September, 2005, and the base's formal closure ceremony was set to take place October 10, 2005, but the formal handover did not occur until December 30, 2005.
Ramstein Air Base and Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, took over all of the airlift functions of Rhein-Main. The airmen and civilian staff remaining at the base will engage in the task of turning over to the German government all of the buildings (Completed Dec 2005). The Frankfurt Airport Authority had plans on leveling the entire base to build a third passenger terminal, but must now rethink some of the plans as some of the buildings are Protected under German Denkmalschutz (Memorial Protection) laws.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Fletcher, Harry R., Air Force Bases Volume II, Active Air Force Bases outside the United States of America on 17 September 1982, Office of Air Force History, 1989
- USAAS-USAAC-USAAF-USAF Aircraft Serial Numbers—1908 to Present [1]
