Located about seven miles due east of Tripoli, the capital of Libya on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, Wheelus Air Base (AB) was originally built by the Italian Air Force as Mellaha AB in 1923.  Captured by the British 8th Army in January 1943 during its battles with Erwin Rommel's Wehrmacht Afrika Korps, Mellaha was then used by the US Army Air Force (USAAF) as a base for B-17 and B-24 bomb missions to Italy and southern Germany.

On 15 Apr 1945, Mellaha was taken over by USAAF’s Air Training Command and renamed Wheelus Field on 17 May 1945 in honor of USAAF Lt Richard Wheelus who had died earlier that year in a plane crash in Iran.  Wheelus Field was inactivated on 15 May 1947, then reactivated as Wheelus Air Base (AB) on 01 June 1948 and transferred to USAF's  Military Air Transport Service (MATS).  As the Cold War overtook post-WW 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 -- it became one of several SAC forward operating locations (FOLs) in North Africa.  With the crowning of His Majesty King of Libya Mohammed Idris Al-Sanusi I in 1951, USAFE Europe-based fighter-bomber units also began using Wheelus AB and its nearby El Watia Gunnery Range for gunnery and bombing training.

Wheelus AB was reassigned from MATS to the US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) on 01 January  1953, under USAFE's 7272nd Air Base Wing  (later designated a Fighter Training Wing or FTW).  The 431st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron (the "Red Devils") was reassigned from CONUS for base air defense duties in July 1953 with F-86s (the 431st later moved to Zaragoza AB, Spain, in September 1958).   Wheelus AB served as the headquarters for USAFE's Seventeenth Air Force from 01 August 1956 to 15 November 1959, and became a USAFE Weapons Center on 07 January 1957.

On 09 November 1958, British geologists flying over the desolate, sun-baked Libyan Desert spotted an aircraft resting on the sand dunes approximately 400 miles south of Benghazi, Libya.  A ground party reached the site in March 1959 and discovered the plane to be the "Lady Be Good," a B-24D Liberator of the USAAF's 376th Bomb Group.  The USAAF bomber had disappeared without a trace after an 04 April 1943 high-altitude bombing attack by 25 Liberators from an AAF base at Sulûq (near Benghazi) against the harbor facilities at Naples, Italy.  Evidence at the site indicated that the "Lady Be Good" crew had become lost in the dark on the return from Naples and (mistaking the nighttime desert for the Med) had oveflown Sulûq southward into the desert.  With the B-24's fuel supply depleted, the nine men aboard had bailed out and disappeared while attempting to walk northward to civilization.  Intensive searches were made for clues as to the fate of the crew -- in 1960 the remains of eight airmen were found, one near the plane and the other seven far to the north (the body of the ninth crewman was never found).  Five had trekked 78 miles across the tortuous sand before perishing and one had gone an amazing 109 miles.  In addition, they had lived eight days rather than only the two expected of men in the desert with little or no water.  Numerous parts from the "Lady Be Good" were returned to the U.S. for technical study, and one of its bent propellers became the centerpiece of a Wheelus AB monument to the valiant crew.   In 1960, members of the 7272nd ABW donated funds for the design and manufacture of a memorial window to the "Lady Be Good" and its crew in the Wheelus base chapel.

At Wheelus AB, the North African desert and the Mediterranean met to make  some pretty fickle weather conditions: "There were 1,000 miles of desert on three sides of Wheelus Air Base and 500 miles of Mediterranean Sea to the north.   Even though we were on the coast, temperatures reached 110-120 degrees when a sand storm (or "ghiblis" as they are called) rolled in.  All air stopped blowing and you're burning up.  First your eyes have trouble with not enough moisture, then the top of your head gets hot, and finally the roof of your mouth burns." (William H. Brown, with the 6934th Radio Squadron (Mobile) at Wheelus 1955-56, quoted in the February 1998 VFW Magazine article "Cold War on NATO's Southern Flank: Facing Down The Soviets")

In 1959, a year-round weapons training detachment was established at Wheelus  for month-long squadron rotations by the Europe-based tactical  fighter wings  (TFWs).  USAFE units from Germany (the 36th and 49th TFWs in joint operations with their Thunderchiefs and the 50th TFW with F-100s) and from the United Kingdom (the 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 air miles further east of the air base.  Ferry configuration for the Thunderchiefs was a 600-gallon centerline tank, along with the 450s on the wing pylons.

• In the spring of 1961, the Air Force airlifted food and relief supplies to Benghazi for flood victims near there after a severe storm.  At the same time, a C-54 Skymaster from Wheelus searched for a Greek fishing boat that sank during the storm.

• On 15 March 1962, the Air Force provided emergency assistance to flood victims near Tripoli.

• On 21-28 February 1963, four hours after a severe earthquake on 21 February at Barce, Libya, six Air Force aircraft lifted rescue and medical personnel and supplies from Wheelus AB to the disaster scene.

• On 5 June 1967, war broke out between Israel and its neighboring Arab states.  Officials at Wheelus moved about 1,000 US citizens living off base onto the base because of growing local civil unrest.  Between 6-10 June 1967, the Air Force airlifted 7,095 US and third-country citizens from Wheelus to Air Force bases in Europe in "Operation Creek Haven."

• On 8-14 October 1969, three HH-3E helicopters from Wheelus AB deployed to Tunisia to help flood victims.  Flying 108 sorties, they saved at least 433 lives.

More than weapons delivery training and humanitarian rescues were conducted at Wheelus:  "'In my time in Libya, we copied most everything out of Russia, all the way to the Vladivostok submarine pens in the Sea of Japan,' recalls William H. Brown, with the 6934th Radio Squadron (Mobile) from 1955-56.  'The Russians moved into Libya while I was there.  In fact you could see men with field glasses watching all flights taking off and landing.  Ferret missions flew periodically while I was at Wheelus.'  Also based at Wheelus was the 580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing (ARCW).  'Our crews flew into Eastern European countries,' says Carl H. Bernhardt, a unit member.  [The 580th's special operations mission included waging propaganda warfare by leaflet drops and radio broadcasts, conveying personnel and equipment behind enemy lines, supplying resistance movements, and evacuating special operations personnel.  Its responsibilities included complete support (equipping, training, transporting, and housing) of guerrilla personnel.]  The planes regularly flew over Turkey on missions to the Black and Caspian Seas where on two occasions 580th SA-16 'Albatross' amphibious aircraft rescued U-2 pilots who ditched when their planes ran out of fuel.  On another occasion, an SA-16 picked up a Russian family defecting to the West.  The 580th also used stripped-down B-29s to drop agents and supplies to guerrilla bands behind the Iron Curtain after lengthy, zigzagging flights to avoid Soviet radar detection.  The Wing's 580th Reproduction Squadron was involved in the propaganda war against the Soviet Bloc.  It had the capacity to print 7 million, two-sided color leaflets in one day, which could be dropped over Communist borders.  At Wheelus, too, was the Holding and Briefing Squadron, an 'officer-heavy' unit that trained guerrillas to be inserted into enemy nations." -- "Cold War on NATO's Southern Flank: Facing Down The Soviets," VFW Magazine, February 1998

 

PROLOGUE --  After a 1969 military coup that overthrew King Idris, Libya's ruling monarch since 1951, Colonel Gadhafi's new government sought the removal of all foreign military bases in Libya.  Wheelus AB was turned back to Libya and the 7272nd FTW inactivated on 11 June 1970.  British military installations at Tobruk and nearby El Adem had earlier closed, in March 1970.  After the USAF left, the base was reportedly worth $77 million in 1970 dollars.  It became a Libyan People's Air Force installation -- "Okba Ben Nafi Air Base" -- and housed LPAF's headquarters and a large share of its major training facilities.  LPAF MiG-17/19/25 fighters and Tu-22 bombers were based at Okba Ben Nafi Air Base.

Sixteen years later, at 0200 hours on 16 Apr 1986 Okba Ben Nafi AB, various Libyan government buildings, and three of 30 Libyan terrorist training camps were bombed by USAFE's 48th TFW F-111Fs, flying non-stop from RAF Lakenheath, UK, to Libya in "Operation Eldorado Canyon."  The mission was in retaliation for Libyan missile attacks on US aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea and Libyan involvement in alleged terrorist attacks on US  servicemen in Europe.  Operation Eldorado Canyon included 18 48th TFW F-111F "Aardvark" fighter-bombers (Pave Tack-equipped), USN carrier-based F-14s and A-6Es (which struck other targets in Libya), and and five EF-111A "Sparkvarks" from the 66th ECW/42ECS at Upper Heyford, UK.  The  66th ECW Sparkvarks formed up with the attack force to provide electronic defense during the attack.  One 48th F-111E (70-2389, callsign "Karma 52") was lost outbound from the attack to (presumably) a SAM or AAA hit (Major Fernando Ribas-Dominici (AC) and WSO Capt. Paul Lorence were lost -- In respect for the crew, the last F-111F flown to AMARC retirement used the same callsign).  The 14-hour 5,800-mile round trip to Libya required numerous in-air refuelings (over seven million pounds of fuel), because countries closer to Libya -- Spain, Italy, France, and Greece -- had refused American planes permission to fly over or from bases in their countries.  Ironically, the 48th TFW had practiced for years at Wheelus (with F-100s) and later at Zaragoza AB Spain, with F4D Phantoms and the F-111s, for just such a mission...

Wheelus AB was re-activated in 1995 as a domestic airport and re-named Mitiga Airport (ICAO HLLM).  
 

This background color is as close as I  can get to recreating the color of the  Libyan  sand -- the palm tree represents  the thousands of date palms that were  everywhere at Wheelus.... DCG