USAAF Colonel Bernt Balchen, who built Sondrestrom Air Base, knew Rasmussen and his idea. Account active
Today Thule is home to the 821st Air Base Group, which exercises Air Base support responsibilities within the Thule Defense Area. Location Thule Air Base is the U.S. Armed Forces’ northernmost installation, located 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle. US President Donald Trump has said that he wants to buy Greenland. JP-8, SemiKeroscene MIL Spec T-83133, without icing inhibitor, Northeast Air Command, 1 July 1951 – 1 April 1957, Air Defense Command (later redesignated Aerospace Defense Command) 15 January 1968, 1 July 1960 – 1 December 1979, Strategic Air Command, 1 December 1979 – 30 September 1992, Air Force Space Command, 30 September 1992 – present, 318th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, 1 July 1953 – 5 August 1954, 74th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 20 August 1954 – 25 June 1958, 320th Air Refueling Squadron, 4 May 1955 – 10 June 1957, 509th Air Refueling Squadron, c. 17 June 1955 – c. 3 August 1955, 96th Air Refueling Squadron, 13 July 1955 – 14 September 1955, 26th Air Refueling Squadron, 9 September 1955 – 2 November 1955; 5 September 1956 – 15 December 1956, 42d Air Refueling Squadron, 2 November 1955 – 28 December 1955; 1 January 1957 – 7 March 1957, 71st Air Refueling Squadron, 29 December 1955 – 27 March 1956, 341st Air Refueling Squadron, 27 March 1956 – 26 June 1956, 40th Air Refueling Squadron, 27 June 1956 – 4 September 1956; c. 1 October 1958 – January, 9 1959, 340th Air Refueling Squadron, 29 October 1956 – 30 December 1956, 100th Air Refueling Squadron c. 2 Jan 1958 – 2 Apr 1958, Detached from 100th Bomb Wing Pease AFB New Hampshire, 509th Air Refueling Squadron c. 3 Apr 1958 – 4 Jul 1959, Detached from 509th Bomb Wing Pease AFB New Hampshire, 4083d Strategic Wing, 1 April 1957 – 1 July 1959, 4683d Air Defense Wing, 1 July 1960 – 1 July 1965, 327th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 3 July 1958 – 25 March 1960, 332d Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 1 September 1960 – 1 July 1965, OL-5, 6594th Test Wing (Satellite), Air Force Systems Command, 15 October 1961, 12th Missile Warning Group, 31 March 1977, 821st Air Base Group, 1 June 2002 – present, 4th Battalion, 55th Artillery, 1 Sep 1958 – 20 Dec 1965. Near the base is the former Greenlandic (Eskimo) settlement of Umanak (Danish: Dundas).

It is approximately 550 miles east of the North Magnetic Pole. After a two-hour head start, a B-47 would catch up with them at the northeast coastline of Greenland where two would offload fuel to top off the B-47’s tanks (the third was an air spare). In addition, the airfield boasts a 3,047 by 42 m (9,997 by 138 ft) asphalt runway, with 3,000 US and international flights per year. -- Today, the base has a population of approximately 600, made up of American Airmen, Canadian and Danish military members, and civilians from Greenland, Denmark and the U.S. -- Three glaciers meet in a fjord bay near the base. The United States abandoned its territorial claims in the area in 1917 in connection with the purchase of the Virgin Islands. In 1943 the Army Air Forces set up weather stations Scoresbysund (Bluie East-3) on the east coast around the southern tip of Greenland, and Thule (Bluie West-6) to be operated by Danish personnel. The first US-sponsored installations at Thule were established after the US Secretary of State Cordell Hull and the defected Danish Minister to the United States Henrik Kauffmann signed The Agreement relating to the Defense of Greenland in Washington, D.C. on the symbolically chosen date of 9 April 1941.

In 1987, nearly 200 of the Danish workers tried unsuccessfully to sue the United States. Aerial view of Thule Air Base with Saunders Island in the background and the tombolo on the right, Main article: B-52 Crash at Thule Air Base.

The USAF only used that site for about a decade, and it has since returned to civilian use. Defensively, Thule could serve as a base for intercepting bomber attacks along the northeastern approaches to Canada and the US. BMEWS was developed by the RCA Corporation in order to provide North America warning of a transpolar missile attack from the Russian mainland and submarine-launched missiles from the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans.

Thule Air Base is also home to the 821st Air Base Group and is responsible for air base support within the Thule Defense Area for the multinational population of «Team Thule». Temperatures at the base can fall below -30 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, with winds up to 100 knots. Thule’s arctic environment offers some of the most spectacular scenery found anywhere in the world, including majestic icebergs in the North Star Bay, the massive polar ice cap and Wolstenholme Fjord–the only place on earth where three active glaciers join together. Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers flying over the Arctic presented less risk of early warning than using bases in the United Kingdom. The impact detonated the high explosives in the primary units of all four of the B28 nuclear bombs it carried, but nuclear and thermonuclear reactions did not take place due to the PAL and fail-safe mechanisms in the weapons. Thule Air Base is the US Armed Forces’ northernmost installation.
By the outbreak of the Korean War next year, the USAF embarked on a global program of base-building in which Thule (at the time) would be considered the crown jewel owing to its location across the Pole from the USSR, as well as its merit of being the northernmost port to be reliably resupplied by ship. More than 700 Danish civilians and US military personnel worked under hazardous conditions, the former without protective gear, to clean up the nuclear waste. Thule’s arctic environment includes icebergs in North Star Bay, two islands (Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Island), a polar ice sheet, and Wolstenholme Fjord – the only place on Earth where four active glaciers join together. By Patrick Dickson. Similar operations were also conducted with B-52 Stratofortress aircraft in the 1950s and 1960s. THULE AIR BASE, Greenland – Thule Air Base lies approximately 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 946 miles from the North Pole, with temperatures typically ranging from 30 to 40 degrees below zero in the winter to 30 to 40 degrees in the summer. Thule became an Air Force Space Command base in 1982. The content above was published at Airports-Worldwide.com in 2020. In 1949, Denmark joined NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and abandoned its attempt to remove the United States bases. The US operates Thule Air Base on the autonomous Danish territory, 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It is, in fact, the US’s northernmost military base in the world, located just 1,524km from the North Pole and 1,207km north of the Arctic Circle. On June 16, 1951, the base was accidentally discovered by French cultural anthropologist and geographer Jean Malaurie and his Inuit friend Kutikitsoq, on their way back from the geomagnetic North Pole. At this time, Thule was at its peak with a population of about 10,000. Denmark assumed control of the village in 1937.

The US established the Thule Air Base in 1941 to help Denmark defend its colonies from increasing German aggression. The Thule tribe was awarded damages of 500,000 kroner, and the individual members of the tribe who had been exposed to the transfer were granted compensation of 15,000 or 25,000 each. Balchen led a flight of two Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats to Thule on 24 August 1942 and then sent a report advocating an air base to USAAF chief Henry «Hap» Arnold. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been destroyed. Thule is also host to Detachment 1 of the 23rd Space Operations Squadron, part of the 50th Space Wing’s global satellite control network. At the request of NATO, the agreement became a part of the NATO defense program. The Danish Medical Director at Thule has offered to test up to 100 percent of the base population with a COVID-19 antibody test to determine if any personnel have possibly had the virus and/or a possible immunity. Kaare Ulbak, chief consultant to the Danish National Institute of Radiation Hygiene, said Denmark had carefully studied the health of the Thule workers and found no evidence of increased mortality or cancer. Thule Air Base is the US Armed Forces' northernmost installation. Schuyler Line operates under government contract to supply sustainment and building supplies to the Base. Visit Business Insider's home page for more stories. On 21 January 1968, a B-52G Stratofortress from the 380th Strategic Aerospace Wing, Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York, on a secret airborne nuclear alert crashed and burned on the ice near Thule Air Base. After reviewing these files, an investigative reporter from BBC News claimed in May 2007 that the USAF was unable to account for one of the weapons. In the winter of 1956/57 three KC-97 tankers and alternately one of two RB-47H aircraft made polar flights to inspect Soviet defenses. In 1946–1951, the airstrip played an important role in Arctic resupply, aerial mapping, research, and search-and rescue. The inhabitants of Qaanaaq speak the local Inuktun language and many also speak Kalaallisut and Danish. (Nike), 7th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Group, 1 July 1955 – 20 December 1965 (Redesignated 7th Artillery Group 20 March 1958) [A, B, C, and D Batteries 90mm AAA cannon; 549th 75mm AAA BN (Sky Sweeper); 51st Ordnance Company]. Greenland is an autonomous Danish territory, with its own government that handles domestic issues. Thule Air Base is home to the 821st Air Base Group, which exercises air base support responsibilities within the Thule Defense Area for the multi-national and multi-cultural population of Team Thule. Thule is the location where the fastest recorded sea level surface wind speed in the world was measured when a peak speed of 333 km/h (207 mph) was recorded on 8 March 1972 prior to the instrument’s destruction.

On board were 12,000 men and 300,000 tons of cargo. For more up-to-date information please refer to other sources. Thule’s medical clinic will then have the ability to test up to 60 personnel with the samples being sent to Denmark’s capitol, Copenhagen, for lab analysis and the results to come back within two days. (A main base street was named Pituffik Boulevard.) The B-47 averaged ten hours and 4,500 km (2,800 mi) in the air, unless unpredictable weather closed Thule. Thule became a key point in American nuclear retaliation strategy. Source for major commands and major units assigned: In 1954 a Douglas C-124C Globemaster II operated by the US Air Force crashed on approach to the air base, killing ten people.