US Air Force fuel-distribution operators conduct hot-pit refueling on a B-2 Spirit bomber at the Keflavik air base in August. US Air Force...
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US Air Force fuel-distribution operators conduct hot-pit refueling on a B-2 Spirit bomber at the Keflavik air base in August. US Air Force/Senior Airman Thomas Barley |
Jan Mayen is north of Iceland and between Greenland and Norway, the latter of which administers and supplies it with regular flights by C-130 aircraft. It has been used for centuries for whaling, hunting, and, more recently, meteorological monitoring. During the Cold War, it was a base for communications and navigation systems. Though it doesn't have a usable port, its airfield can be used for research and search and rescue. The island is also above the Arctic Circle and, the release noted, "along sea-routes connecting Russia to the Atlantic Ocean."
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Members of the 435th Contingency Response Squadron conducting a landing-zone survey. US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Kyle Yeager |
The 435th CRS is the "unit of choice" for these airfield surveys because of its "cross-functional makeup," comprising more than 25 Air Force specialties that train together for unique challenges, Air Forces Europe said. Its members were joined by members of the 435th Security Forces Squadron, which was there to do "a security assessment of the airfield to ensure that it met Air Force security requirements for C-130 operations," said Tech. Sgt. Ross Caldwell, a member of that squadron.
"We must be trained and certified on many different tasks to counter any threat and survive in any environment we are tasked to operate in," Caldwell said. "If the [Contingency Response Group] goes, we go," Caldwell added, referring to the US Air Forces Europe's contingent that assesses and opens airbases and performs initial airfield operations.
Options in the high north
The European Arctic has become an area of increasing focus of the Navy and the Air Force. The Norwegian Sea in particular has also gotten more attention, as Russia's growing submarine fleet — which is far from the size of its Cold War predecessor but much more sophisticated — would need to traverse it to get to the Atlantic. The USS Harry S. Truman became the first US carrier to sail above the Arctic Circle since the 1990s when it arrived in the sea in late 2018 for Trident Juncture, NATO's largest exercise since the Cold War.
publicized visits by surface ships and submarines to Norway for exercises, tweeting photos of the nuclear-powered attack sub USS Minnesota loading MK-48 torpedoes at Haakonsvern naval base in Bergen.
US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers also recently made their first visit to Iceland, landing at Keflavik in late August to exercise it "as a forward location for the B-2, ensuring that it is engaged, postured and ready with credible force," US Air Forces Europe said at the time. That deployment also saw B-2s fly into the Arctic, performing "an extended duration sortie over the Arctic Circle" in early September. US Air Forces Europe called it the B-2's "first mission this far north" in Europe.
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A P-8A Poseidon aircraft in Keflavik, Iceland. US Navy/Lt. j.g. Grade Matthew Skoglund |
Jan Mayen's airfield "would add another option in that region, and the surveys are often a critical piece of the Global Air Mobility Support System, ensuring unfamiliar airfields are safe to land for a variety of Air Force mobility aircraft," US Air Forces Europe said in its email. During the Cold War, Iceland sat in the middle of the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, through which Russian subs would have to pass to reach the North Atlantic. Russian submarines' newfound ability to strike cities and infrastructure in Europe with sub-launched missiles has led to arguments that NATO needs to operate farther north, closer to the Barents Sea, to keep an eye on them.
Jan Mayen is closer to the Barents — but if there's a role it could play in operations up there, the US military isn't saying. "It would be inappropriate for us to speculate about possible future operations by US or partner nation forces," US Air Forces Europe said when asked about the island's future.
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