Keflavik Naval Air Station (house, aircraft, hotel, construction)

[Fisher2737]

I was stationed at Kef from Feb 1957 to Aug 1958. I did great at Air/Ground Radio school in Biloxi, Miss., so i had my choice of duty station, and since i hate the heat, i chose Iceland. Other than the almost-constant wind and plenty of "sideway-rains", i liked the place. That's why i extended to 18 months. I worked at the Communications building up near the flight line. USAF 1971st AACS Squadron. Our job was to keep track of military traffic doing Trans Atlantic flights from Dover Delaware and McGuire in New Jersey ( also called Ft. Dix ). We would be in voice contact and would regularly get position reports from the pilot or co-pilot. This included A/c number, flight level, fuel remaining, time/location of next report. Back then the Navy was using the P2-V aircraft to do the patrolling over the sea, mainly for ships and of course submarines. They were known as "submarine hunters". The 53rd Air Rescue squadron was there during my stay. While on duty one afternoon, i was sitting at my desk (Trick chief ) when suddenly right behind me came a friggin LOUD "S.O.S" out of the huge speakers, at full power. A plane from Dover Deleware was inbound to Shannon Ireland and had to shut down 2 of their 4 engines. I immediately copied the problem and position-report which was sent out in Morse Code and then relayed it by TTY ( teletype ) to Ireland with a request that they send out their Air Rescue since ours was too far away. Luckily the plane made it safely and that was a good day. Of course we played poker quite a bit, and one night the CQ on duty tried to shut us down, so we grabbed a table and chairs from the first floor and finished playing out in the parking lot. This was in mid-summer, so we had plenty of light. The warmest temp one summer was 72F and the coldest just happened to be in January, the day after i got back from a 30-day leave. All night long the wind howled and next day it got stronger, reportedly 110 mph and the temp was down to ZERO. That only lasted about 24 hours and then things went back to normal. I sure would love being there right now. It's 83 in Ct so i'm inside with the a/c. Happy Summer to all. If anyone wants to contact me with any questions, my screen name is Plzr56@aol.com Thanks

[Salvelinus1]

I was stationed at the Marine corps Barracks at the Keflavik NAS from July, 1970 to July, 1971. Aside from the normal amount of homesickness that a young man experiences, I absolutely loved it there. Duty tours were good - 2 days on, (4 hrs on, 4 off in the "hot standby" room, then 4 in our own room, twice daily), followed by a day of 8A-5P training and then a fourth day completely off. I found the civilian population to be very welcoming as long as you didn't cultivate the loud-mouth, heavy-drinking GI routine. I made friends with a wonderful Icelandic family, complete with a second "mom" and a "little sister"named Linda, and was welcome there any time of day or night. Found the day/night cycle there so neat, 23 hour days in the summer, and the opposite in the longest days of winter. Absolutely magical. Also, I was there during at the height of the northern lights cycle. Were many, many nights when half the sky was covered with them, and the surroundings on my remote post were so quiet you could hear them crackling. So breathtakingly beautiful one night, while I was on roving foot patrol at a remote missile repair compound, that I laid on my back in a snowbank and just looked up for a long, long time. Still remains in my memory as one of the most special nights of my life, and certainly the most spectacular sight I have ever seen. Like anything else, a tour at his remote site depended more on what you decided to make of it than on any other factor. A wo
nderful place for a contemplative soul.

[johnsonkk]

Recent international house hunting show HDTV (filmed in 2012 or 13) followed a couple looking for a rental in Iceland. Show is on Netflix. One of their rentals was the old base. They looked at the old base that had converted the barracks into apartments. Rent on the show was $500 per month while in the city was double that. Rooms came furnished with typical goverment furniture all the same color. Both of the couple were there for school. The common use oven was on a different floor. They mentioned a 45 min bus ride each way to get to the university. They showed the couple playing frisbee golf on the old ammo igloos. The roof vents were the "cup" for their frisbee golf. Looked very sparse on people; which is what the young couple was looking for in their rental.

[itfitz]

I was one of the five dentists on base from July 2000 until January 2002. Without question, it was the best tour of my career. We had "Lava Java" on base -- a phenomenal coffee shop serving coffee roasted there in Keflavik. The gym and swimming pool and the indoor running track were where we all worked out and kept in shape, and we had the bowling alley and movie theater for recreation.

We didn't have many restrictions on leaving the base except for the weeks immediately after 9/11/2001. We could come and go as we wanted, but we could not take food/alcohol or other items off base and were subject to Icelandic police inspection as we left the base. The Icelandic people were extremely friendly to the U.S. servicemen, and it was a VERY different place than when the population wasn't so friendly to the U.S. military.

I had a blast and look back at my 18 months there as one of the best times of my life.

[Carmine a Zinno]

Addendum to my previous post
1968-69
For the guy stating the Icelandics were going to defend themselves. We were there because of the Cold War with Russia protecting the North Atlantic from Russian subs !!!!
Let's see the Icelandics do that !!!
Ha ha what a joke .
I'm guessing the girls back then are now in their 60s. "Shudder"
the old ladies had bodies but were not that good looking.
But they were all nymphos old, young and in between!!!!

[SigP220]

I was involved with the planting of a thousand trees on Kef military base in the early 90's. Is there anyone there who can report back to me on the condition of this forest? I worked on the station P-3 while there from 1991 thru 1994.

[dsterry49]

Was at Naval Station June of 71 to August of 72. SK2 working at Base Supply
dept. First time overseas and loved the duty. As PO2 was able to go off base at will in regular clothes.
There was a curfew off base of 10pm except on Wed when it was 12, you had to be off the streets by these times. Several of us would travel off base like to Akurei and Myvtan and places like that. Liked the people I met and the ones I worked with in Supply. Was able to fly in the old C47 up to the USAF radar site up North and even landed on a gravel runway. Took the C118 to Scotland once and to Spain too. Great duty

[GregW]

I would have enjoyed a couple of years in Iceland but I wound up in Vietnam. At least Vietnam was warm like over 100 deg or so out on the River. Closest we ever came to Iceland was a Reserve Cruise that we though was going to Cuba but wound up doing anti-sub exercises off Halifax, NS. Ever been in the North Atlantic in February? On a DE? The men on these things escorting convoys during WW2 deserve a great deal of respect.

[Fisher2737]

HI do we know each other from a much earlier posting? I was at the 1971st aacs from feb 1957 to aug 1958 The closest barracks to the Service Club. My room was on the second floor. Do you recall the big blizzard at the beginning of January 1958, somewhere between the third and the fifth? 100 plus winds snow blasted up into the stairwell to the second floor. Lifeline tied inside and out the door to the mess hall. Sure was blowin that day. "Chuck" here in Ct Worked at Ground Radio station. Became a Trick chief much later on actually picked up a "SOS" one afternoon while sitting at the table. Scared the crap out of me. Was "LOUD" lol I copied the CODE message and sent it via TTY to Shannon Ireland ( EINN ) Remember that one? GGBA was for Prestwick Scotland etc. Anyway, the plane lost 2 engines, so they scrambled air rescue and it all ended well. Give a shout if you like. Enjoy the summer.

[Al_Bino]

I was stationed on the base from October 1971 to July 1973. I was an SK3 at the NavFac. Let's just say we were a bit unruly, but not destructive. We played softball at midnight, were in the basketball league along with the Icelandic National Team (they had a really good player called "Rocket Man"), made some ceramics, purchased a vehicle and traveled the countryside, attended a dance at Hotel Loftleider and, most significant, spent eight days and nights at Vestmannaeyjar shoveling scoria off of rooftops when the volcano erupted. We caught R&R flights to London, Munich and Madrid. At the time I didn't really appreciate how much my time there would affect my life, but looking back, I do now.

My son, grandson and I will be touring Iceland next summer. We were supposed to go last year, but the pandemic messed up our plans. I hope there's enough of the base left to show them some things. I also hope enough of my memory is there to recognize it, too.