|
|
Library > Fact Sheets > Lajes Field History - The Origins
LAJES FIELD HISTORY - THE ORIGINS
Posted 6/6/2006
Printable Fact Sheet
Introduction
Since its discovery in the early 15th century, the Portuguese Azores have played an important part in oceanic navigation. The Azores were a logistical point for the discovery of new worlds, a port of call for ships engaged in trade between Europe, America and India, and a place to lay anchor for the galleons bringing the wealth of the Americas back to the old world. The Azores, located 900 miles from the coast of Portugal and 2,000 miles from America, became a bastion of Portuguese power protecting lines of communications to its newly discovered lands. The Azores became known as the gem in the Atlantic for ocean travelers. The advent of air flight did not diminish the great role of these islands in the twentieth century. Lajes Field on the island of Terceira became the air connection between the old and new worlds - a crossroad in the Atlantic. Lajes Field was a new port of call for weary air travelers and once again a bastion of power for the U.S. global military mission. This is a brief history of Lajes Field from its earliest days as a packed strip of earth, to its role in operational missions in the 1990s.
The Origins of Air Base 4
Just as the Azores proved to be an excellent stopover for shipping through the Atlantic, the Azores once again proved to be a gem in the Atlantic during the early days of aviation. The evolution of aeronautics during the first decades of the century proved to be an exciting time. As aircraft technology improved and the accomplishments of military aviators in World War I proved successful, it was not long before aviators began to look across the great oceans as an obtainable goal. In May 1919, the first successful transatlantic flight took place from the United States to the United Kingdom by three U.S. Navy "Curtiss Flyer" flying boats. They used the Horta harbor on the Azorean Island of Faial as a stopover in their flight. A few years later in 1926 the first commercial airline was flown from the American continent to the Azores using a Fokker aircraft.
It is believed that the first interest in the Azores as a mid-Atlantic landing strip came about because of an accident involving a Polish airplane trying to cross the Atlantic in 1928. The Polish aircraft crashed on Graciosa Island killing one of the two pilots. In that same year the Portuguese government weighed the feasibility of constructing an airfield on one of the islands of the Azores. Lieutenant Colonel Cifka Duarte, a Portuguese aeronautics officer, was in charge of the study and decided upon Achada, a tableland zone between the town of Angra and Lajes, for the airstrip.
The Junta Geral (the local administrative board) of the Autonomous District of Angra Do Heroismo funded the airfield project and carried out the necessary leveling work. Soon a small landing strip of packed earth was created. On October 30, 1930, Captain Frederico de Melo, a Terceira Island native son and a pilot, took off from this airfield flying an AVRO single engine biplane. Within a few years after its completion, the Achada airfield was condemned due to its inadequate dimensions and the adverse weather conditions. However, the need for an airfield did not diminish.
Using a detailed report by Colonel Gomes da Silva, another Terceira native, a different site was chosen on Terceira in 1934. This site was the plainland of Lajes, the present site of Air Base 4 and Lajes Field. The Portuguese Military Service constructed a landing strip of packed earth and a small group of support facilities.
| |
|
|
|
|
