Ұлыбританиядағы RAF Лейкенхит базасының тарихы

Royal Air Force station near Eriswell, Suffolk, United Kingdom

Royal Air Force Lakenheath or RAF Lakenheath is a Royal Air Force station near the village of Lakenheath in Suffolk, England, UK, 4.7 mile (8 km) north east of Mildenhall and 8.3 mile (13 km) west of Thetford. The installation's perimeter borders Brandon. Despite being an RAF station, Lakenheath currently only hosts United States Air Force (USAF) units and military personnel. The host wing is the 48th Fighter Wing (48 FW), also known as the Liberty Wing, assigned to United States Air Forces in Europe Air Forces Africa (USAFE AFAFRICA). The wing operates the F 15E Strike Eagle and the F 35A Lightning II.

The first use of Lakenheath Warren as a Royal Flying Corps airfield was during the First World War, when the area was made into a bombing and ground attack range for aircraft flying from RFC Feltwell and RFC Thetford.

In 1940, the Air Ministry selected Lakenheath as an alternative for nearby RAF Mildenhall and used it as a decoy airfield. Surfaced runways were constructed in 1941, with the main runway being 3,000 feet (914 m), and the two subsidiary runways at 2,000 feet (610 m). In late 1941, Lakenheath was used by RAF flying units on detachment. The station soon functioned as a Mildenhall satellite base with Short Stirling bombers of No. 149 Squadron dispersed from the parent airfield as conditions allowed. The squadron exchanged its Vickers Wellingtons for Stirlings late in November 1941. After becoming fully operational with its new aircraft, the squadron moved into Lakenheath on 6 April 1942 and remained until mid 1944 when the squadron moved to RAF Methwold in Norfolk. One Stirling pilot, Flight Sergeant Rawdon Middleton, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for valour on the night of 28–29 November 1942, when despite serious face wounds and loss of blood from shell fire during a raid on the Fiat works at Turin in Italy, he brought the damaged aircraft back towards southern England. With fuel nearly exhausted his crew were ordered to bail out. On 21 June 1943, No. 199 Squadron was established as a second Stirling squadron. It conducted mine laying operations at sea before moving to RAF North Creake in Norfolk on 1 May 1944. No. 149 Squadron ended its association with RAF Lakenheath the same month, taking its Stirlings to RAF Methwold. The reason for the departure of the two bomber squadrons was Lakenheath's selection for upgrading to a Very Heavy Bomber airfield, which left the airfield closed to aircraft until 1948. On 10 October 1956, a United States Navy Douglas R6D 1 Liftmaster disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean after departure from RAF Lakenheath for a flight to Lajes Field in the Azores. The aircraft was on a Military Air Transport Service flight carrying 50 members of the 307th Bombardment Wing, on their way home to the United States after a temporary duty assignment and a U. S. Navy crew of nine. All 59 personnel on board were lost.

In January 2015, the U. S. Department of Defense announced that from 2020, Lakenheath would become home to 54 of the US Air Force's Lockheed Martin F 35A Lightning II multi role fighters. The aircraft would be split between two squadrons and there would be an increase of 1,200 military personnel and between 60 and 100 civilian workers at the station. The F 35 would operate alongside the two existing F 15E squadrons based at Lakenheath. The 495th Fighter Squadron was reactivated on 1 October 2021 to be the first Lightning II squadron at Lakenheath, with the first aircraft arriving on 15 December 2021.

Investment of $148.4 million (£116.7M) for the delivery of F 35A infrastructure at Lakenheath was authorised by the US administration in August 2018. In November 2018, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation awarded a £160M contract for infrastructure work to a joint venture between Kier Group and VolkerFitzpatrick. To make way for the F 35 Campus, demolition of the first of eighteen buildings began in March 2019. The work on Alpha Bravo Apron was completed in August 2020, allowing F 15E Strike Eagle operations of the 492nd and 494th Fighter Squadrons to be consolidated on one ramp.

Two accidents involving nuclear weapons happened at RAF Lakenheath, in 1956 and 1961.

Flying and notable non flying units based at RAF Lakenheath.

Although never officially confirmed, US nuclear weapons were based at Lakenheath from the first deployment of SAC aircraft to the base in the 1950s until the 1990s. As of 2024, no US nuclear weapons are known to be based in the UK. In February 2024, US documents detailing the awarding of contracts to build new storage facilities for nuclear cores stimulated public discussion in East Anglia that nuclear weapons may be redeployed to Lakenheath in the near future.

RAF Lakenheath's gate guardian is North American F 100D Super Sabre, serial number '54 2269'. The aircraft was originally delivered to the French Air Force. On return it was moved to the "Wings of Liberty Memorial Park" at RAF Lakenheath. Firstly it was painted as '55 4048', latterly as '56 3319'.

Since the base's founding, RAF Lakenheath has been targeted for numerous peace protests from groups such as Stop the war coalition and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Lakenheath was one of the proposed sites of the NATO Pershing II Missile System. The deployment of the Missile system sparked protests all over Western Europe, and RAF Lakenheath was one of the most prominent military sites. The radical historian E. P. Thompson wrote in a pamphlet that basing the system at RAF Lakenheath directly endangered the lives of those in the nearby city of Cambridge:" Lakenheath is, by crow or cruise, just over twenty miles from Cambridge. It is possible that Cambridge but less probable that Oxford will fall outside the CEP. Within the CEP we must suppose some fifteen or twenty detonations at least on the scale of Hiroshima, without taking into account any possible detonations, release of radio active materials, etc., if the strike should succeed in finding out the cruise missiles at which it was aimed." A semi permanent 'peace camp' was set up outside RAF Lakenheath. In 1985, the future Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was arrested for singing psalms at a CND protest at Lakenheath.

Over 1,000 people demonstrated outside RAF Lakenheath in protest at the 1986 United States bombing of Libya.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq sparked a new wave of peace protests. In one incident, 9 protestors gained access to the base by cutting through its perimeter fence. The protestors rode bicycles along the main runway, before chaining themselves together. Activists later established a 'peace camp' outside RAF Lakenheath to draw attention to the base. In 2006, a group of 200 people protested against the alleged nuclear weapons stored at RAF Lakenheath. Addressing the crowd was Jeremy Corbyn, who cycled to RAF Lakenheath from the railway station in Ely. There were further protests on this issue in 2008.