Origins
USAF air base siting in French Morocco developed out of the Allied presence there at the close of World War II. In the early 1950s, SAC developed a reflex operation strategy between its southern bases and Morocco, with B-36 and B-47 wings rotating to North Africa for extended temporary duty as a staging area for bombers pointed at the Soviet Union.
Nouasseur Air Base was constructed by Atlas Constructors (A Joint Venture led by Morrison-Knudsen (M-K) which also included the Nello L. Teer Company, Bates & Rogers Construction Corp., Blythe Bros. Company, and Ralph R. Mills Co., Inc.), assisted by the 496th Air Installation Squadron (AIS) of the US Air Force from August 1951 to June 1952.
SAC's 5th Air Division was activated on 14 January 1951, at Offutt AFB, NE then moved without personnel and equipment, to Rabat/Sale in May 1951, absorbing the resources and responsibilities of the USAF Mission to Morocco. The division was assigned the task of manning, training and equipping assigned units and preparing installations in French Morocco for the support of deployed SAC units.
Read more about this topic: Nouasseur Air Base
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)