Cold War Usage By The USAF
Wheelus AAF was inactivated on 15 May 1947, then reactivated as Wheelus Air Base (Wheelus AB) on 1 June 1948 and transferred to the USAF Military Air Transportation Service (MATS). Its host unit under MATS was the 1603d Air Transport Wing.
With the crowning of Idris I in 1951, United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE)-based fighter-bomber units also began using Wheelus AB and its nearby El Uotia Gunnery Range for gunnery and bombing training. A further agreement between the United States and Libya, signed in 1954, granted the U.S. the use of Wheelus and its gunnery range until December 1971.
With its 4,600 Americans, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya once called it "a Little America...on the sparkling shores of the Mediterranean," although temperatures at the base frequently reached 110 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (43 to 50 degrees Celsius).
Read more about this topic: Wheelus Air Base
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—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs, 25:25.
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