Caribou Air Force Station
Caribou Air Force Station was the first of five, United States Air Force, Air Material Command (AMC) installations that were constructed during the period of 1951 – 1953. Each of the five installations was built specifically to provide operational storage of the nuclear stockpile, and to provide a specified number of weapons to their adjacent Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases. The first four installations were built and occupied by 1953. The fifth installation, although completed in 1953, would not be utilized until 1955. The first installation, code named “Site Easy” was originally known as the “North River Depot”. It was constructed between 1951-1952, and operations began in 1952. Funds were provided in 1951 to the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), for the planning and construction of an ordnance storage site in the vicinity of a new Strategic Air Command Base. The AFSWP was directed to utilize the services of the Corps of Engineers, Department of Army, for planning and construction, and was made responsible for monitoring such work, and for operational security measures during these phases. The original directive to the AFSWP stipulated that upon completion of construction the installation would be turned over to Headquarters, Air Material Command for operational responsibilities.
Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 40
In the 1970s NMCB FORTY was to play a key role in the "Cold War" as well as a continuing participation in the "hot war" of Vietnam. On 9 March 1971 the first units of NMCB FORTY were deployed to the small British atoll island of Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Their mission was to construct a high priority communications station and airfield "from scratch" in the same manner as the Seabees did in the island hopping days of World War II. All support was to be "over the beach." This key base was needed to counter a growing Soviet presence in the Indian Ocean, and was constructed under the watching eyes of Soviet warships. A communications station was in operation on 25 March, establishing for the first time worldwide US Navy communications, and an operational runway was completed on 15 July 1971 provided the first US airfield in the Indian Ocean, three days ahead of schedule, earning the personal praise of the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral E. R. Zumwalt, Jr., and the Navy E for "Best of Type." The construction of this remote base changed the balance of power in the Indian Ocean from the Soviet Union to the United States. NMCB Forty was the pioneer battalion for the beginning of what was to become the largest Seabee construction project in history. Seabee battalion deployments would go on for eleven more years, with detachments continuing to the present. The NMCB Forty command flag would fly once more in the Indian Ocean, as the battalion deployed back to the island in 1980.