Wheelus Air Base was a United States Air Force base located in the Kingdom of Libya. At one point it was the largest U.S. military facility outside the United States with an area of 20 sq miles right on the coast off Tripoli. The base had its own beach club, the largest military hospital outside the US, a multiplex cinema, a bowling alley and a high school for 500 students. The base also had its own radio and TV station as well as a shopping mall and fast food chain outlets. At its height it had over 15,000 military personnel and their dependents on base. Wheelus Air Base was originally built by the Italian Air Force in 1923 and was known as Mellaha Air Base. Today the facility is known as Mitiga International Airport.



Prior to the war, the airbase was constructed in 1923 and used by the Italian Air Force. In 1933 the roads around the air base and the neighbouring Mellaha Lake became the new home for the popular Tripoli Grand Prix motor race.[1]



Mellaha was used by the German Luftwaffe during the North African Campaign, with the Germans using it for short range recon units, as well as coastal and naval recon units. Special weather recon units also existed at Mehalla. The main Luftwaffe unit stationed at the base was the 2nd Staffel of the Aufklärungsgruppe (H) 14 or 2.(H)/14.



The squadron was equipped with twelve single-engined Henschel Hs 126, an aircraft with 2-man crews, which could cover approx 710 km, with a maximum speed of 360 km/h, as well as three Fieseler Fi 156 Storch liaison aircraft, and a Junkers Ju 52 for transport of men and materiel.



The airbase was captured by the British 8th Army in January 1943.



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The US Army Air Force began using Mellaha as a base in January 1943. It was used by the 376th Bombardment Group (Heavy) of the 12th Air Force for B-24 bomb missions into Italy and southern parts of Germany.



In addition, Mellaha Field was used by Air Transport Command. It functioned as a stopover en route to Benina Airport near Benghazi or to Tunis Airport, Tunisia on the North African Cairo-Dakar transport route for cargo, transiting aircraft and personnel.[2]



On 15 April 1945 Mellaha AAF was taken over by USAAF’s Air Training Command. It was renamed Wheelus Army Air Field (AAF) on 17 May 1945 in honor of USAAF Lieutenant Richard Wheelus who had died earlier that year in a plane crash in Iran.