Thule Air Base Will get a New Title: Pituffik House Base
The northernmost U.S. army base on the earth has a brand new title, and it’s even more durable to pronounce than the outdated one: Thule Air Base was renamed Pituffik House Base on April 6.
Pronounced “Bee-doo-FEEK,” the brand new moniker displays the Inuit native folks’s title for the settlement the place the Greenland base was constructed and acknowledges the bottom’s major function in assist of house missions.
Situated almost 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Pituffik has been dwelling to U.S. Air Power personnel for the reason that early Nineteen Fifties, the place its strategic location makes it very important to missile protection and house area consciousness. Pituffik hosts the twelfth House Warning Squadron and its Upgraded Early Warning Radar, and Detachment 1 of the twenty third House Operations Squadron, which does telemetry, monitoring, and controls dozens of satellites.
Pituffik’s authentic Inuit residents had been forcibly relocated in 1953, a historical past that continues to be controversial in Greenland to today.
The bottom’s former title, Thule, got here from explorer Knud Rasmussen early within the twentieth century, a reference to Greek and Roman maps that cited a mysterious northern island referred to as “ultima Thule”—named for an historic Greek explorer who sailed far north and landed on an island whose title he heard as “Thule.”
“This renaming represents our want to rejoice and acknowledge the wealthy cultural heritage of Greenland and its folks and the way necessary they’re to the sustainment of this set up in opposition to the tough setting north of the Arctic Circle,” Chief of House Operations Gen. B. Probability Satlzman stated at a ceremony unveiling the title change.
Greenlandic Minister for Overseas Affairs, Enterprise, and Commerce Vivian Motzfeldt attended the ceremony and hailed the change as necessary for Greenlandic tradition.
“With the choice to rename, the U.S. has demonstrated its respect to the friendship between us, recognizing cultural heritage, and the historical past of the bottom,” Motzfeldt. “I hope that today will serve for example of the power of nice nations to hearken to even their smallest neighbors. … At present the U.S. has proclaimed to the world, that right here lies Pituffik House Base, the place even this far north, there’s a folks, they usually have a reputation for the place from the place we hold watch over all our peoples.”
About 140 Airmen and Guardians are stationed at Pituffik, plus some 450 contractors, civilians, and army personnel representing Denmark, Canada, and Greenland. The bottom is totally locked in by ice and largely shrouded in darkness for 9 months out of the 12 months.
Pituffik obtained some uncommon public consideration previously 12 months, internet hosting late night time TV host and comic Stephen Colbert for a particular in December and F-35 fighters, which landed there for the primary time in January.
Pituffik is the newest House Power set up to be renamed. Others embrace:
- Peterson House Power Base, Colo.
- Buckley House Power Base, Colo.
- Schriever House Power Base, Colo.
- Cheyenne Mountain House Power Station, Colo.
- Patrick House Power Base, Fla.
- Cape Canaveral House Power Station, Fla.
- Vandenberg House Power Base, Calif.
- Cape Cod House Power Station, Mass.
- Cavalier House Power Station, N.D.
- New Boston House Power Station, N.H.
- Clear House Power Station, Alaska
- Kaena Level House Power Station, Hawaii
Los Angeles Air Power Base, Calif., which hosts House Programs Command, is anticipated to be renamed, as nicely. No phrase but, although, on when which may occur.
