Leeuwarden began as a civil field. It opened on 24 June 1938, according to the Luftwaffe airfields study compiled by the historian Henry de Zeng, and the Ministry of Defence records that it became an official aerodrome that year, used mainly by KLM as a stop between Schiphol and Eelde near Groningen. The preserved KLM station building from that era survives on the base and now houses its Traditiekamer, the heritage room that tells the base’s history.

The German invasion of May 1940 changed everything. The Luftwaffe rated Leeuwarden its most important air base in northern Holland, and by late summer 1940 some 7,500 labourers were building three concrete runways of 1,500, 1,300 and 1,200 metres, hangars, workshops and flak positions, all heavily camouflaged. The Defence ministry adds that rubble from the bombing of Rotterdam went into the runways and taxiways. By November 1942 there were 74 aircraft shelters and 16 hardstands spread over three dispersal areas.

Fighters came first: I./JG 51 in the summer of 1940 and II./JG 52 that winter, then bombers of III./KG 4. From November 1941 Leeuwarden became a night-fighter station, with II./NJG 2 until September 1942 and IV./NJG 1 from October 1942 to March 1944. III./JG 1 flew day fighters from here in 1943. The field was attacked repeatedly, and after severe raids in September 1944 it was downgraded to an advanced landing ground. Before Canadian troops arrived in April 1945 the Germans wrecked most runways and hangars.

After the liberation KLM briefly flew from Leeuwarden to Schiphol again, but in 1949 the air force took the field over. On 28 January 1949 323 Squadron arrived from Twenthe with Gloster Meteor F.4s, which the Defence ministry says made Leeuwarden the first operational Dutch air base with jet fighters. 322 Squadron, the unit formed from Dutch pilots in the RAF in 1943, would later settle here for good.

In the early years of NATO the base was, in the ministry’s own words, the most used air base in Western Europe, as allied air forces exercised from it. The fighters kept changing: the Meteor served until 1956, the Hawker Hunter from 1956 to 1964, and then the Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, which 322 and 323 Squadrons flew for fifteen years. The squadron history summarised on Wikipedia dates 322 Squadron’s arrival at Leeuwarden with the Starfighter to April 1964.

The Starfighter years produced one of the stranger episodes in Dutch military history. At 4.54 in the morning of 11 June 1977, as marines stormed the train hijacked near De Punt, six F-104Gs flew low over the scene to distract the hijackers. Six hijackers and two hostages were killed in the assault that ended the 20-day siege. Secondary sources attribute the low passes to 322 Squadron from Leeuwarden; no official Dutch account naming the unit was found for this page.

In 1979 Leeuwarden became the first Dutch base to exchange the Starfighter for the F-16. The first F-16 in Dutch service was a two-seat B model, J-259, delivered here. 322 Squadron began converting in 1980 and, according to its published squadron history, became the first operational Dutch F-16 squadron on 1 May 1981. From 1981 the Dutch F-16 force also carried the quick-reaction alert for Dutch airspace, a task it would hold for 43 years.

Leeuwarden’s F-16s were again first when the fleet was modernised: the Defence ministry records that 322 Squadron was the first to fly the mid-life update version, the F-16AM. Secondary sources list the squadron’s F-16 deployments to Operation Enduring Freedom in 2002–2003, to ISAF in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2014 and to Libya in 2011. At home, 323 Squadron became the tactical training, evaluation and standardisation squadron, TACTES, which Wikipedia records as standing down on 31 October 2014 before the number returned for the F-35.

The base also held a search and rescue flight. 303 Squadron flew three Agusta-Bell 412SP helicopters from Leeuwarden over the Wadden Sea and North Sea until it stood down on 1 January 2015 (the stand-down date is from a secondary source). The last F-16 flight by 322 Squadron came on 5 July 2021, when four aircraft left for Volkel; the type left Dutch service altogether in September 2024.

Leeuwarden has been the air force’s centre for fighter tactics since the 1950s, helped by the empty airspace over the North Sea and the Vliehors bombing range on Vlieland. Today that role belongs to 323 Squadron, the Air Combat Development Centre, which the Defence ministry calls the European knowledge centre for tactical fighter operations. It develops and tests F-35 tactics, organises Frisian Flag and runs the Weapons Instructor Course.

Frisian Flag began in 1992 as DIATIT, in the wake of NATO’s intervention over Bosnia, and took its present name in 1999. Specialist press counted more than 60 combat aircraft from eight NATO nations in 2017, with tankers at Eindhoven and NATO AWACS aircraft from Geilenkirchen, and more than 50 aircraft from six nations in 2019, when the Minnesota Air National Guard alone sent ten F-16s, 24 pilots and 160 support staff. Missions launch twice a day into Dutch, German and Danish airspace.

The Weapons Instructor Course lasts six months. In 2021 it ran from 3 May to 22 October: four weeks of theory, an air-to-air phase from late June, air-to-surface work in August and an examination phase in October, with Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian pilots. From 2021 Patriot operators, intelligence officers and air battle managers could also qualify as instructors. The course has its own hazards: in July 2021 a Belgian F-16 attending it jumped its chocks on start-up and hit a building.

The F-35 came to Leeuwarden in two steps. On 23 May 2016 the first two Dutch F-35As, F-001 and F-002, landed here after crossing the Atlantic from Edwards Air Force Base with KDC-10 tanker support, flown by Colonel Bert de Smit and Major Pascal Smaal. They stayed to conduct noise tests in the air and on the ground, flew over the North Sea ranges and appeared at the Open Days air show.

Permanent basing began on 31 October 2019, when the first F-35A assembled at Cameri in Italy was ferried in by the commander of 323 Test and Evaluation Squadron; the airport fire crews, having forgotten to switch their tanks after an earlier call-out, greeted it with foam instead of the traditional water salute. 322 Squadron converted, and on 27 December 2021 the Netherlands declared initial operational capability, the eighth country to do so, with 24 F-35As delivered, 55 pilots and 262 maintainers.

In March 2024 the F-16 handed quick-reaction alert to the F-35, and the Defence ministry now lists Leeuwarden, Volkel and Luke Air Force Base in Arizona as the F-35 bases. 322 Squadron stands on alert for NATO air defence and takes part in air policing on Europe’s eastern border; the Benelux alert rotates with Volkel and, since 1 January 2017, with Belgium.

306 Squadron was first formed in 1953 as a photo-reconnaissance unit, flew over the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, was disbanded in 2010 and was revived in September 2018 for the MQ-9A Reaper. The Defence ministry says the Reaper has been based at Leeuwarden since early 2022. Wikipedia’s base article gives 2020 for the first aircraft; the official date is used here. The system comprises eight aircraft and four ground control stations.

A pilot and a sensor operator fly each mission through a satellite link with a delay of half a second to a second. The squadron’s processing, exploitation and dissemination cell turns the imagery into intelligence, and has supported the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan and Inherent Resolve in the Middle East. Since August 2024 Dutch Reapers have flown from Romania over NATO’s eastern flank; on 21 September 2026 the government extended that deployment to 31 December 2027, noting that the American contribution was ending.

The Reapers are flown unarmed for now. Official sources disagree on the timing of armament: the squadron page says the MQ-9s will be fitted with weapons in 2026, while the aircraft page says the munitions can be fully used in 2028. Both dates are official; which describes the current plan is not stated. The aircraft page gives the Reaper an endurance of up to 27 hours and a ceiling of 15 kilometres.