Gilze-Rijen sits between Breda and Tilburg in North Brabant, on sandy heathland called the Molenheide. According to the air force’s own history of the base, the first flight movement there was made on 11 March 1910 by the Eerste Nederlandsche Vliegvereeniging, one of the country’s pioneer flying clubs. At that point the Dutch army had no aircraft at all; its Luchtvaartafdeeling (Army Aviation Group) would not be formed at Soesterberg until 1 July 1913, with four pilots, a single aircraft called the Brik and, a few months later, three French Farman HF.20s.

The base dates its military story from 11 August 1913, when Lieutenant William Carel Johan Versteegh landed his Farman on the Molenheide. The air force treats that date as the start of military aviation at Gilze-Rijen, although nothing permanent was built at the time.

During the First World War, when the neutral Netherlands kept its small air arm at home, a handful of military personnel stayed at Gilze-Rijen to maintain aircraft and support visiting pilots. In the interwar years the army built new airfields at Arnhem, Gilze-Rijen, Venlo and Vlissingen. When the Netherlands mobilised in 1939, a proper detachment moved onto the field with Fokker C.X and Koolhoven FK.51 reconnaissance biplanes.

The Luftwaffe took over the airfield on 16 May 1940, the day after the Dutch capitulation, and turned it into a large, modern base it called Fliegerhorst Gilze-Rijen. In the late summer of 1940 the staff of I./Nachtjagdgeschwader 2 at Gilze-Rijen developed tactics for long-range night intrusion over England, using modified Do 17Z and Ju 88C aircraft armed with guns and bombs to catch RAF bombers over their own airfields.

The results of that intruder campaign are disputed. Between October 1940 and March 1941 NJG 2 crews made some fifty attacks on Bomber Command aircraft; by December 1940 the unit had lost 32 aircrew and 12 aircraft for 18 RAF aircraft claimed, with considerable over-claiming. For 1941 up to mid-October it gives 128 RAF aircraft claimed against 28 losses, while other sources cited there put German losses at 55 aircraft and 74 men. Hitler ordered the operations stopped on 12 October 1941, preferring that Germans see British bombers fall over the Reich.

NJG 2 returned later in the war. From May 1942 to March 1943 the Geschwader staff and its II. and III. Gruppen flew the Ju 88C from Gilze-Rijen, and after 15 October 1943, under the 1st Fighter Division covering the Low Countries, I./NJG 2 was based here while the other Gruppen sat at Melsbroek and Schiphol. The field also carried bombers: for Operation Steinbock, the 1944 night offensive against London, III./Kampfgeschwader 2 had 38 Do 217s and Ju 188s at Gilze-Rijen on 20 January 1944, 36 of them ready.

Steinbock, from 21 January to 29 May 1944, cost the Luftwaffe about 329 of roughly 474 bombers. Gilze-Rijen paid too: the air force history records that the Allies bombed the field repeatedly until 15 August 1944, and took it over after the liberation; the liberation date is not given in the sources read for this page.

In 1946 the new Dutch air force reopened Gilze-Rijen as a training base under its training command, teaching pilots and air traffic controllers. It stayed a school and support field for a quarter of a century. The change came with the Canadair-built Northrop NF-5, of which the Netherlands received 105, 75 single-seaters and 30 two-seaters, between October 1969 and March 1972. The arrival of the NF-5 in 1972 made Gilze-Rijen an operational base, and it was rebuilt accordingly with two runways, hardened aircraft shelters, command bunkers and a modern control tower.

The official Eindhoven history says that 314 Squadron, one of three squadrons at Eindhoven from 1952, moved to Gilze-Rijen a few years after 1970, while 316 Squadron stayed at Eindhoven with the NF-5 until 1991. The English-language Wikipedia article on the aircraft reverses this and places 316 Squadron at Gilze-Rijen; this page follows the air force’s own account. In 1983 the two Brabant bases were merged under one command: the Gilze-Rijen history gives 18 January 1983, the Eindhoven history February 1983.

The NF-5s were phased out from 1991 and replaced by F-16s, but the fighter era was short. On 1 July 1995 the F-16s left Gilze-Rijen, and the same year the combined command was split again because, in the words of the Eindhoven history, the tasks of the two bases had grown too different.

From 1995 the base belonged to the air force’s Tactical Helicopter Group, and in 1996 the first Apache attack helicopters arrived, initially with 301 and 302 Squadrons; the Aviationist records that 12 AH-64As were leased from the US Army before the first of 30 Dutch-owned AH-64Ds, ordered in May 1995, was delivered in May 1998. In July 2008 the Defence Helicopter Command was formed, and the Alouettes, Chinooks and Cougars followed the Apaches here; 298 and 300 Squadrons moved in from Soesterberg, which closed on 12 November 2008.

Today the command’s three flying squadrons at Gilze-Rijen are 298 Squadron with the CH-47F Chinook, 300 Special Operations Squadron with the AS532 U2 Cougar for Dutch special forces, and 301 Squadron with the AH-64E Apache. 930 and 931 Squadrons provide logistics, technical, communications and base support, 7 Training and Simulation Squadron trains crews, and 299 Squadron runs the Helicopter Warfare Center. 302 Squadron is a Dutch unit based at Fort Hood, Texas, where Apache and Chinook crews train with US forces.

The fleet has been almost entirely renewed in a decade. The Chinook force, built from seven former Canadian CH-147s delivered in 1995–1996 and six new CH-47Ds of 1998, became the first export customer for the CH-47F in 2007; the 11 surviving D-models were replaced by 14 new CH-47Fs bought in 2016, and the fleet reached 20 when Boeing delivered the twentieth in November 2022. The Apaches were rebuilt as AH-64Es, the first handed over on 25 October 2022 and the last in 2025, to serve until 2050.

The Cougars are next. In June 2023 the air force announced 14 H225M Caracals to replace them; Wikipedia, citing Defence and FlightGlobal, records that budget pressure cut the order to 12 when it was signed on 5 November 2024. The Aviationist still gave 14 in January 2025. Defence says the Caracals will arrive at Gilze-Rijen for 300 Squadron from 2030, the last in 2032.

The air force history lists the helicopters’ deployments between 2001 and 2011 as Eritrea and Djibouti, Iraq and Afghanistan, alongside firefighting and police support at home. The Apache’s first deployment was to Djibouti in 2001 for the UN mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia; Dutch Apaches also flew in Bosnia alongside US AH-64s, and six went to Iraq in 2004. In Afghanistan, Dutch Apaches came under light gunfire near Kabul on 10 April 2004, and when the Netherlands expanded its force in 2006, six AH-64Ds and five Cougars went to Task Force Uruzgan while three Chinooks of 298 Squadron flew from Kandahar.

The losses in those years are documented unevenly. The Aviationist records that Apache Q-20 crashed in Afghanistan in August 2004, and Wikipedia states that two of the CH-47Ds were lost in 2005 while on duty in Afghanistan; neither account, as read for this page, gives the circumstances, and no casualty figures are given here for those losses. Both fit the fleet counts: 30 Apaches less two left the 28 later rebuilt, and 13 CH-47Ds less two left 11.

The worst day came in Mali. From May 2014 to early 2017 four Apaches and three Chinooks supported the UN mission MINUSMA from the Dutch camp at Gao. On Tuesday 17 March 2015 an Apache of 301 Squadron crashed in the north of the country during a training flight, killing both pilots, aged 30 and 26. The Chief of Defence, General Tom Middendorp, said the crash was thought to have been caused by a technical problem. The Aviationist dates this loss, of Q-15, to March 2014, which cannot be right because the Apaches only arrived in Mali in May 2014.

Helicopter crews train close to the ground, often at night, and the Dutch Safety Board has twice investigated Apaches that hit power lines. On 12 December 2007 an Apache on a low-level night exercise struck high-voltage cables over the Waal near Rossum; the crew made an emergency landing in a badly damaged aircraft, and parts of the Bommelerwaard were left without electricity for nearly 50 hours. The Board found that flight preparation had paid too little attention to obstacles on low-level routes and that supervision had failed, and called low flying at night one of the most dangerous activities in aviation.

On 13 November 2017 another Apache, manoeuvring to evade a simulated attack during night combat training, struck the lightning conductor above a high-voltage line near Zoelmond; no one was hurt, but the area lost power for several hours. The Board noted that the Apache crews’ annual training allowance had fallen from 180 to 140 hours since 2001 and recommended obstacle-warning systems, mission simulators and better digital maps. In November 2021 it reported that Defence had examined and rejected a wire-warning system, and that training hours would not return to standard before 2025.

At home the base tries to keep its noise within working hours. Defence says the helicopters normally fly Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 17:00; complaints are reported quarterly to a local consultation committee, the COVM. The field is shared: ANWB Medical Air Assistance was approved to use it from 21 March 2023 and the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre from 9 January 2026.