Plans for an airfield at Eindhoven go back to 1921, according to the air force’s own history, but flying began only in September 1932, when the civil airfield of Welschap opened on 55 hectares of grass. A terminal followed in May 1935. The military then took it over as war approached: the Ministry of Defence dates the requisition to the mobilisation of April 1939, while the Luftwaffe airfield study by Henry deZeng gives September 1939.

German troops occupied the field two days after the invasion of 10 May 1940 and renamed it Fliegerhorst Eindhoven. Expansion started at once. DeZeng records that the Luftwaffe brought in several thousand Dutch workers in June 1940 and had the main runway finished by the end of July. The field grew to more than twice its pre-war size, with three paved runways laid out like a capital A, two of 1,500 metres and one of 1,200 metres, all covered in asphalt and colour-toned to blend with the fields around them.

The Fliegerhorst was a busy bomber and night-fighter station. DeZeng lists II./KG 4 from June 1940 to March 1941, spells of KG 30 and KG 2 until early 1944, and I./NJG 2 in mid-1944. The Allies attacked it repeatedly: P-47s strafed it on 22 February 1944, dive-bombed it on 30 March, and on 14 June 1944 a raid by 63 B-24 Liberators destroyed seven Ju 88 night fighters on the ground.

The Germans mined the runways for demolition at the end of May 1944 and completed the demolitions on 5 September. American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division liberated Eindhoven on 18 September 1944, during Operation Market Garden, and the Dutch flag was raised over the airfield the next day. British repair units then filled some 1,650 bomb craters so that the RAF could use the field, which became Advanced Landing Ground B.78 for Typhoon and reconnaissance wings of the RAF and the Royal Canadian Air Force.

The Royal Netherlands Air Force moved in in 1952, when 314, 315 and 316 Squadrons were formed at Eindhoven as fighter-bomber squadrons on the Republic F-84G Thunderjet. All three converted to the swept-wing F-84F Thunderstreak in 1956. For almost two decades Eindhoven was home to three jet squadrons at once. It was the start of 42 years of fighter flying from the field.

315 Squadron left for Twenthe in April 1970. 314 Squadron converted to the NF-5A in 1970 and had moved to Gilze-Rijen by 1988, according to the squadron history kept by the F-16.net enthusiast site; the air force’s own history says only that it left a few years after 315. 316 Squadron, nicknamed Falcon, stayed and flew the NF-5A from 1971. Its badge showed a brown falcon on a yellow ground, with the motto Doelbewust en trefzeker, determined and accurate.

In 1991 316 Squadron converted to the F-16A, starting at Gilze-Rijen before returning to Eindhoven; the base history puts the NF-5 in service until 1991. The 1993 Defence White Paper, which shrank the air force after the Cold War, ended the squadron, and 316 Squadron was disbanded on 1 April 1994, closing 42 years of fighter flying at Eindhoven. From February 1983 to 1995 the base had been run under one command with Gilze-Rijen; the two were separated again as their tasks diverged.

Noise shaped the airfield long before the fighters left. Because of complaints from Eindhoven residents, the Ministry of Defence says, the runway direction was changed in 1984 so that departing aircraft would avoid the city centre. That same year a civil terminal designed by Leo de Bever opened on the other side of the field, the start of today’s shared military and civil airport.

Shortly after six in the evening on Monday 15 July 1996, Belgian Air Force C-130H Hercules CH-06 approached Eindhoven from Italy. On board were four Belgian crew and 37 members of the Fanfarekorps of the Royal Netherlands Army. On short final the aircraft ran into a large flock of birds over the runway; secondary accounts based on the investigations name starlings, ingested into both left-hand engines. The crew tried to go around, the Hercules rolled sharply to the left, its left wing struck the grass and the aircraft crashed and caught fire.

Air traffic control and the base fire service believed that only the four crew were on board, because the passenger details on the flight plan had not been passed to Eindhoven. Accounts differ on how long it took before anyone realised there were people in the hold: English-language summaries give about thirty minutes, the German encyclopedia entry 23 minutes. Eleven people were brought out alive and four of them later died in hospital. In all 34 died, all four crew and 30 bandsmen, and 7 survived with serious injuries.

Many inquiries followed; the authors of the book De vergeten ramp count about forty reports up to 2010. The Crisis Research Team (COT) under Professor Uri Rosenthal blamed system errors and organisational failings. In October 1996 three air force officers were relieved of their duties: the base commander, the air traffic control officer and the fire service commander. They were prosecuted and in the end acquitted for lack of evidence. The German encyclopedia entry, citing the Aviation Safety Network, adds that the crew shut down the wrong engine, number 3, after the bird strike; this could not be confirmed from an official source for this page.

In 2002, at the request of the Tweede Kamer, the national transport safety board, answered questions about the rescue. Its main conclusion was that when occupants cannot save themselves, the emergency services lacked the manpower and advanced equipment to get them out in time. It explicitly did not share the government’s conclusion that the passengers could have been rescued earlier: the system for it did not exist, at Eindhoven or elsewhere, and largely still did not in 2002. It made four recommendations on airport fire and rescue services and on carrying civilians in military aircraft.

Eindhoven’s second life as a transport base began in May 1992, when 334 Squadron moved in from Soesterberg with the Fokker F27. The F27 could not cross the Atlantic and was gone by 1996, replaced by the KDC-10, DC-10, C-130, Gulfstream IV, Fokker 50 and Fokker 60U. The tankers came from Martinair, whose two DC-10-30CFs the Netherlands bought in 1992; when one was destroyed in the Martinair Flight 495 crash, a third was bought. Two were converted into KDC-10 tanker-transports between October 1994 and December 1995.

The KDC-10s, named Prins Bernhard (T-264) and Jan Scheffer (T-235), became Eindhoven’s signature aircraft for a quarter of a century. By the base’s own account at an EDA exercise in 2018, the Dutch KDC-10 kept an availability of 95 per cent over Iraq and Syria in Operation Inherent Resolve and offloaded almost 6.5 million litres of fuel to more than 1,000 coalition aircraft. T-264 was withdrawn in November 2019 and T-235 in October 2021; both went to the American contractor Omega Aerial Refueling Services.

Their successor is shared. The Multinational MRTT Fleet grew out of a NATO initiative agreed at the Chicago summit in 2012. The Netherlands and Luxembourg launched the project in July 2016 with an order for two Airbus A330 MRTTs; Germany and Norway joined in September 2017, Belgium in January 2018 and the Czech Republic in 2019, taking the order to eight. Poland withdrew in 2016, days before signature. The partners buy flying hours rather than individual airframes.

The first A330 MRTT was delivered in June 2020. Eindhoven is the fleet’s main operating base, with Cologne in Germany as a forward operating base, and Karup in Denmark to follow when the 11th and 12th aircraft arrive in mid-2028 and early 2029. Initial operational capability came in March 2023 and full operational capability in March 2026. Denmark and Sweden joined in June 2025 with two extra aircraft, and Finland in July 2026, making nine members. The air force’s base page still speaks of six NATO partners; NATO’s own count is the more recent.

Eindhoven is now the headquarters of the air force’s Air Mobility Command, whose four tasks the Ministry of Defence lists as air transport and air-to-air refuelling, cargo and passenger handling, keeping the airfield open for military and civil users, and hosting Dutch and foreign units. Five squadrons belong to it: 334 Squadron with the Gulfstream, 336 Squadron with the C-130, and 940, 941 and 942 Squadrons for logistics, airfield services and maintenance.

336 Squadron flies four C-130 Hercules, G-273, G-275, G-781 and G-988, in both standard and stretched H-30 versions. They are due to be replaced by the Embraer C-390, bought together with Austria and Sweden, with the first aircraft expected at the end of 2027 and the last in 2029. 334 Squadron’s government jet is Gulfstream G650ER V-117, built in 2014, which carries up to 15 passengers for the defence leadership, urgent repatriations and Royal Household flights.

Three multinational bodies sit alongside the Dutch units. The Movement Coordination Centre Europe has been at Eindhoven since 1 July 2007. The European Air Transport Command was established on 1 July 2010 and inaugurated at Eindhoven on 1 September 2010 by Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands; Luxembourg joined on 22 November 2012, Spain in July 2014 and Italy in December 2014. It tasks the air transport, air-to-air refuelling and aeromedical evacuation fleets of its seven members from a staff of around 200. The third is the MMU with its A330 tankers.