Volkel is a child of the German occupation. According to the Ministry of Defence’s own history of the base, in August 1940 the occupying forces laid three unpaved runways and a few hangars on the heathland east of Uden. At first the Luftwaffe used the field only as a diversion airfield for night operations flown from Gilze-Rijen and Eindhoven; English-language histories call it Nachtlandeplatz Volkel. From August 1943 it became a permanent German installation, Fliegerhorst Volkel, and Wikipedia’s summary of German records lists night fighters, Bf 109 units and later Me 262 jets and Ar 234 jet bombers on the field.

The war came to Volkel in September 1944. Allied bombing in support of Operation Market Garden, which opened on 17 September, wrecked the airfield, and once the ground forces had pushed through, the Allies took it over. The Royal Air Force made it Advanced Landing Ground B.80, and from 1 October 1944 it housed No. 122 Wing of the Second Tactical Air Force: 3, 56, 80, 274 and 486 (New Zealand) Squadrons, all flying the Hawker Tempest V. The French ace Pierre Clostermann, a flight commander in the wing, later described operations from Volkel in early 1945 in his memoir The Big Show.

On 1 January 1945 the Luftwaffe launched Operation Bodenplatte, a mass dawn attack on Allied airfields in the Low Countries. Volkel was the target of Jagdgeschwader 6, but according to the standard account all four of its groups failed to find the airfield; some pilots mistook the strip at Heesch for it, and one group attacked Eindhoven instead. Volkel’s Tempests were left untouched, while JG 6 lost 16 pilots killed or missing and seven captured. The Allies kept using the field until September 1945; at the end of 1946 it became a training camp where Dutch marines prepared for service in the East Indies.

The post-war air force had to be built almost from scratch. In 1951 the government designated Volkel the Eerste Tactische Vliegbasis, the first tactical air base in the Netherlands, and between 1951 and 1952 four flying squadrons were set up there: 327, 328, 311 and 312. Squadrons 327 and 328 later moved away, and in 1953 306 Photo Reconnaissance Squadron was formed at Volkel. The official histories do not give the dates on which 327 and 328 left, and those remain unconfirmed here.

The aircraft came from the American aid programme. 312 Squadron, formed in 1951, received 25 Republic F-84G Thunderjets in 1952 and converted to the swept-wing F-84F Thunderstreak in 1956; the base also flew the T-33 T-Bird. The ministry notes that 313 Squadron was also officially formed at Volkel in 1952, on the T-33, having grown out of the flying school at Twenthe, before making its home at Twenthe for most of the next half century.

In October 1965 the Lockheed F-104G Starfighter arrived, the first Dutch fighter able to fly faster than sound, and by early 1966 it had replaced 312 Squadron’s Thunderstreaks. The nuclear strike role for which Volkel is now best known dates from this period: Wikipedia, citing a book by the former pilot Steve Netto, says about 50 B28 bombs were stored here around the Cuban Missile Crisis, a figure not officially confirmed. In the 1970s, according to Wikipedia’s account of the base, 32 hardened aircraft shelters were built, turning the open 1950s airfield into a dispersed Cold War base designed to survive a first strike.

The Ministry of Defence chose the F-16 in 1975, and the first examples reached Volkel in 1982; between 1982 and 1986 every squadron on the base converted. 312 Squadron received its first F-16 on 27 July 1984. The F-16s were assembled partly by Fokker, and the Netherlands took 213 in all. In the late 1990s the fleet went through the Mid-Life Update, which kept the jets competitive into the 2020s. According to F-16.net, 306 Squadron flew the reconnaissance F-16A(R) until 2002, and 312 Squadron carried the tactical nuclear commitment.

Volkel squadrons flew in the Dutch F-16 deployments of the period, which the Farewell Falcon’s tail listed as Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria and the Baltics. In December 2005 the tiger squadron, 313, moved in from Twenthe, which was being run down as a fighter base. 311 Squadron did not survive the budget cuts that followed; Wikipedia records it as disbanded in September 2012, a date not confirmed by an official source consulted for this page.

The end came in stages. 313 Squadron gave up its F-16s in 2021, leaving 312 as the last Dutch F-16 unit. On 8 December 2023 it lined up its jets for a readiness exercise; the counts differ, with The Aviationist reporting 16 aircraft lined up, 14 engines started and 13 take-offs, and the Federation of American Scientists 14 on the runway. On 27 September 2024, the day after the F-35 reached full operational capability, 312 Squadron flew the farewell. Twenty-four Dutch F-16s were promised to Ukraine.

Dutch governments have for decades followed NATO policy of neither confirming nor denying where US nuclear weapons are stored. What they do acknowledge is the task: in January 2014, replying to a parliamentary motion that sought to keep nuclear weapons off the F-35, the Ministry of Defence stated that the nuclear task could not simply be ended because it was a NATO commitment. On 1 June 2024 the ministry announced that the F-35 had taken over the nuclear role from the F-16, calling NATO’s nuclear capability vital for the Alliance and the Netherlands.

The location has leaked from other quarters. In June 2013 two former prime ministers spoke openly: Ruud Lubbers, in a television documentary, referred to 22 American nuclear bombs at Volkel, and Dries van Agt told reporters that the weapons were still there. The defence minister, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, declined to comment. In July 2019 NOS reported that a draft report for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly had listed Volkel among six European sites storing about 150 US B61 bombs; the published version replaced the list with a vaguer sentence naming the host countries.

Independent analysts give their own estimates. The Federation of American Scientists counted 22 B61s at Volkel in 2008 and put the figure at 10–15 in 2023. It describes eleven shelters with underground WS3 vaults, each able to hold up to four bombs, and a US Air Force unit, the 703rd Munitions Support Squadron, that keeps custody of the weapons in peacetime. These are estimates and reports, not official figures; the Dutch government has published none.

The secrecy around Volkel has repeatedly been undercut by the security arrangements themselves. In June 2008 a US Air Force Blue Ribbon Review, obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, concluded that most European sites used for storing US nuclear weapons needed significant extra resources to meet Pentagon security requirements; it noted that some host nations used conscripts with as little as nine months of service as guards. The commander of US Air Forces in Europe, General Roger Brady, visited Volkel on 11 June 2008.

In May 2021 the investigative site Bellingcat showed that soldiers guarding nuclear bases had posted study flashcards on public websites. One 70-card set, created in 2019, identified which of Volkel’s 11 WS3 vaults were “hot”, holding weapons, and which were “cold”: five and six respectively, according to the cards. The Dutch Ministry of Defence told Bellingcat that the information did not affect the security of the Netherlands.

Volkel has also drawn attention in smaller ways. In April 2013 The Aviationist reported that the base was hidden on Google’s satellite imagery. The same year, the former prime ministers’ remarks triggered demands in Parliament for more openness, and in 2019 the D66 member Sjoerd Sjoerdsma again called on the cabinet to be transparent about the weapons. None of this has changed official policy, which remains to neither confirm nor deny.

Volkel became the second Dutch F-35 base in 2022, when 313 Squadron converted and became the first Dutch squadron with the Lightning II. 312 Squadron followed in October 2024 after retiring the F-16. Both squadrons are swing-role units, trained for ground attack and air defence, and they share with Leeuwarden the quick-reaction alert that the Netherlands and Belgium have taken turns to provide for the whole Benelux since 1 January 2017.

The new jets have already seen action. From 1 September 2025 Dutch F-35As were deployed to Poznań-Krzesiny in Poland for NATO air policing, and on the night of 9–10 September they engaged Russian drones that had crossed into Polish airspace. The Dutch ministry confirmed that the F-35s opened fire but did not say how many drones they destroyed; by the start of October an F-35A of 313 Squadron wore a drone kill marking.

In October 2025 the Netherlands hosted Steadfast Noon, NATO’s annual nuclear deterrence exercise, with Volkel as its main base and supporting operations from Kleine-Brogel, RAF Lakenheath and Skrydstrup. NATO said about 70 aircraft from 14 allies and some 2,000 personnel took part, that no live weapons were used, and that the exercise was long planned and not linked to current events. It was the most public statement yet of Volkel’s place in NATO’s nuclear posture.