Masirah’s value was geography: a flat island on the route between Aden and the Gulf. GlobalSecurity says the RAF first became interested in 1929, when it set up an unmanned staging post. English Wikipedia describes a fuel store built for aircraft flying between Aden and Muscat, with “RAF 1936” above its door, on the west side of the island.

The Second World War made it a real base. The field was enlarged for anti-submarine operations, and Britain, according to English Wikipedia, paid the Sultan of Muscat 18,000 pounds a year for military access; a 1945 Cabinet Office memorandum even proposed a 99-year lease. No. 244 Squadron moved to RAF Masirah in February 1944 with Wellington XIIIs for anti-submarine patrols and disbanded there on 1 May 1945.

After the war Masirah stayed British. Through the Dhofar war it served as an HF communications hub and rear link to SAS and Royal Engineer units in Oman, and from 1966 it also housed the British Middle East Relay Station for the BBC World Service.

The relay station had a history of its own. English Wikipedia says it was built by the Diplomatic Wireless Service to replace the East Africa Relay Station in Somalia and on Perim, was damaged by a hurricane in 1976, rebuilt, and handed over to the BBC in 1985. For a generation, the island that refuelled aircraft between Aden and the Gulf also carried London’s voice across the region.

RAF Masirah closed on 31 March 1977, ending almost half a century of British use, and the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force took over the same day as SOAF Masirah. When SOAF became the Royal Air Force of Oman in 1990, it became RAFO Masirah.

The island became the air force’s school. GlobalSecurity says officer and pilot training takes place at the Sultan Qaboos Air Academy on Masirah, and that the base was expanded for a new Omani Jaguar squadron. The two full-length runways cross at right angles. In November and December 1986 RAFO Masirah was the joint headquarters for Saif Sareea, the first large British-Omani exercise, with nearly 5,000 British troops (English Wikipedia).

Training carries its own risks. On 1 April 2018 a Hawk Mk 166, one of eight ordered in 2012 and delivered from 2017, crashed on landing at Masirah; English Wikipedia records that the student pilot and one person on the ground were killed and the instructor was seriously injured. The base also carries civil traffic: SalamAir links the island with Muscat and Duqm.

In 1975 Oman offered the United States the use of Masirah, and in 1980 the two governments concluded a ten-year facilities access agreement (GlobalSecurity). Within months the island was the launch point for Operation Eagle Claw, the rescue attempt for the American hostages held in Tehran since 4 November 1979. GlobalSecurity describes the staging area as “a couple of tents and a blacktop strip”.

On 24 April 1980 three EC-130s carrying fuel and supplies and three MC-130E Combat Talons carrying the assault force took off from Masirah for Desert One, a landing site in Iran more than 1,000 miles away, per English Wikipedia. After the mission was aborted and a helicopter collided with an EC-130 on the ground, the surviving EC-130s flew the force back to Masirah, where two C-141 medical evacuation aircraft collected the injured. Eight American servicemen were killed; their bodies were left at Desert One.

Masirah returned to American planning in 2001. GlobalSecurity records that 65 members of the 27th Civil Engineer and Services Squadrons landed on 25 September 2001 and in 30 days built 165 tents, 35 hardened facilities and a 400-seat dining hall. By 11 February 2002 the base had flown more than 1,100 refuelling missions, and Vice President Dick Cheney visited in March 2002.

English Wikipedia adds that the island was a staging area for operations into Afghanistan and that, as of 2009, the contractor DynCorp staffed a US storage depot at the base. Neither government publishes current US numbers.