Kamina was a product of Belgian Cold War thinking. English Wikipedia, citing David Isby and Charles Kamps’ Armies of NATO’s Central Front (1985), says Belgium built it with NATO funding from 1952 as part of a national-redoubt strategy: if Western Europe were overrun, the Congo would hold out, the uranium mines at Shinkolobwe would be protected, and the base would form a nucleus for the defence of southern Africa. French Wikipedia credits the order to Major Émile Janssens and gives the estate as about 50,000 hectares.

The complex had two halves: Base 1, an air base for flying training, and Base 2, a paratroop school. From September 1953 to 1960 the Belgian Air Force’s Advanced Pilots’ School flew some 60 Harvards here, according to English Wikipedia. French Wikipedia gives a smaller snapshot — about 900 Belgian personnel, 20 Harvards (eight of them armed), 20 Fouga Magisters, seven DC-3s and six C-119 Flying Boxcars — without saying which year it describes. The two counts are not necessarily in conflict, since the fleet changed over seven years, but neither is confirmed by an official Belgian source here.

Independence on 30 June 1960 did not end Belgian control: under agreement with the Congolese government Belgium kept Kamina, but in October 1960 the United Nations operation, ONUC, took it over, according to English Wikipedia. That put a UN base inside Katanga, whose secessionist government had its own mercenary-flown air arm at Luano and Kolwezi.

The base became a hub for ONUC’s troops and aircraft. The English Wikipedia article on ONUC records about 1,000 Indian troops at Kamina and says the Swedes moved there in 1962; their F 22 wing of Saab J 29 Tunnans, reinforced that year to nine fighters and two reconnaissance aircraft, was part of the UN air component that also included Ethiopian, Iranian, Italian and Filipino-crewed F-86 Sabres. On New Year’s Eve 1962, in the last offensive against the secession, UN troops advanced towards Kamina and cleared Katangese gendarme roadblocks; by 15 January 1963 the UN had full control of Katanga. In early 1964 the UN handed Kamina to the Congolese armed forces.

Kamina’s long runways made it a staging post for foreign interventions. In November 1964, during the Simba rebellion, French Wikipedia says 545 Belgian para-commandos were dropped on Stanleyville from twelve US Air Force C-130s that had come from Kamina; English-language accounts give different numbers for the first drop, and the figures are those of the sources cited. In May 1978, during Shaba II, the Belgian Paracommandos regrouped at Kamina and on 20 May landed at Kolwezi airport, according to the English Wikipedia article on the battle.

Under Mobutu, Kamina was the seat of Zaire’s combat aviation. French Wikipedia places Mirage 5s and Aermacchi MB-326s at the base and describes a 2nd Tactical Air Group there in the 1980s, made up of the 21st Fighter-Attack Wing with Mirage 5s and MB-326Ks and the 22nd Tactical Transport Wing. The same article says the base was used by the Americans to supply aid to UNITA during the Angolan civil war; that claim is French Wikipedia’s and was not checked against a primary source.

Jane’s, as summarised by French Wikipedia, described the air force in 2007 as two air groups, the 2nd Tactical Air Group at Kamina with its fighter-attack and tactical transport wings. French Wikipedia also places both of the service’s schools at Kamina: the École de vol (flying school) and the École de technique de l’air (technical school). English Wikipedia adds that the base has served as a brassage centre, where fighters of the former warring factions were merged into new army units.

What is not known is as important. French Wikipedia says it is unclear whether air operations still take place at Kamina, and no official or press source checked for this page describes current flying there. The air force’s combat aircraft have in recent years been reported in the east, at Goma and Kisangani, rather than here. This page therefore lists no current aircraft for Kamina.