Bardufoss lies in Målselv municipality in inner Troms, near the settlement of Andselv, on a flat moraine terrace between the mountains. According to the Wikipedia account of the airport’s history, drawn from Avinor’s published chronology, the Army Air Service picked the site as an emergency landing field in 1934 and started construction early in 1935; Store norske leksikon dates the decision to make it the main air base for northern Norway to 1935. A 200 by 200 metre field was ready in mid-1936, and on 26 March 1938 a de Havilland Tiger Moth made the first landing. By mid-1938 a triangular gravel runway was in use.

The German invasion of 9 April 1940 made Bardufoss suddenly important. It was the only usable land airfield near Narvik, where British, French, Polish and Norwegian forces were fighting to retake the ore port. Store norske leksikon records that Norwegian and British air units flew from the field in 1940. The Royal Air Force’s No. 263 Squadron, re-equipped after losing its Gladiators on the frozen lake at Lesjaskog in April, flew into Bardufoss on 21 May with about 18 Gladiators. No. 46 Squadron followed with Hurricanes and began operations from 26 May, partly from Skånland.

The two squadrons had barely three weeks. The unit history compiled for No. 263 Squadron credits it with 249 sorties and 26 enemy aircraft claimed destroyed; No. 46 Squadron is credited with at least 14. Claims of this kind are the squadrons’ own and were not checked against German records in the sources read. When the Allies decided to evacuate northern Norway, ten Gladiators and the Hurricanes were flown out to the carrier HMS Glorious on 7 June. The Hurricanes had no arrester hooks, and landing them on a carrier deck was a first for high-performance monoplanes. The next day both squadrons were lost with the ship.

The Germans took over Bardufoss after the Allied withdrawal and turned it into a fighter, bomber and reconnaissance base for the war against the Arctic convoys to Murmansk. Store norske leksikon records that the occupiers expanded the airfield with Norwegian forced labourers, political prisoners and prisoners of war. The main runway was lengthened to 1,600 by 80 metres in concrete, and a second runway was laid at Fossmoen but, according to the airport history, never used.

In the autumn of 1944 the battleship Tirpitz was moved to Håkøya, just west of Tromsø, and Bardufoss became her air umbrella. After the failed RAF raid of 29 October, known as Operation Obviate, the Luftwaffe moved fighters of Jagdgeschwader 5 to Bardufoss under Major Heinrich Ehrler. The accounts disagree on how many: the history of Operation Catechism summarised on Wikipedia speaks of 38 fighters transferred, while the account of Ehrler’s career gives twelve operational Focke-Wulf Fw 190s on the day. Both rest on published histories this page could not read directly.

On 12 November 1944 Lancasters of Nos. 9 and 617 Squadrons attacked with Tallboy bombs. The scramble order reached Bardufoss late, at 9:32, after the bombers were already over the target; the pilots were inexperienced and had not been told that protecting the ship was their priority. Tirpitz capsized within minutes. Store norske leksikon gives over 1,000 dead; the English-language histories give between 940 and 1,204. Ehrler was court-martialled in Oslo, found guilty, demoted and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, although the cowardice charge was dropped.

After the liberation Bardufoss became, in the words of Store norske leksikon, the main air station for northern Norway in 1945. The Cold War brought NATO infrastructure money: in 1953 the runway was brought up to NATO standard, and the airport history dates a NATO-financed extension to 2,500 metres to 1952–1953. Civil flights followed in 1956, when SAS began serving Bardufoss, and the station has shared its runway with a civil airport ever since.

The fighter history of Bardufoss is the thinnest part of this page. Norway operated 206 F-84 Thunderjets, 115 F-86F and 64 F-86K Sabres in the 1950s and 1960s, but none of the sources read for this page say which of those squadrons were based at Bardufoss or when. The mountain hangars point to a serious fighter role: NATO Allied Air Command wrote in 2024 that they had been dormant for 40 years, which places their last regular use in the early to mid-1980s. Their construction date is not given in any source read, and is left out here.

What is clear is that Bardufoss became a helicopter base. According to the Wikipedia account, 339 Squadron moved in in 1964, later flying Bell 412SPs delivered between 1987 and 1990. 337 Squadron, a former fighter squadron from Gardermoen and Værnes, was reactivated on 1 January 1980 to support the new coast guard and flew six Westland Lynx Mk 86s from Bardufoss; the Lynx delivery year is given as 1981 on one page and 1983 on another. The Lynx served until 2014.

Norway ordered 14 NH90 NFH maritime helicopters in 2001, as part of the Nordic Standard Helicopter Programme, for the coast guard and the new Fridtjof Nansen-class frigates. The first arrived late in 2011; by 2016 only six had been delivered, according to Store norske leksikon, and the first helicopter reached full operational capability only in 2018. Teknisk Ukeblad later put the number delivered before cancellation at eight. At Bardufoss two squadrons were meant to fly them: 337 for the coast guard and 334 for the frigates.

The helicopters never delivered the hours the navy and coast guard needed. The officers’ union BFO, citing the coast guard’s annual report, says the NH90 flew 178 hours for the coast guard in its best year, 2019, and only 33 hours in 2022. On 10 June 2022 the government ordered the Defence Materiel Agency to terminate the contract with NHIndustries, and the helicopters were grounded at once and later returned.

For the people at Bardufoss the stop was instant. Lieutenant Colonel Kjetil Bjørkum, who commanded 337 Squadron at the time, told BFO that the squadron went overnight from running operations with aircraft and people to having nothing to do. The cancellation came less than four months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and left the coast guard waiting for a replacement type. A later settlement with NHIndustries is reported only in secondary sources read for this page, so its terms are not given here.

On 14 March 2023 Forsvaret announced that the government had chosen six Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawks, at about NOK 12 billion on the Chief of Defence’s recommendation, to be used first by the coast guard with anti-submarine capability prepared for later. BFO gives the cost estimate as NOK 12.59 billion. The first were promised for 2025. In February 2024 Teknisk Ukeblad reported that the schedule had slipped: first deliveries in 2026, all six by the end of 2027. Whether any MH-60R had reached Bardufoss by September 2026 could not be confirmed from an official source.

To keep skills alive, Norway sent crews and technicians to Denmark, which has flown the MH-60R since 2016. Forsvaret planned for 17 people; BFO reported about 20 from Bardufoss at Karup with the Danish Eskadrille 723 by late 2024. One technician told BFO that moving from the NH90 to the Seahawk was like going from a Tesla to a Volvo 240: back to basics with cables and pulleys.

Store norske leksikon records that the Maritime Helicopter Wing was renamed 131 Air Wing in 2024. It now commands 337 Squadron, which will fly the Seahawks, a new 336 Squadron being built up to support the army with Bell 412s, the flying school and the station group at Banak. The official Bardufoss garrison page still uses the older wing name, and still lists three Bell 412SPs of 339 Squadron at the base.

In mid-June 2024 F-35s from Ørland landed at Bardufoss and taxied into its mountain hangars, which had been upgraded after 40 years of dormancy. NATO Allied Air Command presented it as part of the Norwegian dispersal concept and NATO’s Agile Combat Employment: fighters that are superb in the air are vulnerable on the ground, so they must be able to operate from many airfields and shelter in rock. Colonel Eirik Stueland, commander of 131 Air Wing, said Bardufoss’s existing infrastructure also gives it a larger role in an initial mobilisation phase.

Bardufoss has long hosted allies in winter. The Wikipedia account records Royal Navy commando helicopter squadrons, Royal Marines and the Dutch korps mariniers training there during the Cold War, with the winter deployments of British helicopters known as Clockwork; dates for Clockwork are not given in the sources read. Forsvarsbygg lists camps for allied exercise and training at Bardufoss among its investments in Troms, part of about NOK 18 billion planned there to 2036.

Store norske leksikon notes that Bardufoss has substantial capacity to receive allied reinforcements and that, under the amended Supplementary Defence Cooperation Agreement with the United States in force from 2024, it is one of 12 agreed areas where US forces have access. The station also sits beside the army’s largest northern garrison, with the Army Staff and brigade units, making it the largest military camp in northern Norway.