Garoua is the capital of Cameroon’s North Region, a river town on the Benue about 645 km north of Yaoundé in a straight line and, as Reuters put it in 2015, not far from the Nigerian border. French Wikipedia says the present airport was built in 1980, replacing an older field opened in the post-war years, and that air navigation has been run by ASECNA, the regional air navigation agency, since the 1960s. It is one of four international airports in the country, with Yaoundé-Nsimalen, Douala and Maroua-Salak.

The runway is the reason the air force is here. The ASECNA AIP, in the edition valid from 6 August 2026, lists a single runway, 09/27, of 3,401 by 45 m in asphaltic concrete, with a reference point at 242 m elevation. English Wikipedia gives 3,363 m; the AIP figure is used on this page. The AIP lists Aéroports du Cameroun as the operator and says nothing about a military side, which is normal for a shared airfield in the ASECNA system.

Military Africa called Garoua Cameroonian Air Force Base 301 in 2021, one of three main bases in Yaoundé, Douala and Garoua, each in a different military region. English Wikipedia goes further, without a citation: it says the base was built by the Germans, conforms to NATO standards, can easily take large aircraft and hosts the PANVR, a national aviation centre with a regional vocation. None of that could be confirmed from an official source.

On Monday 12 October 2015, about 90 American military personnel began deploying to Cameroon, Reuters reported, part of a force of up to 300. They went first to Garoua. Their job was airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the Multinational Joint Task Force of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Benin, and they brought Predator drones. President Barack Obama told Congress the troops were armed only for their own protection and would stay until their support was no longer needed.

Two years later the camp had a name, Contingency Location Garoua, and a routine. An AFRICOM feature republished by defenceWeb in December 2017 described about 200 soldiers, airmen and contractors at the Cameroonian Air Force Base in Garoua, providing security and logistics for the command’s drones. The task force had been led by the 101st Airborne Division and was handed to the 10th Mountain Division in October 2017. Its commander, Major Max Ferguson, described a support role: the Americans were not in the fight, he said, but were helping with information and intelligence.

The base commander, Colonel Barthelemy Tsilla, spoke of the responsibility of looking after the visitors. US soldiers delivered desks to the school on the base so that children did not have to sit on the ground, and Army medics helped at the base clinic. On 15 March 2018 the US ambassador, Peter Barlerin, and Brigadier General Eugene LeBoeuf of US Army Africa visited the camp.

Sources do not agree on the drone type. Reuters wrote of Predators in 2015. Military Africa published a satellite image in September 2017 captioned as an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone base in Cameroon, and in June 2026 described unarmed Gray Eagles at Garoua, the US Army’s variant of the Predator family. A Military Africa article of December 2018 speaks of MQ-9 Reapers. This page lists the type as reported and does not settle it.

The end date is also soft. Military Africa says US forces withdrew from Salak, near Maroua, around late 2019, and Washington had already halted a C-130 training programme and other aid on 6 February 2019 over alleged gross human rights violations by Cameroonian forces. In June 2026 Military Africa reported that US forces were preparing to return, this time to Maroua-Salak, while AFRICOM said on 26 June that its presence was limited to small training and assessment teams invited by the government. Garoua is not named in the 2026 plans.

The Cameroon Air Force publishes no order of battle, and no source checked for this page says which Cameroonian aircraft are based at Garoua. The Alpha Jets, the force’s only combat jets, and the PANVR school are the obvious candidates, but neither is placed here by a dated, attributable source, so this page does not list them. The base’s condition is equally contested: Wikipedia’s account of a modern NATO-standard base and Military Africa’s description of three timeworn bases without arresting gear, navigation aids or lighting cannot both be fully right, and neither is official.

That leaves the American years as the best-documented part of Garoua’s military history, recorded mainly by the visitors rather than the hosts.