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The 7206th Air Base Group remained the primary USAF unit at the airport with the 6916th Security Squadron providing electronic aerial surveillance of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East). The USAF used the airport for airlift evacuation operations from Middle East (1967), Cyprus (1975), Ethiopia (1977), and Iran (1979, 1981).
7206th Air Base Group, at Hellenikon Air Base, Greece [16] Detachment 1, HQ, 7206th ABG – Iraklion AS (Kreta, GR) 7206th Security Police Squadron; 7206th Supply Squadron; 7206th Air Base Group Hospital; 7061st Munitions Support Squadron, at Araxos Air Base, Greece; 7275th Air Base Group, at San Vito dei Normanni Air Station, Italy
Built in 1938, Ellinikon International Airport was originally called Kalamaki Airfield. Following the German invasion of Greece in 1941, Kalamaki Airfield was used as a Luftwaffe air base during the occupation. After World War II, the Greek government allowed the United States to use the airport from 1945 until 1993.
On November 14, while the Axis troops were retreating from Greece, the aircraft of the Squadron landed in Hassani Airfield (later the Hellenikon Air Base and Ellinikon International Airport), near Athens. Although mainland Greece was liberated, Crete and other islands were still under German occupation.
A Hellenic Air Force bus was transporting American servicemen from a Greek base to the American-operated Hellenikon Air Base when a remote-controlled car bomb exploded, causing the bus to lose control and hit a tree. It was initially reported the bus was hit by a rocket attack. The chief of Greece's police called it a "well-planned crime".
Elliniko is the site of a major development project for coastal Athens beginning in 2020 and due for completion in 2026 - the Hellenikon Metropolitan Park consisting of luxury homes, hotels, a casino, a marina, shops, offices and Greece's tallest buildings such as the Riviera Tower [3] and Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. [4]
In April 1953, the Joint Chiefs of Staff assigned responsibility for the logistical support of all U.S. forces in Turkey to United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), which initially gave the mission to the 7206th Air Base Squadron at Hellenikon Air Base, Greece. A year later, the 7206th organized its Detachment 1 in Ankara.
On 2 February 1985, Bobby's Bar in Glyfada, a suburb of Athens in Greece, was bombed. The bar was popular with American airmen stationed at the nearby Hellenikon Air Base. Police spokesman Nikos Gizas said about fifty of the injured were Americans. [1] Some of them were brought to U.S. bases in West Germany for treatment. [2]