Naval Air Station Keflavik Iceland Patch

As one Navy commander told Jane's in 1996, Keflavik was the only place where a U.S. Navy flag officer had both P-3 Orions and Air Force F-15 Eagles working for him. The Navy took over the air station from the Air Force in 1961, and for the next 45 years NAS Keflavik sat on a lava plain at the edge of the North Atlantic. Its job was simple to say and hard to do: know where the Soviet submarines were. At the height of the Cold War, as the Navy's own regional commander put it in 2006, this was the place to be to protect against them. Sailors who drew Iceland orders still talk about the wind, the dark winters and the work.

American forces first came to Iceland in 1941, and the Iceland Defense Force was set up under the 1951 defense agreement, with its first personnel arriving on 7 May 1951. Navy WV-2 Warning Star early-warning aircraft of Barrier Force, Atlantic flew barrier patrols over the North Atlantic from 1955, and on 1 July 1961 the barrier force moved in and its rear admiral took command of the defense force. In the 1980s that admiral was also Commander, Fleet Air Keflavik, Commander, Iceland Sector ASW Group, and NATO Island Commander Iceland. Rotational P-3 Orion patrol squadrons from Patrol Wings Atlantic flew anti-submarine missions from the station's hangar until 2004. The Air Force's 85th Group flew F-15 Eagles off the same runway.

This patch is a white shield with a black merrowed border, about 4.38 inches wide and 4.5 inches tall. NAS KEFLAVIK runs across a blue scroll at the top. Below it a black Viking longship with a dragon-head prow and a row of gold shields along its hull sails under a red and white striped sail stitched with the word SERVICE. The ship rides on a blue globe laid out with white grid lines, and Iceland sits in white at its center. The longship is a nod to the island's Norse seafaring roots, and the globe puts Keflavik where it belonged, on the map between two continents.

At its peak the station was home to more than 5,000 military members, civilians and family members, and in 2006 it still hosted 23 tenant commands. NAS Keflavik was disestablished on 8 September 2006, with Capt. Mark S. Laughton as its final commanding officer. The last four Air Force fighters and a rescue helicopter squadron left on 30 September 2006. Before they went, the station's people cleared 550 facilities and shipped 6.6 million pounds of household goods home. For the patrol crews, maintainers, Seabees and families who spent a tour there, Keflavik was a Cold War front line that most Americans never saw.

It belongs in a shadow box next to VP squadron patches and a photo of a P-3 on a snowy flight line, or on the jacket worn to a Keflavik reunion. It also makes a good gift for a son or daughter who grew up hearing stories about the long Icelandic winter. One Viking ship, one island, 45 years of watch.