Updated 11/24/07

History of Port Lyautey

Port Lyautey lies on the Sebou River near the Atlantic Ocean on the route between the capital city of Rabat and the northern coastal city of Tangier. It was established in 1912 by Louis Hubert Lyautey , Morocco's first French resident general, as a military fort to replace Larache which had been incorporated into the Spanish zone. At the beginning of the 20th century, Morocco was recognized as a French sphere of influence having been divided between France and Spain, in 1904, with France receiving the larger share.

The French built a new town and artificial harbor and in 1933 the town was re-named Port Lyautey after the Marshall. When Morocco achieved independence in 1956, the town was renamed Kenitra.

The French military base at Port Lyautey was used by United States military forces during World War 2 and was expanded to a major US Naval Air Station in 1951. The original airbase was captured by one American Destroyer and an Army Raider team in WW2. The Destroyer Dallas, DD199 came up the Sebou River, silenced the shore batteries with it's guns and landed the Raider team which in turn captured the airfield. For a full account of the naval action by the U.S.S. Dallas at Port Lyautey, please click destroyerhistory.

USS Dallas DD-199

After the invasion and capture of Port Lyautey, an american aircraft photographed the base which showed the French gun emplacements, sunken ships in the Sebou and the beaches where the invasion forces came ashore. That photograph is shown below.

THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
WASHINGTON

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the PRESIDENTIAL UNIT CITATION to the

UNITED STATES SHIP DALLAS

for service as set forth in the following

CITATION:

“For outstanding participation in the capture of Port Lyautey Airfield, French Morocco, November 10, 1942. With a U. S. Army raider detachment embarked, the DALLAS, crossing a treacherous bar against heavy surf in order to reach the mouth of the Sebou River, broke through a steel cable boom obstructing the channel, forced the course ten miles upstream under hostile fire, and successfully landed troops without material damage or loss of life. Her distinctive fulfillment of a difficult and hazardous mission contributed materially to the victorious achievement of the Northern Attack Group.”

For the President

/s/ Frank Knox
Secretary of the Navy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: NARA

An interesting newspaper article below, was written about the base in 1951 entitled "SECRET PORT LYAUTEY BASE KEY TO MEDITERRANEAN AREA" by John P. Leacacos of the North American Newspaper Alliance. (Our thanks to Larry St. Onge who served with VC-5 during the first ever deployment of carrier-based atom bombers to Port Lyautey from, February to September 1951 for its submission.

PORT LYAUTEY, French Morocco - One of the silliest experiences any correspondent can have is to stand here in this French Moroccan town, and look, only yards away, smack at one of the most important tactical bases the United States armed forces have anywhere on the globe. The silly feeling arises because the joint is top-secret, hush-hush-hush, its existence officially denied by the U.S. Navy. The Port Lyautey Naval Air Facility is the aorta of supply to the U.S. Sixth Fleet air arm, the sharpest cutting blade of American strength in Europe, but Naval brass hats in the Pentagon still pretend no one knows about this key base "which does not exist" except in the knowledge of a few million Moroccans, Frenchmen, and sundry. In any event, here are the facts the major lifeline on the crucial Mediterranean flank of Western Europe.

The U.S. Navy captured the Port Lyautey fighter base from the Vichy French in November 1942, at the time of the American invasion of North Africa. The Navy ran the base without asking the French a single "S'il vous plait" until 1947, when the State Department negotiated reversion of control to France. In 1950, before Korea, under the "economy" regime of former Defense Secretary Louis Johnson, a $23,000,000 expansion was authorized, but then Korea exploded. The sixth fleet tripled. Likewise, base personnel. Now there are nearly 10,000 persons on the base, including the largest aggregration of Americans in any one overseas base outside Japan.

Conditions are so crowded that many enlisted men still sleep in tents with their feet literally in each other's faces. Morale, despite high elan, suffers because of almost complete lack of recreational facilities. Men molder nightly at such dives as Mama's and Jack's in Port Lyautey, or the vine-covered cottage in Rabat. The only real sport is golf, on a tiny course among the runways, midst jets roaring off to replace planes lost at sea.

When today it is an axiom of next-war strategy that tactical atomic bombs can be delivered to targets by fighters and that one of the obvious instruments for such infiltration into Southern Russia is the U.S. Sixth Fleet, under Admiral Robert B. Carney, it seems baffling to laymen why Port Lyautey is thus neglected. One top source's comment: "penny wise and pound foolish." Defense officials, in fact, reveal a hot dispute in high echelons as to whether U.S. naval bases in the Mediterranean should be concentrated in Spain, and all others, including Port Lyautey, let go.

John P. Leacacos has continued to be a foreign policy writer, and is still active in the Washington press corps.

Main road leading down to the Naval Air Station airstrip, hangers, terminal and base supply depot.

During the 1950's, the base served as a major platform for U.S. Navy anti-submarine, electronic countermeasure and transport squadrons in support of 6th Fleet Operations. It was supported by a Marine Detachment, rotating Seabee Battalions and two Naval Communication Stations at Sidi Bouknadel and Sidi Yahia. The base was a major hub in the transfer of U.S. Marines to Lebanon when President Eisenhower ordered troops into that country in support of the government of Lebanese President Chamoun.

When american servicemen arrived in the early 1950's, the popular mode of transportation in Kenitra were the "one-horse cusheys". By the mid-1950's, the cushey's were replaced by the "petite taxis"

Base Administration Building

Headquarters for COMNAVACTS and COMNAVAIRSTA

The French maintained a presence on the base which included an air squadron, army detachment, navy detachment and until Moroccan independence, a unit of the French Foreign legion. It is not known where or when the following photograph of the French Foreign Legion encampment was taken.

Main Gate, US Marines and French Navy on Duty

The base began it's operational decline during the 1960's when the King of Morocco refused to extend the lease of the base and ordered all American forces, including the US Air Force bases at Nouasser and Sidi Slimane, out of the country. The Naval Air Station was turned over to the Royal Air Force of Morocco and the last of US military personnel departed the base in 1977.

Naval Air Squadrons That Served Tours of Duty at Port Lyautey

(A special thanks to all those who contributed additional information on squadrons attached to Port Lyautey. If you do not see your squadron listed, please e-mail me and I will include it ASAP)

An A3D from ECM-2 landing with chute deployed

Naval Support Groups at Port Lyautey

Naval Communication Stations (NCS) located in Morocco

Mobile Construction Battalions (Seabees) That Served Tours of Duty

at Port Lyautey