These were supplemented by several groups of JG 1, tasked with defending the North Sea shores against British Royal Air Force (RAF) attacks.

During the occupation of Denmark and Norway, Kampfgruppe 100 Wiking flew attacks from Nordholz with their Heinkel He 111 medium bombers, before its enlargement into KG 100.

All units, flying Bf 109F and -G day fighters stayed only a few weeks in northern Germany, before moving to the Eastern Front or along the English Channel.

At the end of the war, between January and April 1945, Nordholz had the honor of hosting the Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet rocket-powered fighter aircraft coming from parts of 2./JG 400.

After reducing the boundary of the American enclave to the borders of the State of Bremen in 1947 the airfield, located in Lower Saxony, was handed over to the RAF, who began dismantling the airport installations and destroying the three concrete runways.

Situated to the north of Bremen city, Marinefliegerhorst (Naval Air Station) Nordholz is the home of the German Navy's Marinefliegergeschwader 3 "Graf Zeppelin".

Named in honour of Germany's pioneer of lighter than air airships, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the MFG 3 operates both the service's long range maritime patrol and shipborne helicopter fleets.

The other Western types with the same mission, the American P-3 Orion and the British Nimrod, found their origins in respectively the Electra and Comet civil transports.

Out of the 20 Atlantics, five were converted during 1969 and 1970 into signals intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft, specialised in electronic reconnaissance of hostile radar systems and communications of what used to be the Eastern Bloc.

From early 2002 a detachment of Atlantics flew lengthy patrol missions from Mombasa, Kenya over the Indian Ocean looking for suspected shipping in the War on Terror.

Some 2,000 civilian and military personnel are based at Nordholz, with the wing providing surveillance & reconnaissance, anti-submarine search, SAR and pollution control operations.

The following airlines offer regular scheduled and charter flights at Nordholz-Spieka recreational airfield:[1] This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency Media related to Nordholz Naval Airbase at Wikimedia Commons