Thanks for the memories! I was an AF brat there from 70-72 and graduated from Lajes HS. The highlight of our stay there was when President Nixon came there for a summit meeting.

We lived there 77-79. First year we lived in a house on Pigs Alley then AAFES built the modular homes across from the HS and we lived there for the remainder of the time. My Dad was the Exchange Manager. Also there during the devastating earthquake. The youth center made huge pots of soup and we delivered to the locals. It was a heartbreaking time for them. Amazingly the base was hardly hit. We all came together to help the local people giving them clothing and blankets, food and water. They lost everything. It was so sad.. My sister and I had horses and remember riding on the beach. Best childhood memories.

Thanks for that blast from the past. The top three things I remember from my time there was that walk on the scenic dirt road from Santa Rita hill to Praia to get a burger at George the Crook's Cafe Açores, the expression "Não faz mal", and the expression "Next Boat." If you lived there, you'll get the last two. Remember when AFRTS got satellite and you no longer had to wait three weeks to get the films of sports games from stateside?

Thank you for the trip down memory lane. I lived at Lajes between 1967-1969. It turns out your house was a couple of houses up from the one we lived in for the first year. We lived in H-115. Fond memories of Miguel who came by with his cart and gave us cart rides and sometimes he brought his horse for us to ride. Great place to live.

Good Job Thank you

Thank you SOOO much for posting this! WE were stationed there twice;'73-75 & '77-81. Dad, mom, & I. I was in grades 2 &3, then 6-9. Dad was Air Force; worked at COMMS. We lived off base, at 123 Juncal, then on Cruz(street) Made lots of friends, skated all winter & swam on base & at beaches all summer! Loved the Portugeuse people and their beautiful island, culture, and food! REALLY miss this place and now,at 51, want to take my wife & 3 kids to tour there for several weeks! I frequently look at the YT videos and can't believe how beautiful it is!!

My dad was in the Air Force and we were stationed at Lajes. I really loved that place and hope to be able to visit it again..

Love the video, it brings back great memories of part of my childhood. My dad got stationed from Homestead Florida to the the Azores in 1963-1967.

We were stationed there at the same time...in fact the white car at 6:12 was my parents car...Boy Scout camp...I was in that troop too...

Great memories! Thanks for posting the photos. My wife, two daughters, and I were stationed there from a couple of days after the big earthquake in Jan 1980 until a week before XMAS 1981. I was with the Naval Air Facility that supported the deployed P-3’s. Our sponsor had to find a new rental for us as the one he lined up for us fell down in the quake. We lived in a two story apartment house on Caminho do Facho about 2 blocks before you got to AFTRS. Then after 6 months, we bought our cottage which was directly across from the big water tower numbered T-254 today. (Same side of the road as H-119 on the corner where the street intersects with Caminho do Facho.) I see via Google Maps that some of the cottages still have their “H” number on them. Ours no longer does, but if the numbering holds, it would have been H-107. It now has a garage which wasn’t there when we owned it. In the photos, across from H-119, I see a red VW bug that could have been ours as well as a green station wagon that could have been our 1971 Datsun 510 wagon that we brought to the island from Hawaii from Vallejo, CA from Japan from Florida. I sold it to a local before transferring stateside. In another photo, there is a sign for the US Navy’s 206th birthday. We went to the birthday ball that year - 1981. I remember the morning a C-141 took off for McGuire with transferring service families and all their household goods on board. Upon lift off, the left main landing gear piston came out of the strut and was hanging by electrical wires and hydraulic lines. The plane circled for an hour or so while dumping fuel AND all of the cargo, including the crates of household goods! The crew did a great job of landing on one landing gear and then skidding to a stop on the left wing tip. We bought our daughters a horse, “Trotter”, and they joined the base equestrian club, participating in rodeos and a weekend campout that included riding the horse to and from the remote campground. Lajes was our favorite duty station of my career. No place else had as friendly people, and nowhere else could you get a steak dinner for two with a bottle of wine for around $10.

We were stationed there from 3/86 to 3/88 and this is how I remember it. We lived at 339A Praia. I still remember the fish monger going down the street and the cows being herded down them as well. The delicious bread that would be delivered to you if you left a bag with money in it hanging outside your door. What is crazy is that I am Brazilian and when I did my DNA test it said I had Azorean DNA, my mothers family was from Portugal so ironic that I lived there before knowing this. Great memories of a beautiful place.

We were there 79-82 and lived on Rua A Praia da Vitoria. almost at the top of the hill. The neighbors grew huge Dalia's and in the summer, there was seaweed laid out to dry on the road next to the house as it was a dead end at the top of Rua A. The donkey across in the field was friendly. We lived in the white house on the Rua A road. After the earthquake, we moved to Porto Judeu and was one of two American Navy families living there.

Thanks so much for sharing those. I was stationed there as well, arriving in 1985 and leaving in 1987. What a beautiful place. I swear that red VW at 2:42 could have been the 'island car' I bought from friend.

Thank you for sharing! We lived there in 73 and 74 but can't remember where during our first year. All I remember is that we lived off base and made friends with the nicest Portuguese family.

I was born in a 2 room shack in Santa Rita Hill in 1958.

I worked for USAF from 1963-1969. Stil missing those beautifull years of good friendship with USAF membebers I worked with in 1605th Trasnportation Squadron, very good times I will remember for ever.

Great memories. Stationed there with hospital squadron from 1976-1978. Lived on Cruz (who didn't when you first arrived??), then a great beach house in Port Martins, then a cottage on base (wow....hot and cold running water!!) Beautiful place, people, food, community..I loved it. So sorry to hear that the military downsized it in ? 2015? Would return in a heartbeat!!

I was stationed at Lajes with the 1605th ABG from February 1968-August 1969. Family tours were 24 months or longer. At that time much of the construction of the American side of the base must have been done in the late 1940s or 50s. There were 60 parking spaces for aircraft and in its hey day with transAtlantic traffic both ways i was told that an arriving aircraft sometimes had to wait with engines running for a departing plane to pull out they were saturated an enormous area. When I got there there were probably 25 transient prop aircraft parked at any one time mostly Guard , Reserve, and occasionally NATO allied aircraft plus about 12 total HC 130 Rescue and Navy P-3 aircraft which rotated in and out for various periods. We had a base C-47 for inter-island and a C-54 for longer flights to the EU. By Spring '69 many of the Guard and Reserve 124s, 97s, and 121s had been sent to the boneyard and traffic dropped considerably. Support to the Wing/Group was provided by a weekly C-130 from Charleston AFB, SC. Personnel movement was by weekly C-141 from McGuire- Lajes- Rhein-Main GE with 2-3 time a month Commercial Contract stretch DC-8 on the reverse route with blocked space for Lajes traffic to McGuire which made for lots of available seats from Rhein-Main. There were about 1700 military, US civilians, and dependents their which has been cut back to 500 or less as of 20116 on 12 month unaccompanied tours. I am very surprized to see the amount of new construction which has been done since 1980 when personnel had already been cut back some. A break bulk ship from MOT Bayon ne , NJ brought over vehicles and cargo which today may move from the Port of Philadelphia. Then and now there was not alot of workload for many. A large force of island civilians was employed for most of the day to day base operations. Aircraft Maintenance was fairly sizeable and demanding but fewer and fewer young mechanics had any training in recipricating engine aircraft which put a heavy load on older members who were retiring. This could well have been a contributing factor to aircraft sent to the boneyard as there weren't people to fix them. SATA the inter-island airline had a few DC-3s and a Dehavilland Heron or Dove. They were trying out HS-748 or other similar twin engine turboprop aircraft for service to the international airport at Santa Maria with cross runways or the grass field at San Miguel where grazing cattle had to be rounded up when there was an operation. The Portuguese Air Force had a few C-54 aircraft given to them by the US which during a year and a half I NEVER SAW FLY! While not explicitly told US people never went to the Portuguese side of the base and Portuguese never came to the American side. Communication would have been impossible for most. At that time the Dictatorship was in its last years and wars of independence were going on in Angola, Mozambique, and a very small territory called Portuguese Guinea in West Africa. As boys were subject to being held in the country for future military service as of 13 years, many families sought to immigrate to the US or Canada to avoid being caught up in it'. At one point the Portuguese compared their wars of independence in Africa with our conflict in Vietnam an unsavory comparison. Today things are much improved. If we were to remove the US presence there are claims that the Russians or Chinese might seek to acquire the base rights.

I was stationed at Lajes from Aug 72 to Oct 73, and again from Jul 78 to Feb 82. Lived on Cruz the second time around until mid-80 (remember the earthquake?), then moved into a cottage, but I do not remember the number. Great assignment!

In 1977 Lajes was an air base with USAF ground and space personnel, (The big "golf ball" by base power was an early version of satellite communications. SatCom AN/TSC-54 - 1936 Comm Sq. - my outfit, today would be US Space Force), US Army Transportation ships in the harbor of Praia da Vitória, and assigned aircraft (P3B Orions) of the US Navy, and of course our host nation forces of the Portuguese Republic. So, the Navy did the flying, the Air Force ran the ground (and space), and Army transportation had the ships in the nearby harbor. It has been 45 years since I was an 18 year old Airman (E2) in the NCO Club at 0200 hours on Saturday, Dec. 11, 1977, when the PPC, navigator, radar operator and flight engineer, among others, of one of the assigned P3s were also there at the NCO club until 02:00 local. Their P-3 Orion aircraft (Registration: 153428) departed the following morning at 08:36 on a ship surveillance patrol / training mission. Approximately two hours after takeoff the aircraft reported all systems essential to the mission were operating normally. That was the last radio transmission. At 1120LT, while cruising at an altitude of 2,300 feet in limited visibility due to foggy conditions, the airplane struck the slope of a mountain (5,200 feet high) at a speed of 220 knots on a small island named El Hierrod. The wreckage was found in a wooded area located near la Frontera, in the center of the island. The island was located inside the northwest corner of the assigned patrol area in the Canary Islands . It is very possible that the crew was unaware of the island. Visibility at the crash site was 50 meters in rain and fog. All engines were operating, except for #1, which was shutdown for loiter. Accident reports indicate the crash was the consequence of a controlled flight into terrain. The following contributing factors were reported: - The postmortem showed that the navigator had experienced a myocardial infarction. - The crew consumed alcohol until 2 o'clock in the morning, - The crew started the mission without sufficient rest time, - Failure of the authority to implement an effective aircrew surveillance program, - Crew complacency for non adhering to sound navigation procedures, - TSC briefing display omission of the three Canary Islands, - The crew was not properly briefed prior to takeoff and was probably not aware of the presence of Hierro Island, - Poor visibility due to foggy conditions and rain falls. I recognize that others' misfortune could be my own. I will always remember those men and that night in the NCO club at Lajes AB, and I pray God keeps them. "There but for you, and the grace of God, go I."

There is pictures of sao Miguel too. Viva os AZORES.

I lived on A Volta do Paul, I was three no toys no books no TV no radio no one to play with when my brother was at school I placed my bunk bed ladder in the window my mother pulled me off and to the concrete, my chin went, three stitches, her words were ill teach you a lesson get down from there. she was mean. she was addicted to secondhand smoke from my dad and when he was not around I paid the price. Most of the time with some blood. the island was pretty. My older brother was six . and he has no memories of it. sad really he sniffed a lot of glue, I think it's called huffing for a high. we had a hurricane, we had an underwater volcano .

H-119 still stands i live @ H-152 :)

But you have photos from S. Miguel island :) lagoa 7 cidades

My dad was a sergeant and we lived in the air base n-.4

Viva a terceira