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Most are familiar with the Cheyenne Mountain underground complex in Colorado, but few know about the U.S. Air Forces in Europe’s underground Combat Operations Center. Though not in use anymore, it was located just outside Ramstein at a site known as the Kindsbach Cave.
The cave’s operations were so secretive that little has ever been published on it. As the site of a German Western Front Command Headquarters, the French took control of the underground bunker after World War II, and USAFE assumed control in 1953. After major renovations, USAFE opened the Kindsbach Combat Operations Center Aug. 15, 1954.
The center was a state-of-the-art 67-room, 37,000-square foot facility where USAFE could’ve lead an air war against the Soviet Union. The center had a digital “computer” to work out bombing problems, cryptographic equipment for coded message traffic and its own photo lab to develop reconnaissance photos. Responsible for an air space extending deep behind the Iron Curtain, the center interacted directly with the Pentagon, NATO, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe and all USAFE bases. With its massive telephone switchboard and 80 teletype machines, the cave was plugged into everything in the outside world. The center was receiving more than 1,000 calls a day.
As a further measure of protection, the cave was fully self-contained with its own water supply, electric backup-generators, climate controls, dining facilities and sleeping accommodations for its 125-man crew. Visitor passes were rarely issued to this secret facility.
Throughout the years, leadership changed but USAFE led the operations through numbered Air Forces. The center’s commander was the USAFE Advanced Echelon. His glassed-in office was on the top floor of the three-story underground command center. Directly under his office was the management for offensive air operations. And the bottom floor office was the management for defensive air operations – to include support for U.S. Army forces and German Civil Defense. All three offices had a full view of the massive Air Operations Center map on the opposing wall.
The AOC was the largest room in the complex. Its three-story map was used to plot minute-by-minute movements of friendly and unidentified aircraft. But the center was much more than just a tracking station, because it could also react to threats. They always knew the current operational status of air weapons in theater including missiles, and could dispatch armed response “at a moments notice.”
Time takes its toll on technology. What was advanced in one era quickly becomes obsolete in the next. By 1984, the Kindsbach Cave had become too small and its cost for renovation too high, and USAFE vacated the facility. On Oct. 31, 1993, control was returned to the German government. Today the Kindsbach Cave remains sealed – a relic of the Cold War in Europe and a monument to an air war that was won without ever having been fought.
(Courtesy 435th Air Base Wing and 86th Airlift Wing history offices)
