Kimhae Air Base
Kimhae Air Base is locatged near Pusan, South Korea. The 51st Fighter Wing, headquartered at Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea, maintains and administers US operations at Osan and five collocated operating bases -- Taegu, Suwon, Kwang Ju, Kimhae and Cheong Ju ? for reception and beddown of follow-on forces. The Wing's 51st Logistics Support Squadron plans, programs and initiates actions for the rapid reception and beddown of US forces deploying to the Republic of Korea during contingencies or wartime by maintaining five collocated operating bases and seven munitions storage sites.

There are a few Defense Logistics Assignments to Kimhae. These folks work at the AMC Terminal. Approx. 17 USAF are assigned here. DLA assignments fall under AFOSI at Bolling AFB and the POC is DCMCI in Dayton Ohio. There are also some DCAMO personnel assigned that work on the F4's, F15's and F16's at Kimhae.

The 554th Rapid Engineering Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers, better known as RED HORSE, deployed to Kimhae Air Base in mid-2000 to work on three projects, a super K-Span building, a pre-engineered building or PEB, and an asphalt-paving project. The projects were done to support Kimhae?s war reserve materiel mission, The 90-by-176 super K-span is a dual-purpose building that?s use depends on the current mission of service members on the peninsula. During peacetime, it is used to store WRM assets. In a wartime scenario, the assets will be placed outside, and the building will house troops. At the second construction site, RED HORSE members constructed a 50-by-100 PEB that is used as a vehicle maintenance shop for Harvest Eagle WRM assets. Laying 140,000 square feet of new asphalt to support the 51st Contingency Hospital was the third project. The asphalt was laid over the existing gravel roads and parking lot to provide dust suppression and a better working environment. Construction on the super K-Span was completed May 5, taking about 94 days at a cost of $450,000. The asphalt paving project was completed in 21 days at a cost of $201,000. The PEB was finished May 30, for a total of 120 days of construction and a cost of $457,000. Had those same projects been contracted to a civilian construction company, they would have taken longer to be built and would have cost the government more than $2 million.

The 51st Contingency Hospital is a major player in the Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration exercises. The contingency hospital, located at Kimhae near Pusan, South Korea, is at the heart of a flight route that takes patients throughout and out of Korea during wartime emergencies. The only thing that distinguishes a contingency hospital from an original MASH unit is the fact that it is located in a permanent structure that provides better conditions for surgery. The 51st Contingency Hospital is the only such military hospital located in theater. A sixth of a mile long, the hospital takes up more room than three football fields combined. It is divided into a 250-bed aeromedical staging facility where patients stay overnight until they can be moved, a 100-bed intensive care unit and a 400-bed medical/surgical unit where patients can be held on a more permanent basis.

By March 2001 every F-15 assigned to Kadena had undergone corrosion inspection. Aircraft not inspected at Kadena were inspected/repaired by Korean Air Lines at their Kimhae Korea depot facility.