In an age of super surveillance, it’s hard to believe that anything can remain secret for long. And so you can be certain that anything that does remain secret is so for an important reason.
In its hawk-eye fashion, Google Earth is able to capture a ridiculous level of accuracy. You can see your second-cousin jumping on the trampoline in Sydney, the built up traffic on the M25 or use street-view to check out the neighbourhood of your new home.
It gives the impression that the whole world is visible at the touch of a button.
However, don’t be fooled, there are three places on the planet that are hidden from the public- you will not be able to find them no matter how long or hard you search.
The Volkel Air Base being one of them. This military site is found near the town of Volkel in North Brabant, Netherlands.
It is one of three major operational air bases for the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNAF) and is also home to a trauma helicopter that is used by Medical Air Ambulance.
However, perhaps the reason for its erasure from Google’s global database, is the belief that it has been storing nuclear weapons for the United States Air Force (USAF) since the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s.
Former air force pilot, Steve Netto, published in a book that around fifty B28 nuclear bombs were stored there around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. He said they intended to be deployed by aircraft of RNAF if needed.
Since 2008, the bunker has been home to 22 B61 nuclear bombs since 2008. Each of which are rumoured to have four times the capacity of those dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.
While it was thought that nuclear bombs were previously stored in a heavily defended quick reaction alert (QRA) at the north side of the base, since 1991 eleven security vaults are operational in the floors of the aircraft shelters.
Despite the evidence, the Dutch Ministry of Defence neither officially acknowledged nor denied the presence of nuclear weapons at Volkel. However, a document leaked in the 2010 US controversy, Cabelgate, confirmed the presence of nuclear weapons in the Netherlands.
The former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Rubb Lubbers, also spoke of their existence in 2013. However, Volkel specifically was not named and so a shroud of secrecy remained.
Finally, in 2019, NATO reported that Volkel was one of six locations where altogether approximately 150 US B61 bombs are being stored.
Despite the heavy measures to hide the location of Volkel for the public, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, Bellingcat, reported on security breaches in May 2021.
Soldiers tasked with overseeing the storage of the nuclear arsenal were reported to have used publicly available flashcard websites to assist them in learning the details, inadvertently exposing classified information.
