First B-52s Land at Base West of London for Service in the Gulf : Military: Basing the bombers in Britain gives the allies added flexibility in striking targets in Iraq and Kuwait.

The first American B-52 strategic bombers arrived in Britain on Tuesday to carry out missions in the Persian Gulf War.

At least five of the huge Stratofortresses--officials say 10 to 12 are expected to be based in Britain--flew into the Fairford air base in Gloucestershire, 80 miles west of London, early Tuesday. Although details of when the bombers will be employed in the Gulf War were not released, observers outside the NATO airfield reported seeing U.S. servicemen loading bombs aboard the aircraft.

Pentagon officials have said that basing some of the bombers in Britain became necessary because space limitations in the war region have forced the military to originate some B-52 bombing runs from Strategic Air Command air bases in the United States. Others are based on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

The French government, which refused passage through its airspace to U.S. F-111 fighter-bombers on their 1986 strike on Libya, last week approved overflight clearance, so the B-52s can fly a reasonably direct route to the Middle East from Fairford. Both countries granted permission on condition that only conventional munitions be carried by the bombers.

The distance from RAF Fairford to Baghdad (about 2,600 miles) is about the same as the leg from Diego Garcia to Iraq--well within the B-52’s 7,500-mile range, which can be reduced by a heavy bomb load.

Additionally, some KC-135 and KC-10 air-refueling tankers also arrived at Fairford on Tuesday. These and other tankers based in the Mediterranean and Middle East could be used for in-flight refueling missions to keep the B-52s in the air longer.

Having the base in Britain gives the allies alternatives in setting up B-52 bombing missions. Planes flying from Britain can drop their bomb loads in Iraq or Kuwait and continue to Diego Garcia, or return to Fairford. This also allows flights originating in Diego Garcia to continue to Britain.

In a separate announcement to the House of Commons on Tuesday, British Defense Secretary Tom King said that the United States will close its nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch in Scotland and that U.S. F-111 fighter jets will be removed from two RAF bases in Britain as part of an American worldwide military cutback.

The submarine base on the west coast of Scotland, near Glasgow, was established in the face of massive peace movement protests in the 1960s and has been used to maintain nuclear submarines and tactical attack vessels targeted on the Soviet Union.

King said the F-111s will be withdrawn from RAF Upper Heyford base in Oxfordshire and RAF Lakenheath base in Suffolk, where the planes had been deployed to respond to an attack by the Soviet Union. Although numbers of aircraft were not revealed, King said they would be sent back to the United States but could be quickly returned to the United Kingdom in a “crisis or war.”

Meanwhile, in Fairford, a town of about 2,500 residents where Royal Air Force pilots took off to bomb Germany in World War II, arrival of the American planes marked a return engagement.

The air base was used by KC-135 tankers during the 1980s to refuel B-52s on annual exercises called Mighty Warrior. The base was reduced to standby status Oct. 1.

Americans started returning 10 days ago, but the early arrivals were part of a medical staff of 1,000 for an Air Force hospital at Little Rissington, 10 miles north.

U.S. personnel reportedly began arriving over the last several days to service the B-52s. They quickly put up barbed wire around the base as trucks began arriving with munitions and maintenance equipment.

Ruth Ritter, Fairford’s mayor, said: “I think the attitude of most people here is that there’s a war on, and this is the best way to get it over with quickly.

“We are not against the base,” said Ritter, widow of an RAF officer. “What has brought the war home to us is that we can be 4,000 miles from the action, and here we are on the front line.”