a separate air service, the United States Air Force (USAF). Fort Bell lost its distinction from Kindley Field at that time and the entire base was renamed Kindley Air Force Base (although some civilians still refer to it as Kindley Field). The USAF continued to operate the base, primarily as a refuelling station for trans-Atlantic flights by Military Air Transport Service (MATS) and Strategic Air Command (SAC) aircraft. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the base was also used to operate land-based U.S. Navy P-2 Neptune and P-3A Orion reconnaissance flights by aeroplanes tracking Soviet shipping in the Atlantic. By the 1960s, with the increase in ranges of transport aircraft, Kindley Field's usefulness to the USAF had rapidly diminished. At the same time, the U.S. Navy was still operating anti-submarine air patrols with P5M/SP-5B Marlin seaplanes from NAS Bermuda at the West End. Whereas the Second World War air patrols had protected merchant shipping in the Atlantic, the Cold War patrols aimed to guard US cities from Soviet submarines armed with ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. The Martin flying boats the Navy had used since the 1950s were withdrawn and replaced by landplanes. In 1965, the US Navy moved its air operations to Kindley Field, flying land-based SP-2H Neptune and P-3 Orion aircraft. With the airfield having attained vastly greater importance to naval operations, it was permanently transferred to custody of the U.S. Navy in 1970, operating until 1995 as U.S. Naval Air Station Bermuda. During the latter stages of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy would normally station an entire patrol squadron consisting of nine P-3C Orion aircraft on six-month rotations from their home bases at either NAS Jacksonville, Florida, or NAS Brunswick, Maine. These squadrons were frequently augmented by Naval Air Reserve P-3A or P-3B aircraft from various bases in the eastern United States, as well as NATO/Allied support consisting of Royal Air Force Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR2s, Canadian Armed Forces CP-140 Auroras and other similar maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft from other NATO nations. During one period in 1985 that was characterized by exceptionally heavy Soviet Navy submarine activity off the United States, additional P-3C aircraft from NAS Brunswick and NAS Jacksonville, as well as several U.S. Navy S-3 Viking aircraft, the latter normally a carrier-based ASW platform with a home base of the former NAS Cecil Field near Jacksonville, Florida, were also temporarily deployed to Bermuda in