H-1 Air Base (code-named 202A) is a former Iraqi Air Force base in the Al-Anbar Governorate of Iraq. It was captured by U.S.-led Coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Since then it has remained abandoned. History RAF H1 H-1 was established by the Royal Air Force as a landing ground as "RAF H1" in the 1930s. It was named for the nearby H1 pumping station on the Mosul–Haifa oil pipeline. H1 one of several airfields established as part of the British Mandate of Iraq. Iraq was artificially created at the close of World War I from the former Ottoman Empire as part of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. It was used until the 1940s by No. 84 Squadron RAF. During the early days World War II, the airfield was abandoned as the RAF moved its units to RAF Habbaniya during the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état and subsequent Anglo-Iraqi War. It may have been used by some German Luftwaffe units that had moved in from Vichy French controlled Syria, during an attempted coups by German-leaning Iraqi Generals who had engineered a coup in Iraq on 31 March 1941. However, the British moved in both land reinforcements from British Palestine and flew in some Wellington and Blenheim bombers to RAF Habbaniya. The coup crumbled in disorder, with the pro-Nazi forces in Iraq surrendering on 30 May. The Luftwaffe units stranded in Iraq retreated back to Syria. Iraqi Air Force The airfield remained under British control until 1958 when, as a result of the 14 July 1958 Iraqi Revolution when Hashemite monarchy established by King Faisal I of Iraq in 1921 under the auspices of the British was overthrown. Subsequently, it was turned over to the Iraqi Air Force. During the 1970s, it was one of several Iraqi airfields upgraded under project "Super-Base" in response to the experiences from Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973. The Iraqi 2nd Air Defence Sector, also known as the Western Air Defence Sector, had an IOCs at H-1 Airfield. 2003 Iraq War The H-1, H-2 and H-3 airfields in Western Iraq were used as operating hubs for Iraqi mobile Scud units deployed to bombard Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. Securing the area was seen to be vital to deny Iraq the opportunity to launch WMD-loaded Scuds into Israel once the invasion began, while also permitting coalition control of road traffic to and from Syria