15 Veterans of the Royal Air Force (RAF) who were posted at Gan during the 1950s and 1960s, recently visited the Southernmost point of Maldives.

They came as tourists and are currently staying at Equator Village, a hotel based in Southern most Gan Island In Addu City.

The former Royal Air Force Station Gan commonly known as RAF Gan, was a Royal Air Force military base on Gan Island, a southern-most island of Addu Atoll which is part of the larger groups of islands which form the Maldives, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The area was originally established as a military base for the Royal Navy in 1941. Royal Navy engineers began constructing airstrips on Gan Island in August 1941 for the Fleet Air Arm . In 1957 the Royal Navy transferred the base into the control of the Royal Air Force, and Royal Air Force Station Gan became established in the late 1950s as a stopover on the reinforcement to the RAF Far East Air Force Base in Singapore.

The British secret military base in Gan Island was extensively used by bombers, fighters and transports on their way to Singapore and other destinations in the Far East Asia during the late 1950s and the 1960s. Other foreign military forces like the US, occasionally used the facilities. However as the 1970s dawned, the United Kingdom was withdrawing from its commitments east of the Suez.

By the end of 1971 the RAF Far East Air Force was disbanded and the major rationale for Gan was gone. Traffic became much less frequent but the base still remained open for a few more years. By 1975 British Military air craft using the base were an extreme rarity. Gan was thus closed and turn over to the Maldivian Civil authorities of the area. At the same time as RAF use of the airfield ceased, the RAF gained access to the then newly opened built US airfield two hundred miles to the South of Gan on the British Island of Diego Garcia.

Following the handover back to the Maldives Government, the island was left to fall into disrepair for many years, but as funds allowed the airfield was subtly developed into a civil airport, and is now known as Gan International Airport. Most of the base is now a tourist resort called Equator Village: the military buildings remain and have been converted into rooms & other facilities on the resort. The hospital is now a dive centre.

Gan is the southernmost island of Addu Atoll, as well as the southernmost island of the Maldives. It is relatively large by Maldive standards. Gan Island was formerly inhabited, but its inhabitants were moved to neighbouring islands after the British naval and airbase was built. It had been having continuous human habitation since very ancient times. Gan Island has now a hotel catering for tourists and is connected by causeways to the neighbouring islands of Feydhoo, Maradhoo and Hithadhoo.