The primary purpose of the base was to train navigators for flight crews serving in the European Theatre. During the 1960s and 1970s, the base, renamed CFB Chatham in 1968, was an important staging ground for CF-101 Voodoo fighter interceptors, which were under command of NORAD to interdict Soviet nuclear bombers that could have challenged Canadian airspace in Atlantic Canada. The Soviet bombers (predominately the "Bear") flew the circumpolar route from the Soviet Union to Cuba and enjoyed entering Canadian Airspace over Newfoundland to time the reaction of NORAD.