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  #1  
Old 17-05-08, 14:56
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Derek Heuring
 
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Default Airfield designation system

The large number of airfields and the speed of the advance necessitated the use of coded numbers for identification. British airfields were consecutively numbered with a B-prefix, from B.1 to B.174 whilst American airfields were given A-, Y-, or R-, prefixes and numbered consecutively from 1 to 99.
Unlike the more or less permanent air stations built in the United Kingdom, many airfields in mainland Europe were classified as landing grounds. Officially, the term "landing ground" signified a landing area without an all-weather runway and with incomplete facilities . When facilities were completed or an all weather runway was constructed, the landing area was to be called an "airfield". It was common practice, however, for the generic term "airfield" to be used regardless of the technical status of the landing area.
The time which individual fighter aircraft could spend over the beaches was severely limited, due to the need to return to base for refuelling. It was therefore essential that temporary landing strips were constructed in Normandy at an early stage.

There were three types of landing strip:

Emergency Landing Strip (ELS) -This called for flat ground, roughly graded, with a minimum length of 1,800 ft.

Refuelling and Rearming Strip (RRS) - A minimum length of 3,600 ft, with two marshalling areas.

Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) - A minimum length of 3,600 ft, for fighters and 5,000 ft, for fighter-bombers with dispersal facilities for 54 aircraft.

Five (13, 16, 23, 24, 25) Airfield Construction Groups of the Royal Engineers were available in the British and Canadian sector.

Each group comprised two Road Construction Companies and two Pioneer Companies. The plant available included crawler tractors, motor graders, scrapers, rollers, tipper trucks and transporters. Square Mesh Track (SMT) was used as ground surfacing material.
The initial plan called for one Emergency Landing Strip to be available by the end of D-Day, the first Refuelling and Rearming Strip by D+3 (9 June) with five Advanced Landing Grounds by D+8.
Advance parties from these Airfield Construction Groups landed on D-Day, with the main bodies of each unit plus their plant, equipment and stores following during the next 2 - 3 days. In some cases, the start of the actual construction was delayed, as the site was still in enemy hands.
Despite these delays, the first Emergency Landing Strip was constructed at Asnelles by 16 Airfield Construction Group and was operational by D+1, the first Refuelling and Rearming Strip by D+3, and the first two Advanced Landing Grounds by D+7, one day ahead of schedule. In all, ten of the planned total of fifteen airfields were operational by D+25.



British Air Strips in Normandy

Locations and completion dates:

B.1 — Asnelles — 10 June.
B.2 — Bazenville — 10 June.
B.3 — St. Croix-sur-Mer — 10 June.
B.4 — Beny-sur-Mer - 15 June.
B.5 — Le Fresne-Camilly — 15 June.
B.6 — Coulombs — 15 June.
B.7 — Rucqueville
B.8 — Sommervieu — 22 June.
B.9 — Lantheuil — 22 June.
B.10 — Plumetot — 10 June.
B.11 — Longues-sur-Mer — 21 June.
B.12 — Ellon — 18 July.
B.14 — Amblie — 7 July.
B.15 — Ryes — 5 July.
B.16 — Villons-les-Buissons — 7 August.
B.17 — Carpiquet — 8 August.
B.18 — Cristot — 25 July.
B.19 — Lingevres — 6 August.
B.21 — Ste-Honorine-de-Ducy — 8 August.

CHIMO! Derek.
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Old 18-05-08, 12:35
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Stuart Kirkham Stuart Kirkham is offline
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Great info Derek.

Heres a link to a WW2 aerial photo 'overlays' of the Sommervieu airfield on Google Earth.

http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile256...-July-1944.htm

This is a brilliant site and a must for Google Earth and WW2 enthusiasts.

Last edited by Stuart Kirkham; 18-05-08 at 12:40.
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Old 11-07-08, 23:33
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Default Airfield A1 Omaha Beach

Further to my first post regarding airfield designation I have found an aerial picture of the first American airfield, designated A1, of course taken from an aircraft over Omaha Beach soon after D day.


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Old 13-07-08, 19:10
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
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Great picture, Derek,

The " cap" in the picture must be Pointe du Hoc. I had a look in Google earth to find a matching picture.

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Old 13-07-08, 21:43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering View Post
The " cap" in the picture must be Pointe du Hoc. I had a look in Google earth to find a matching picture.
Alex, there is another related website called "Google Earth hacks" which allows you to search for specific WW sites and often has an overlay of a WW II map on the actual satellite image. It's worth having a look at.

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Old 16-07-08, 14:37
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
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Hi Derek,

Yes, indeed. I tried some of the overlays which are available for Google earth and some of them are really interesting, while others don't seem to work sadly.
I would be very interested to find the exact location of PLUTO fuel-stations around Etreham, near Port-en-Bessin. I haven't found an available overlay for this matter yet. I had a go myself on Google earth; there are some good aerial pictures available, but I haven't had any luck in tracing their exact location yet.

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