Achmer Airfield

Achmer Airfield
Characteristics
ICAO code	EDXA
Coordinates	52 ° 22 '39 "  N , 7 ° 54' 48"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 22 '39 "  N , 7 ° 54' 48"  E
Height above MSL	54 m (177  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	4 km southwest of Bramsche
Basic data
opening	1935
operator	Osnabrück Association for Aviation eV
Start-and runway
07/25	940 m × 30 m grass

Winch launch vehicle

The Achmer Airport is a special airfield in Lower Saxony Bramsche .

Flight operations

The airfield is run by the Osnabrück aviation association. e. V. used. Aircraft up to 2.0  t may be operated.

Directions

The airfield is four kilometers southwest of Bramsche in the Achmer district south of the Mittelland Canal and west of the Osnabrück - Oldenburg railway line .

The state roads L 584 and L 77 are nearby.

history

Achmer Airfield

In 1935, the construction of the Achmer airfield began. The code name for the complex was "ancestral cult". In World War II he became the airbase expanded with three runways in triangle shape. From 1940 the facility served as a field airfield for fighter pilots . Further facilities were built in the area. To the southwest of the airfield in the Seester Feld area , 3 flak towers made of brick were built from 1939 and equipped with 2 cm Flak Vierling 38 . Several anti-aircraft towers were built on the Larberger Egge ridge north of the airfield. The importance of the airfield was of course not hidden from the Allies. They carried out several heavy bombings of the facility in 1944 and 1945. On February 21, 1944, the air base was bombed by the US Air Force as part of the so-called Big Week . The attack was carried out by a B-17 Flying Fortress association . Shortly thereafter, on March 23 and April 8, 1944, there were two more air raids by USAAF bombers . On March 21, 1945, the last bomber attack took place on the air base. Air force units remained in Achmer until March 1945.

Units stationed from 1940 to 1945

In August 1940 the IV (supplementary) group of Kampfgeschwader 2 was set up here and remained stationed here until March 1941. Achmer was temporarily used as a test site. Among other things, tests with defensive weapons against bomber formations were carried out by Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters from Test Command 25. In 1944, the then famous fighter pilot Walter Nowotny was stationed here, who was shot down on November 8, 1944 near Bramsche.

The following table shows a list of selected active flying units (excluding school and supplementary units) of the Luftwaffe that were stationed here between 1940 and 1945.

From	To	unit	equipment
February 1940	March 1940	II./KG 27 (II. Group of Kampfgeschwader 27)	Heinkel He 111
August 1940	March 1941	IV./KG 2	Dornier Thursday 17th
April 1941	July 1941	II./KG 2	Dornier Thursday 17, Thursday 217
September 1941	January 1942	III./KG 2	Dornier Thursday 17, Thursday 217
November 1941	December 1941	Rod / KG 2	Dornier Do 217
January 1942	August 1942	IV./KG 2	Dornier Do 217
September 1943	April 1944	Test Command 25	Focke-Wulf Fw 190
January 1944	July 1944	III./KG 2	Dornier Do 217
April 1944	May 1944	III./KG 3	Junkers Ju 88 , Heinkel He 111
August 1944	October 1944	Staff and II./KG 30	Junkers Ju 88
September 1944	October 1944	III./JG 11 ( III.Group of Jagdgeschwader 11)	Focke-Wulf Fw 190
November 1944	March 1945	IV./JG 27	Messerschmitt Bf 109
January 1945	January 1945	II./KG 51	Messerschmitt Me 262
January 1945	March 1945	Staff and III./KG 76	Arado Ar 234

Conquered in 1945 and used after the war

In early April 1945, British units reached the region and occupied the air base. The British Air Force of Occupation used what the Allies called Airfield B.110 for a short time after the conquest as a military airfield.In the summer of 1945, Mitchell II / III bombers of the 139th Wing (squadron) were lying here . After the war, a 10 km² large was training area of the British Army of the Rhine south of the airfield in part on the territory of the neighboring peasantry Seeste , community Westerkappeln . Plans of the Federal Ministry of Defense from the period around 1960 saw before, here again a larger Air Force airfield for air transport squadron to build. The land acquisition and preparatory work for the expansion had already taken place, but later these plans were no longer pursued. In the meantime, nature has reclaimed the area, so to speak, and there is not much left of the old air base.

literature

• Karl Ries / Wolfgang Dietrich: Air bases and deployment ports of the Air Force . Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3613014866 .

Web links

• Free and free VFR visual flight card from Achmer Airfield (EDXA)
• Flugplatzachmer.de website of the association
• relict.com/achmer Page about the military history of the air base

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Achmer Air Base. Retrieved October 5, 2019 . 
2. ^ Hauke ​​Haubrock: Flak position Seester Feld / Air Base Achmer (light flak), Westerkappeln - air raid systems - underground Osnabrück. May 6, 2016, accessed October 5, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Achmer Air Base. Retrieved October 5, 2019 . 
4. ^ Hauke ​​Haubrock: February 21, 1944: First air raid on Achmer Air Base - Chronik - Untergrund Osnabrück. February 20, 2017, accessed October 5, 2019 . 
5. ^ Hauke ​​Haubrock: March 23, 1944: Second air raid on Achmer Air Base - Chronik - Untergrund Osnabrück. February 21, 2017, accessed October 5, 2019 . 
6. ^ Hauke ​​Haubrock: March 21, 1945: Fourth air raid on the Achmer air base - Chronik - Untergrund Osnabrück. February 21, 2017, accessed October 5, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Kampfgeschwader 2. Accessed October 5, 2019 . 
8. ↑ Achmer Air Base. Retrieved October 5, 2019 . 
9. ↑ Test Command 25. Retrieved October 5, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45 Germany (1937 Borders) , p.3 , accessed on January 12 of 2019.