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