Rosières-en-Santerre Airport
| Aerodrome de Rosières-en-Santerre | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Characteristics | |||
| Coordinates | |||
| Transport links | |||
| Distance from the city center | 3 km east of Rosières-en-Santerre | ||
| Street | D 131 | ||
| Basic data | |||
| opening | 1939 | ||
| closure | 1945 | ||
| Runways | |||
| 15/33 | 1630 m × 50 m concrete | ||
| 03/21 | 1650 m × 50 m concrete | ||
| 10/28 | 1620 m × 50 m concrete | ||
The Aérodrome de Rosières-en-Santerre was a military airfield in France during both world wars . It was located in what is now the Hauts-de-France region in the Somme department on the territory of the municipalities of Maucourt and Méharicourt , about three kilometers east of Rosières-en-Santerre . During the Second World War it served as a military airfield.
history
During the First World War , the German air force used an area north of Maucourt , which was also named after Maucourt , as a field airfield .
The (English) Rosières-en-Santerre Airfield was created in 1939 in the run-up to the Second World War for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in support of the British Expeditionary Force . The RAF built three runways, each a little over 1,600 m long and 50 m wide, two crossing between Méharicourt and Maucourt and the third north of these. An anti-aircraft company of the French Air Force was located here between the end of August 1939 and February 1940 and the RAF began flight operations in mid-October. The airfield became the base of the 70th Squadron, to which two Blenheim squadrons , the 57th and 185th Squadron , were subordinate.
After the German Wehrmacht began its western campaign, the British evacuated Rosières-en-Santerre in mid-May 1940. The Luftwaffe took over the area and used it as a bomber base in the ensuing Battle of Britain . The main user during this time was the He 111H- equipped Kampfgeschwader 1 until June 1941 , initially between June and September 1940 from the staff and the III. Group and from June to November the II. Group. The latter was stationed again in Rosieres from March to June 1941 when KG 1 was relocated to the Eastern Front. In the following July, the II. Group of Kampfgeschwader 4 lay here for two weeks .
Between October 1943 and the start of the Allied invasion of Normandy at the beginning of June 1944, Rosières was then, with a two-month break from March to May, the base of operations of the I. Group of Schnellkampfgeschwader 10 (I./SKG 10) equipped with the Fw 190A . From here she took part in the Steinbock company . The last Luftwaffe formation lying here was the III in the first half of August . Jagdgeschwader 26 group equipped with the Bf 109G .
In the late summer of 1944, Rosières was liberated by the Allies. From the beginning of February 1945, Airfield B.87 , its allied code name, was home to a Mosquito FB.VI squadron, the 140th Wing , the RAF, a British, Australian and New Zealand squadron each ( 21st , 464th and 487th Squadron ) and moved it to Melsbroek in mid-April .
The last time the Martin B-26 of the 387th Bombardment Group of the Ninth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces lay here, already after the end of the war in Europe, was from the end of May to the beginning of November 1945 . The airfield was closed shortly afterwards.
Today only remnants of the former taxiways remain as part of the local road network and the area has long been used for agriculture again.