Wainoden airship port

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Coordinates: 56 ° 24 '44.7 "  N , 21 ° 53' 0.5"  E

Map: Latvia
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Wainoden airship port
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Latvia

The airship port Wainoden was used during the First World War from May 1916 to December 1917 southeast of Vaiņode (German: Wainoden ) in Kurland (Latvian: Kurzeme ). He was subordinate to the I. Army Corps Königsberg . Two stationary airship halls , each 240 m long, were built here for airships with a volume of up to 70,500 m³. The halls were given the names "Walhalla" and "Walther" according to the first letter of their stationing location Wainoden, in this case W. They were built by the Saarbrücken company Seibert. The halls even had a short siding which branched off directly at the Wainoden stop and could also be used for supply purposes.

deployment

The following naval airships of the Imperial Navy were stationed here :

  • LZ 58 alias LZ 88 alias L 25 of the "p" type (31,900 m³, 4 motors, 163 m long). The LZ 58 was stationed in Wainoden from autumn 1916. It was used for reconnaissance and attack flights (e.g. to the Runö seaplane base in the Riga Bay ). In January 1917 she was relocated to Potsdam as a test ship.
  • LZ 68 alias LZ 98 of the "q" type (35,800 m³, 4 motors, 179 m long). The LZ 68 belonged to the Navy from May 1917 and carried out fifteen reconnaissance trips over the Baltic Sea in Wainoden until October 1917 .
  • LZ 75 alias L 37 of the "r" type (55,200 m³, 6 engines, 198 m long). The LZ 75 was involved in several attacks in eastern Livonia (Latvian: Vidzeme ): on September 7, 1917: attack on Valka (German: Walk ) - Valmiera (German: Wolmar ); on September 24, 1917: attack on Zerel ; on October 1, 1917 attack on Salacgrīva (German: Salismünde ); on October 16, 1917: attack on Pernau ;
  • LZ 84 alias L38 of the "r" type and the
  • SL 14 from the "E" class (" Schütte-Lanz ", 38,700 m³, 4 engines, 174 m long).

The biggest problem was the procurement of the hydrogen required for the airships as a lifting gas. Since Wainoden did not have its own gas works, the hydrogen was transported in rail tank cars from gas works in other airship ports.

As a result of the Treaty of Versailles , the airship port fell to Latvia . In 1924 the city of Riga bought the two hangars from Wainoden and used them to build the Riga Central Market . This conversion was also carried out by the Seibert company.

The area of ​​the former airship base was still used for military purposes, for example in 1944 by Sturmgeschwader  4. After the end of the Second World War , the Soviet Army set up a military base for nuclear missiles here .

After Latvia regained independence, the base was abandoned with the withdrawal of the Soviet Army and has been in decline ever since.

Remarks

  1. ^ John Provan : Die Deutsche Luftschiffhallen ( ISBN 0-945794-11-8 ) p. 261 (map geosted)
  2. Further information and photos about the base. (In Russian, the included location sketch is obviously not north.)