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Airfield Construction by Royal Engineers - Normandy Landings

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:44 am
by Temujin
Airfield Construction

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.

British Air Strips

Locations and full completion date

B.1 — Asnelles — 10 June.
B.2 — Bazenville — 11 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.

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 (7 June), the first Refuelling and Rearming Strip by D+3, and the first two Advanced Landing Grounds by D+7 (13 June), one day ahead of schedule.

In all, ten of the planned total of fifteen airfields were operational by D+25 (1 July).

https://web.archive.org/web/20060515145 ... erlord.htm
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Re: Airfield Construction by Royal Engineers - Normandy Landings

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 7:32 pm
by Temujin
B-2 Bazenville
September 22, 2014 by Pierre Lagacé


Airfield Bazenville (Advanced Landing Ground B-2 Bazenville or B-2 Crépon) was an Allied wartime airfield in Normandy, France.

The airfield was built by the Royal Engineers 16th Airfield Construction Group together with the RAF’s 3207 and 3209 Servicing Commandos starting just after midnight after D-Day.

The groups built a runway, dispersal areas, communications facilities, landing lights and many other requirements to run an airfield.

It was located between the villages of Crépon, Bazenville and Villiers-le-Sec.

ALG B-2 would have been completed as the first ALG in Normandy on 9 June, but a B-24 Libeator crashlanded at the uncompleted airfield that morning and ripped up a lot of SMT.

Instead it was completed two days later, on June 11, and serviced the first 36 aircraft (Spitfires) of 127 Wing that same day.

The complete Wing (403, 416, 421 and 443 Sqns) moved in on 16 June 1944.
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https://georgesnadon.wordpress.com/2014 ... azenville/

Re: Airfield Construction by Royal Engineers - Normandy Landings

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 7:36 pm
by Temujin
2 TAF RAF Construction Units at Normandy

https://www.docdroid.net/6PeFQmh/flying ... ersary.pdf