Batchelor Airfield
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Batchelor Airfield | |
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Northern Territory, Australia | |
Coordinates | 13°03′21″S 131°1′41″E / 13.05583°S 131.02806°E |
Type | Military Airfield and Civil Airfield |
Site history | |
In use | 1942-1945 (Military), 1946-Present (Civil) |
Batchelor Airfield, (ICAO: YBCR) is an airport located south of Batchelor, Northern Territory, Australia. The airport currently has no commercial air services; however, it is utilised by the Northern Australian Gliding Club and the Alice Springs Aero Club as a flight training base.
History
Built during
U.S. Army
The Americans created their own "tent town" at Batchelor, and tried to make life as comfortable as possible. To keep up with the war a newspaper was mimeographed. There was a hanging bedsheet and projector movie theatre, an agreeable swimming hole in the nearby Adelaide River, and a squadron store which sold any number of interesting items, acquired through questionable means or otherwise. The young American men often ventured into the bush which surrounded their field bivouacs to wonder at the three-metre high, solid mud termite mounds that towered above the scrub floor. Some caught the odd marsupial or exotic bird for pets, but learned early that the small grey bandicoots and kangaroos were impossible to domesticate. The newcomers were warned to be cautious of the venomous snakes in the area. The aboriginals were considered mysterious, although friendly.
Many Americans traded food items for native souvenirs and learned the curious pidgin English that flavoured the aboriginal dialect. They also swapped cigarettes for fresh fruit and wild yams to improve their lacklustre diet, but few Americans could tolerate the flesh of the lizards, snakes, fish and flying foxbats that their native hosts considered delicacies. Some learned of the shotguns supplied to their armament section and requisitioned these for bird hunting to enhance their meals. VIPs were sometimes surprised by a full course roast duck banquet, made possible by various marksmen. Life was not always completely mysterious to the newcomer Americans. The contesting Aussies shared a genuine camaraderie with their common love of sport. American baseball diamonds were scraped in the sand at every unit location and the Aussie sportsmen even went so far as to contest them at their own game.
Most operational units in early 1945 had moved further north whereby administrative units occupied the field until January 1946 when the military use of the airfield ended. Today there are some hangars used by the flying club, and some aircraft parking aprons. The main NW-SE runway is in good repair, and what appears to be a remnant of a parallel taxiway is visible in aerial photographs. The original E-W runway is gone although traces of it can be seen on aerial photos. Some wartime taxiways and hardstands remain to the south, along with the remnants of Gould airstrip, all of which are in a poor state of repair. The roads of the wartime containment area exist, now being the streets of the town, although none of the wartime buildings, or facilities have survived.
Units based at Batchelor
- No. 12 Squadron RAAF
- No. 34 Squadron RAAF
- No. 18 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron RAAF
- United States Army Air Forces, Fifth Air Force
- B-24 Liberator
- A-24 Dauntless
- 7th Fighter Squadron (P-38 Lightning
- Dispersed from group headquarters at RAAF Base Darwin
- 78th Bombardment Squadron (B-25 Mitchell
- Dispersed from group headquarters at Eagle Farm Airport, Qld
See also
- United States Army Air Forces in Australia (World War II)
- List of airports in the Northern Territory
References
This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency
Bibliography
- OzatWar website
- Gliding Federation of Australia - NT Sites
- RAAF Museum website
- Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-89201-092-4.
- Maurer, Maurer, ed. (1982) [1969]. Combat Squadrons of the Air Force, World War II (PDF) (reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. OCLC 72556.