Celone/San Nicola d'Arpi Airfield
Celone/San Nicola d'Arpi Airfield Foggia Satellite Airfield #1 | |
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Part of Fifteenth Air Force | |
Province of Foggia, Italy | |
![]() Celone/San Nicola d'Arpi Airfield - 29 April 1945 | |
Coordinates | 41°33′04″N 015°33′32″E / 41.55111°N 15.55889°E |
Type | Military airfield |
Site information | |
Controlled by | United States Army Air Forces |
Site history | |
Built | 1943 |
In use | 1943-1945 |
Battles/wars |
Celone/San Nicola d'Arpi Airfield is an abandoned World War II military airfield in Italy. It was located 10 kilometers north of Foggia, in the Province of Foggia. The airfield was abandoned and dismantled after the end of the war in 1945.
History
Celone/San Nicola d'Arpi Airfield was an Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) facility, built before World War II. With the surrender of Fascist Italy to the Allies on 3 September 1943, the German Luftwaffe seized control of the field upon hearing of Italy's capitulation.[1] The Luftwaffe sent a squadron of Kampfgeschwader 26, with some Heinkel He 111 medium bombers and Junkers Ju 52 transports to the field;[2] however, Allied forces seized control of the Tavoliere plain in late September/October and occupied the airfield.
The American Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt the facility into a heavy bomber-capable airfield. A 6,000' x 100' runway was laid over pierced steel planking, oriented 14/32. A second (unfinished) runway east of the main runway was used as a crash strip. There were two perimeter tracks, and several other loop taxiways each containing about 100 aircraft parking hardstands, both of the double loop for bombers and single frying pan type for fighters.[1] There may have been some temporary hangars and buildings; however, it appears that personnel were quartered primarily in tents, and most aircraft maintenance took place in the open on hardstands. It also had a steel control tower.[1]
The major tenant of the airfield was the USAAF
The 463d Bomb Group consisted of four squadrons:[5]
- 772d Bombardment Squadron
- 773d Bombardment Squadron
- 774th Bombardment Squadron
- 775th Bombardment Squadron
From Celone the "Swoose Group", as the 463d was called operated chiefly against strategic objectives. Attacked such targets as marshaling yards, oil refineries, and aircraft factories in Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Greece. It received two
A notable mission of the South African 2 Wing was supporting the 1944 Warsaw Uprising with air drops of munitions and other supplies The SAAF also participated in the tricky operations in dropping mines into the River Danube in Northern Europe to thwart German attempts to use river barges to carry oil supplies from the Romanian oilfields into Germany. Other duties included being sent to assist Italian Partisans in the Italian Alps. As can be imagined, flying conditions here were hazardous in maintaining ground contact in mountainous areas.[1][4]
Both the SAAF and the 463d departed after the end of the war, the 463d sending the Air Echelon to
Today Celone Airfield has been returned to agriculture; however, extensive scarring of the landscape remains, showing various dispersal pads and taxiways and other features.
See also
- Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress airfields in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations
References
This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency
- ^ a b c d e Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Italy, Apulia Foggia Archived July 14, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Luftwaffe, Kampfgeschwader 26 "Löwen"
- ^ ISBN 0-89201-092-4.
- ^ a b "The South African Air Force In World War Two". Archived from the original on 2013-05-03. Retrieved 2014-07-10.
- OCLC 72556.
- ^ 463d Bomb Group Historical Society Website[permanent dead link]