Advanced Landing Ground A1
Construction of the airfield began on 7 June, the day after the initial invasion, and was completed on 8 June at 1800 hrs The airfield was completed only 2 days after the D-Day landings in France. It was pressed into service as Emergency Landing Strip 1 (ELS A-1) with a 1,000 m × 35 m (3,281 ft × 115 ft) untracked (grass/dirt) runway. It served only small observation aircraft at that time. Just over 24 hours later (18:45) it had been upgraded from a Refueling and Rearming Strip (RRS A-1) to an Advanced Landing Ground (ALG A-1), able to handle aircraft up to the C-47 transport. From 10 June 1944 an RAF Ames Type 15 GCI radar site became active at the airfield, the only survivor of three that were accidentally sent to the Normandy beaches on D-Day, instead of D-Day+3 of the invasion.
9th Air Force.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Memorial to the airfield.
389th Squadron.
390th Squadron.
391st Squadron.
Headquarters (366th Fighter Group).
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Notice board.
On the 9th June 1944 the construction of the Airfield A-1 (code named 'Fry') was started here by the 834th Air Engineer Battalion.
The 366th Fighter Group of the 9th US Air Force, commanded by Colonel Holt, was based here from 13th June until 24th August 1944.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
834th Air Engineer Battalion at work.
Runway control.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Sommerfeld tracking.
834th Air Engineer Battalion at work.
Pierced steel planking
Sommerfeld tracking.
Pierced steel planking.
Army tracking.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
One of the first L-4's taking off.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
"Major General Elwood R. Quesada talks with a member of the 834th Engineer Aviation Battalion during his visit to St. Pierre Du Mont Airfield, Normandy, France."
"A powerful Republic P-47 Thunderbolt of the 9th Air force roars off, on to another mission from a dusty, steel-meshed runway somewhere in the liberated section of France." - P-47D 42-74676 362nd FG, seen here launching from Lignerolles airfield (A-12), France, their base from 2-Jul to 9-Aug-44.
Major General Elwood R. Quesada
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Where the runway was.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Road to the cliff edge.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Square mesh.
Square mesh.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
Point du Hoc.
Advanced Landing Ground A1
© 2013 Richard Drew