Airfield designation system

[sapper740]

The large number of airfields and the speed of the advance necessitated the use of coded numbers for identification. British airfields were consecutively numbered with a B-prefix, from B.1 to B.174 whilst American airfields were given A-, Y-, or R-, prefixes and numbered consecutively from 1 to 99.
Unlike the more or less permanent air stations built in the United Kingdom, many airfields in mainland Europe were classified as landing grounds. Officially, the term "landing ground" signified a landing area without an all-weather runway and with incomplete facilities . When facilities were completed or an all weather runway was constructed, the landing area was to be called an "airfield". It was common practice, however, for the generic term "airfield" to be used regardless of the technical status of the landing area.
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.

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, the first Refuelling and Rearming Strip by D+3, and the first two Advanced Landing Grounds by D+7, one day ahead of schedule. In all, ten of the planned total of fifteen airfields were operational by D+25.



British Air Strips in Normandy

Locations and completion dates:

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

CHIMO! Derek.