16 replies to this topic

[bob lembke]

I am not much of a student of the air war. My father was stationed in Stenay-sur-Meuse, north of Verdun, the HQ of the Crown Prince's 5th Army, during the second half of 1916, and there was some interaction with the pilots of a fighter (I think) unit there, not necessarily good. I would think that the quarters of the pilots would be close to the airfield itself if the field was not far from the front, in case of attack or other emergency. There also were former French barracks and a manuver ground nearby. Anyone have any ideas on this, airfields, units? I will share some anecdotes if the geographic background can emerge from the mists of time.

Bob Lembke
(Resident Hun)

[SteveMarsdin]

Hi Bob,

As far as I can recall (I'm at work at the moment) the airfield was on the high plateau to the East of Stenay.

[bob lembke]

SteveMarsdin, on 09 May 2011 - 03:39 PM, said:

Hi Bob,

As far as I can recall (I'm at work at the moment) the airfield was on the high plateau to the East of Stenay.

Steve;

Great. At night, upon occasion, the pilots, having had a lot of beer, would return their beer against the wall of my father's barracks. (You never really buy beer, you merely rent it! There is a lot more to this story.) This suggests that the barracks and the pilots' canteen were quite close. I would also think that the pilots' quarters and canteen would be close to the airfield; ipso facto, the airfield and barracks were close. There also was a manuver grounds about 3 km away.

I hope that there was no other airfield close by.

I should attempt to get a map of Stenay circa 1916.

Bob

[Jasta72s]

Quote

As far as I can recall (I'm at work at the moment) the airfield was on the high plateau to the East of Stenay.                    

This location is repeatedly mentioned at EOW, also in at least one report in the New York Times. However, there are other airfields situated near Stenay as well!
Feld-Flieger-Abteilung 25 - later called Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 274 - was based on the airfield of Stenay from (at least) February 1916 to November 1918.
Jastas of Jagdgeschwader 2 were based in Charmois - only a little way southeast of Stenay - at the end of the war.
Jasta 6 was based in Jametz  - another airfield situated east of Charmois - from 23 September 1916 to 29 September 1916.
Jasta 10´s location is given as "Jametz, Stenay" between  28 October to 12 December 1916.
So, the location is not really clear and also looking at Goggle maps etc is not really helpful.  However, local historians and people dealing extensively with airfields could know more.

[bob lembke]

Jasta72s, on 10 May 2011 - 12:03 PM, said:

This location is repeatedly mentioned at EOW, also in at least one report in the New York Times. However, there are other airfields situated near Stenay as well!
Feld-Flieger-Abteilung 25 - later called Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 274 - was based on the airfield of Stenay from (at least) February 1916 to November 1918.
Jastas of Jagdgeschwader 2 were based in Charmois - only a little way southeast of Stenay - at the end of the war.
Jasta 6 was based in Jametz  - another airfield situated east of Charmois - from 23 September 1916 to 29 September 1916.
Jasta 10´s location is given as "Jametz, Stenay" between  28 October to 12 December 1916.
So, the location is not really clear and also looking at Goggle maps etc is not really helpful.  However, local historians and people dealing extensively with airfields could know more.

Wonderful information. I was hoping that you would spot this thread and chime in. I do have a lead on a local French historian. I am thinking that with the several hints I already have I can narrow this down.

As an aviation aside, my father first flew in 1917; he was in hospital and at a nearby airfield they were performing acceptance trials of two-seaters, and if someone wanted to fly they would throw the sand-bag out of the observer's seat and you could climb in. So father took his first flight in a bathrobe. Of course the pilot put the aircraft through the most extreme manuvers to test for problems, and I recall that he did not get in an aircraft again for over 40 years. Unfortunately he spent all of 1917 in and out of hospitals, due to an infected wound that spit bone for over 10 years, in medical facilities in France, Bavaria, and Weimar, so it would be hard to pin down where that was. Would acceptance trials be held in Germany, close to the factory, or in France, close to the front? Based on no information at all, I would think in Germany. He spent a good bit of time in a hospital in a big brewery town in Bavaria.

Many thanks for your help, which I was hoping for.

Bob

[SteveMarsdin]

Hi Bob,

This information is from various articles printed in "Les Cahiers Brunehaut" by local historian Jean Clauid Delhez; a local history publication which covers topics in the Gaume region in the south of the Province of Luxembourg, in Belgium. Although not specific to Stenay it gives some indication of the concentration of airfields in the area.

The Germans built or developed 3 airfields (as oppose to temporary airstrips) on the Belgian side of the frontier (Florenville, Stenay and Habay) and around 30 at the other side of the border, in the north of the departments of Meuse and Meurther-et-Moselle (e.g. Longuyon, Doncourt, Baslieux, Cosnes, Villers-la-Chevre, Tellancourt, Louppy-sur-Loison, Jametz [as Jasta mentioned], Thonnes-les-Pres [Armee Flug Prk 5 - 5 Army's main base and pilots' school], Mouzay, Stenay, Carignan, Marville etc.). The site at Stenay was developed on only one of 2 French military airfields available to the French in the area in August 1914.

[Jasta72s]

Quote

Would acceptance trials be held in Germany, close to the factory, or in France, close to the front?  

Hi Bob,

acceptance trials in the strict sense would occur close to the factory in Germany - and there was quite a number of locations of aircraft industry existing. However, test flights for new arrived / delivered machines could be held as well on replacement units, schools, air parks and even units at the front because the most transports were on railway waggons with airframe and wings separately. After arrival the Monteure would fit the wings to the airframe, do the rigging etc. and a pilot had to test fly the airplane again. So, we have plenty of potential locations for the described story again.

Btw Mouzay is probably the airfield called Charmois by the Germans.

[bob lembke]

Thanks for everyone's help here. I have to look at this a bit and poke about a bit before I can respond usefully.

Bob

[bob lembke]

Incidentally, working in another vineyard, I have just read of artillery spotting for the German attack at Caillette Woods at Verdun by a Leutnant d. Res. Heil of Artillerie Flieger Abteilung 203.  The Germans were using, aside from other artillery, two batteries of 42 cm howitzers and one battery of 30.5 cm mortars in their artillery preperation. Before the assault, one or more shorts from the 42 cm guns fell on the assembled assault troops, badly rattling the men and nearly aborting the entire attack.

Were aerial spotters using one or two-way radios by this time?

Bob

[healdav]

This airfield still exists in the strict sense.

After WW2 it became the home of a Canadian squadron or two (they lost a lot of very small children (at least 30 or 40) i.e. 1 or 2 days, buried at Marville; no one now knows why) and then was, Ithink, abandoned. It is still surrounded by barbed wire with ferocious signs about it being military land. Heaven knows why as everything is derelict. Most buildings are gone.

I have no idea where the families may have lived. There is a "Canadian"  area - signposted as such, at Longuyon, but noting there to see except an apartment block of cheap housing. They also left behind a very large totem pole (on the main road through the town).

There is a website relating to the Canadian squadron, and they may have some info about previous occupants, but I doubt it. If they don't know why their babies died, there is not too much hope of anything from a long way back.

[SteveMarsdin]

Good afternoon Dave,

Isn't/wasn't that Marville where the Canadians were based ?

[healdav]

SteveMarsdin, on 23 May 2011 - 12:45 PM, said:

Good afternoon Dave,

Isn't/wasn't that Marville where the Canadians were based ?

Well, Marville and Stenay are just a smidgin apart. I guess it was probably the same airfield. I may be wrong. There are two or three abandoned airfields in the area (all surrounded by barbed wire).

[bob lembke]

healdav, on 23 May 2011 - 09:47 AM, said:

This airfield still exists in the strict sense.

After WW2 it became the home of a Canadian squadron or two (they lost a lot of very small children (at least 30 or 40) i.e. 1 or 2 days, buried at Marville; no one now knows why) and then was, Ithink, abandoned. It is still surrounded by barbed wire with ferocious signs about it being military land. Heaven knows why as everything is derelict. Most buildings are gone.

I have no idea where the families may have lived. Thre is a "Canadian"  area - signposted as such, at Longuyone, but noting there to see except an apartment block of cheap housing. They also left behind a very large totem pole (on the main road through the town).

There is a website relating to the Canadian squadron, and they may have some info about previous occupants, but I doubt it. If they don't know why their babies died, there is not too much hope of anything from a long way back.

That sounds very weird, perhaps the basis of a horror movie. How many men in a squadron or two? 200-300? Losing 30 or 40 children in a few days? Sounds like the "first Passover" on steroids.

But many thanks for the information.  I should try to get a period map and work from there.

Bob

[Jasta72s]

Quote

Incidentally, working in another vineyard, I have just read of artillery  spotting for the German attack at Caillette Woods at Verdun by a Leutnant d. Res. Heil of Artillerie Flieger Abteilung 203.   The Germans were using, aside from other artillery, two batteries of  42 cm howitzers and one battery of 30.5 cm mortars in their artillery  preperation. Before the assault, one or more shorts from the 42 cm guns  fell on the assembled assault troops, badly rattling the men and nearly  aborting the entire attack.

Were aerial spotters using one or two-way radios by this time?

Hi Bob,

at the (Eastern) front tests with two-way radios started in mid-1915. In summer 1916 German airplanes with two-way radios were demonstrated for the Great Headquarter. Finally, "Sender-Empfänger, Type D" were massively introduced at the front in November 1916.  AFA 203 was most-likely using one-way radios (if the unit was not accidently employed with some tests of two-way radios as well).

[healdav]

bob lembke, on 23 May 2011 - 01:54 PM, said:

That sounds very weird, perhaps the basis of a horror movie. How many men in a squadron or two? 200-300? Losing 30 or 40 children in a few days? Sounds like the "first Passover" on steroids.

But many thanks for the information.  I should try to get a period map and work from there.

Bob

Sorry, you have misinterpreted what I said. I meant that the babies were all a day or two old (sometimes up to a month or so), not that they all died at the same time.

They are all buried in Marville cemetery (the oldest in France, it is said). Marville itself is a bizarre place.

Weirdly, my wife and I were there a couple of weeks ago and the grave markers (standard military type) have been renewed. And yet the squadron society says they have no idea why they all died. My guess is polio although they were a bit later than I would have thought.

[bob lembke]

healdav, on 23 May 2011 - 05:17 PM, said:

Sorry, you have misinterpreted what I said. I meant that the babies were all a day or two old (sometimes up to a month or so), not that they all died at the same time.

They are all buried in Marville cemetery (the oldest in France, it is said). Marville itself is a bizarre place.

Weirdly, my wife and I were there a couple of weeks ago and the grave markers (standard military type) have been renewed. And yet the squadron society says they have no idea why they all died. My guess is polio although they were a bit later than I would have thought.

That's better! The idea of having 30-40 children and them all dying at 1-2-3 days old at the same time is awful.

Especially many years ago, and in the military, you might be subjected to terrible medicine by some fool with a lot of brass on his shoulders. One is reminded of the situation in Romania, where doctors took a crazy, old idea of injecting children with a little blood to "strengthen them", and took several units of blood and blended them, then injected orphans with a little bit each, thereby giving thousands of orphan babies AIDs. Brilliant!! In the Franco=Prussian War and in 1914 the French had some really bad medicine.

I have a great true story about Transylvanian medicine, but I will control myself, it is too Off Topic even for me!

Re: Jasta's very interesting comments, I recently on another thread posted details of the biggest Flammenwerfer attack ever, 154 FW, on the East Front; the combat led by Major Dr. Reddemann, the flame regiment commander, by air control via air observers. They dropped tactical control orders to attacking columns, messages from Reddemann, attached to streamers in the middle of the battle. Think it was late 1916, so they must have had two-way radios.

Bob

[Regulus 1]

Bob,

Your father most probably ran into the men of Kampfeinsitzer Staffel or KEK Stenay.

Unfortunately this is one's of the units of which we know as good as nothing at all...

Johan