Navarin Airfield

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Navarin Airfield
Twelfth Air Force - Emblem (World War II).png
Part of Twelfth Air Force

346thbs--b-17-42-29513-El-Diablo.jpg

346th Bombardment Squadron/99th Bombardment Group B-17F 42-29513 "El Diablo" on a combat mission.
Coordinates 36°07′11.63″N005°49′29.37″E / 36.1198972°N 5.8248250°E / 36.1198972; 5.8248250
Type Military airfield
Site information
Controlled by United States Army Air Forces
Site history
Built 1942
In use 1942-1943

Navarin Airfield is a World War II military airfield in Algeria, located approximately 10 km from El Eulma in Sétif Province. It was used by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force during the North African Campaign for heavy B-17 Flying Fortress bombers against the German Afrika Korps. B-17s known as the 'Diamondbacks' would fly from here to Rome in Operation Husky in July 1943. Known units assigned were:

World War II 1939–1945 global war

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Algeria country in North Africa

Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. The capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north of the country on the Mediterranean coast. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, the world's largest Arab country, and the largest in Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the west by Morocco, to the southwest by the Western Saharan territory, Mauritania, and Mali, to the southeast by Niger, and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes (counties). It has the highest human development index of all non-island African countries.

El Eulma City and Common in Sétif Province, Algeria

El-Eulma is a city in Algeria, located some 210 miles east of the capital Algiers. It is the second-largest city in Sétif Province with a population of 105,130. In the French colonial period the city was known as Saint Arnaud after Marshal Jacques Leroy de Saint Arnaud.

Contents

When the Americans moved east into Tunisia, the airfield was dismantled and abandoned. Traces of its runway may be visible on satellite imagery, however a lack of detailed aerial photography of the area limits determining a precise location and current condition of the airfield.

See also

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References

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates  public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/ .

Air Force Historical Research Agency

The Air Force Historical Research Agency is the repository for United States Air Force historical documents. The Agency's collection, begun during World War II in Washington, D.C. and moved in 1949 to Maxwell Air Force Base, the site of Air University, to provide research facilities for professional military education students, the faculty, visiting scholars, and the general public.

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