The modern passenger terminal and expansive airfield at Carpiquet airport to the west of Caen is a stark contrast to how this area began life in the 1930s.
Built for the French Airforce, the grass-runway airfield became an important base and refuelling location for German Luftwaffe fighters, bombers, and reconnaissance aircraft from June 1940 onwards, and was heavily used during the air offensive against Britain for almost three years.
After taking control of the site, the German’s built a 1,000m concrete runway with a paved assembly area at the south eastern end, extending the runway later to over 1,600m and adding further paved areas, large hangars, barracks, a hospital, and ammunition and fuel storage facilities. By 1943 there were around 40 large, covered shelters for aircraft.
Surrounding the site was a perimeter of defensive sites with a mixture of ground defences and anti-aircraft positions. Three of the sites remain today in Wn135, Wn138, and Wn139.
Wn135 remains only as a single Tobruk and a Wellblech/personnel shelter to the east of the runway area. Wn138 has two Tobruks and a R661 hospital bunker which can be found next to the modern passenger terminal north of the runway.
Wn139 had the largest of the structures at the Carpiquet site with five hangars, although there are modern buildings on the original foundations now.
This strongpoint also boasted two Vf70 emplacements – a rarely built Tobruk-type building for 2cm anti-aircraft guns located within armoured turrets. One of these is located near to the Aeroclub site and hangars and can be viewed with care as long as there aren’t any crops in the surrounding field.
A second one lies within the perimeter of the airport and so isn’t accessible. Next to it are two largely overgrown positions, one of which has been identified as a L16 casemate, a protective bunker for an 88mm anti-aircraft gun, along with what looks like a road and platform for a searchlight – many of which formed part of or were located near to AA batteries.
A R661 ‘hospital’ bunker, a building designed for casualty assembly, is located to the south of the runway, and the roads towards Wn139’s buildings are all covered by defensive Tobruks for machine guns.
At the eastern end of the runway is an expanding industrial park and within it the superb D-Day Wings Museum where you can get up close to a barrage balloon, several original and replica aircraft, weapons, cockpits, a V2 rocket engine, and a huge number of fascinating exhibits related to D-Day in the air.
Carpiquet airport was bombed during a series of Allied raid during early 1943 and between June 6 and 17, 1944 the site was destroyed by retreating German forces.
On July 9 it was captured by Canadian infantry and was put back into action by US engineers as airfield No. B17 to aid the Allied push east from Normandy.