Air Evacuation by RAF/ Op Plunder March '45

Another great find - good work, Beedee

 

from: IX Troop Carrier Command - Activities - Final Phase - European war

 

Thanks, ometei.
The documents are about the evacuation of glider pilots - I was actually focussing on casualty evacuation. It would make sense that Helmond was also used for CasEvac, as recalled by a British para who was a casualty of Varsity.

 

Yes, the IXth and their activities have been visited before in the other associated thread (nearly three weeks back).

Air Evacuation from Hees/March 1945?

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Regarding air evacuation from Weeze-Hees I can now add some info I found at the National Archives.

No 35 (Br) CCS was at Hees, too. they acted as a holding station (called "cushion") to work with the Canadian unit that Beedee identified - 52 MFH of the RCAF.

35 CCS could hold stretcher cases and sitting wounded - for the role of that unit please see the excerpt (at the very bottom) from the book by Crew "The Medical Services - Campaigns - North West Europe". He mentions that the unit was converted to "air transportable" after Operation Veritable.

Here are the relevant pages from the war diary of 35 CCS - on these first pages some reference is made to training for the conversion of 35 CCS to an air transportable role:




Below, on March 26th reference is made to B-100 at Weeze:


Then they are at Weeze until April 5th:

 

B-100 had the great advantage that it had a separate grass runway away from the actual airstrip. This meant that the Typhoon Squadrons' flight operations were not disrupted, and the runway was available all day. The disadvantage of the grass runway was that its use depended on the weather, and that there were no shelters. However, this played a subordinate role for material and personnel transports.

For Air Evacuation however, this was a major disadvantage, as the dispatch had to take place more or less "just in time". For this reason, only a small number of flights could be carried out. This only changed when another medical unit was stationed at Schloss Wissen. This functioned as a "buffer" for receiving the wounded from the eastern side of the Rhine. This made planning possible, and the numbers could be increased considerably. At this time there already was a hospital at Schloss Wissen (7 km away) as well as a medical depot and blood bank.

The entire medical logistics were of course much more complex. In addition to the transportation by road and air, ambulance trains were also used. Goch/Bedburg and a station below Venray were hubs here.

Enclosed are two additional pages from “The RAF Medical Services” on the subject of the B-100.

 

Hello ometei,

thank you for this contribution. Where does the above information come from?

 

Alberk, Look at this link of the Internet Archives The liberation of Europe Volume 3. You can download a PDF version.

Page 470 is maybe more important to read,

Air evacuation was carried out first from B.100, two miles south-west of Goch, then from B.91 at Kluis, south of Nijmegen, on the west side of the Rhine and subsequently from B.108 at Rheine. All these evacuation points were manned by detachments of the casualty air evacuation unit, with the exception of B.100 where No. 52 M.F.H., which moved out of winter quarters at Eindhoven late in March, was called in to assist the C.A.E. unit pending its move forward over the Rhine.

 

Thank you, Bedee.

 

The location given for 35 CCS at Hees was map reference 9036 - as indicated on the map below. The road going through it is Baaler Strasse.
Where exactly was the grass strip? Earlier in this thread we came across the information that it was one mile north of the planked strip. This main strip was probably the nucleus of RAF Laarbruch, or am I wrong?

 

My last post is not based on current research, but on notes for a multi-part article about the last months of the war in the Weeze area. The first part was published last year. Focus was on the Varsity events with reference to Weeze, as well as the two emergency landings on Weeze territory.

General information
about B-100 comes from some articles, which were published in the yearbooks "Weezer Geschichte" over the last 20 years on the subject of "B-100 / RAF Laarbruch", as well as from a 2017 booklet, which mentions the "52 Mobile Field Hospital 52 MFH" for the first time and shows an airfield sketch (attached). Information on transports and material flights also from the miscellavia and pegasusarchive pages.

Medical information:
Only main sources are listed, as my directory contains more than 500 files.
The Army Medical Services - Campaigns - Volume IV 1962
The Royal Air Force Medical Services - Volume III - Campaigns 1958
Canadian Medical Services 1939-1945 Volume One - 1956
Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations 1992

cu.

 

The map fits, alberk. About the orientation of the CASEVAC strip I have my doubts. Before WWII there was a glider airfield at that spot. Probably they used that, take a look at the grass - looks well maintained.

Air Evacuation by RAF/ Op Plunder March '45

Maybe there exist some aerials on that region, which give more infos?

 

1. The Wageningen geoportal has only aerials from Oktober 1944. At that time there was nothing.

2. No cover of this area at NCAP, Sad

 

Some map worx



update 2024-05-09: scale added

 

Many thanks, ometei!

I will try to get in touch with you via PM...

 

No aerials - sad indeed. Thanks anyway Bedee. But it's also a litte bit strange, since at that position there were Westwall facilities with at least two bunkers. That must have been of interest for the Allies.

cu.

 

I posted this a bit in a rush, but its more to visualize where the strips could be.

 

The current airfield is in a straight line West - East.

Alter Zoll strasse (South East corner of the map) and the North direction didn't change.

So sketch is not correct. Just to know.

 

My map shows the correct position of Alte Zollstrasse (grey dotted), stubs still exist today. After checking some literature about the pre-war glider airfield, the grass strip position of B-100 seems also to be ok.

Airport Weeze / RAF Laarbruch / B-100

 

Ometei,

Problem with the sketch and the map is that the current airfield is in a line with WEST and EAST direction.But OK it is a Sketch.