The 22nd Air Base ( pl, 22. Baza Lotnicza) is a

Polish Air Force The Polish Air Force ( pl, Siły Powietrzne, , Air Forces) is the aerial warfare branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 16,425 mil ...

air base east of

Malbork Malbork; ; * la, Mariaeburgum, ''Mariae castrum'', ''Marianopolis'', ''Civitas Beatae Virginis'' * Kashubian: ''Malbórg'' * Old Prussian: ''Algemin'' is a town in the Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland. It is the seat of Malbork County and has a ...

, Poland, near the village of Królewo Malborskie. It was officially constituted on 1 January 2001, replacing the disbanded 41st Fighter Aviation Regiment. The main unit based there is the 41st Air Tactical Squadron flying Mikoyan MiG-29A/UB fighters.

History

Part of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945, a civilian airfield was established in 1929 at

Königsdorf Königsdorf is a municipality in the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen ( Bavarian: ''Bad Däiz-Woifradshausn'') is a ''Landkreis'' (district) in Bavaria, Germany. It is bounded by (from the south and clockwise) Aus ...

near Marienburg - as it was known then. It was acquired by the Luftwaffe in 1934. Near the airfield was a

Focke-Wulf Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG () was a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft before and during World War II. Many of the company's successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. It is one of the ...

aircraft production plant that had been moved from

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

and which produced approximately half of all

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 The Focke-Wulf Fw 190, nicknamed ''Würger'' (" Shrike") is a German single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank at Focke-Wulf in the late 1930s and widely used during World War II. Along with its well-known counterpart, ...

s, and the Stalag XX-B prisoner-of-war camp was nearby. A United States Army Air Forces (USAAF)

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Force ...

air raid Air raid may refer to: Attacks * Airstrike * Strategic bombing Other uses * ''Air Raid'' (album), by the improvisational collective Air * Air Raid ''(Transformers)'', the name of three characters in the Transformers universes * ''Air Raid'' ...

on the "industrial area in Marienburg" on October 9, 1943, by 96

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

es was called the ''Marienburg raid'' by ''Life'' magazine. The plant was attacked a second time by 98 B-17s on April 9, 1944.

Post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

, now part of Poland, Marienburg became

and Soviet Air Force units were based there for a few years. In 1952 41st Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Air Force of the Polish Army was formed to be based there, initially equipped with MiG-15 fighters, later replaced with MiG-17s, and from 1964 MiG-21s. In 2001 the regiment was dissolved and its ground and air components separated, to form the 22 Air Base and 41st Air Tactical Squadron respectively. In 2003 the last MiG-21s were retired, and in 2004 the squadron was rearmed with refurbished former East German Air Force MiG-29s obtained from the Luftwaffe. The base was used by

French Air Force The French Air and Space Force (AAE) (french: Armée de l'air et de l'espace, ) is the air and space force of the French Armed Forces. It was the first military aviation force in history, formed in 1909 as the , a service arm of the French Army; ...

aircraft deployed in May 2014 as part of NATO's response to the

2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Revo ...

. Initially, Dassault Rafale aircraft were deployed, though on 2 June 2014, four Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters from EC 1/2 and EC 2/5 relieved the Rafales.

General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it ...

fighters from the

Royal Netherlands Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = ''Parade March of the Royal Netherlands Air Force'' , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment ...

and then from the Belgian Air Component stationed in Malbork until August 2015 when Baltic Air Policing activities were reduced from three to two bases. On 6 July 2018, a MiG-29 crashed near

Pasłęk Pasłęk (pronounced ; formerly known in Polish as Holąd Pruski, , Old Prussian: ''Pāistlauks'', lt, Paslenkas) is a historic town in northern Poland, within Elbląg County in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. In 2017, the town had 12,298 regis ...

, with its pilot dying in an ejection attempt. Technical issues are suspected to have played a role in the crash. On 1 August 2022, the Italian Air Force stationed on site four Eurofighter Typhoon fighter for their first Baltic Air Policing mission in Poland.

References

Airports in Poland Polish Air Force bases Malbork County Buildings and structures in Pomeranian Voivodeship {{Poland-airport-stub

History

See also

References