Persan-Beaumont Airport (french: Aérodrome de Persan - Beaumont, ) is a regional airport in the

Val-d'Oise Val-d'Oise (, "Vale of the Oise") is a department in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It was created in 1968 following the split of the Seine-et-Oise department. In 2019, Val-d'Oise had a population of 1,249,674.

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

Île-de-France , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 = +01:00 , timezone1_DST = CEST , utc_offset1_DST = +02:00 , blank_name_sec1 = Gross regional product , blank_info_sec1 = Ranked 1st , bla ...

in northern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It is located northeast of

Beaumont-sur-Oise Beaumont-sur-Oise (, literally ''Beaumont on Oise'') is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France. The classical cellist Jean-Henri Levasseur (1764–1823) was born in Beaumont-sur-Oise. Population Notable pe ...

east-northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

Persan Persan () is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department, Île-de-France, northern France. Persan–Beaumont station has rail connections to Pontoise, Creil, Sarcelles and Paris. Population See also *Communes of the Val-d'Oise department The fo ...

, and north of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. The airport supports

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

with no commercial airline service scheduled.

History

Beaumont Sur Oise was a pre-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

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; ...

airfield with a concrete runway (05/23). The airfield was seized by the Germans in June 1940 during the

Battle of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...

. It was used by the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

only sparingly, with Luftlandegeschwader 1 (LLG 1), a glider unit being assigned to the airfield between April and May 1943, equipped with

Henschel Hs 126 The Henschel Hs 126 was a German two-seat reconnaissance and observation aircraft of World War II that was derived from the Henschel Hs 122. The pilot was seated in a protected cockpit under the parasol wing and the gunner in an open rear cockp ...

liaison aircraft;

Dornier Do 17 The Dornier Do 17 is a twin-engined light bomber produced by Dornier Flugzeugwerke for the German Luftwaffe during World War II. Designed in the early 1930s as a ''Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") intended to be fast enough to outrun opposing a ...

s to pull the units

DFS 230 The DFS 230 was a German transport glider operated by the Luftwaffe in World War II. It was developed in 1933 by the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS - "German Research Institute for Sailplane Flight") with Hans Jacobs as the head ...

transport gliders. Later, in November and December 1943, Schlachtgeschwader 4 (SLG 4) operated

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, ...

F/Gs as a ground-attack unit.The Luftwaffe, 1933-45
/ref> Beaumont was attacked on several missions by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

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 ...

and IX Bomber Command groups during 1943 and 1944. The airfield was liberated by Allied ground forces about 3 September 1944 during the Northern France Campaign. Almost immediately, the

IX Engineering Command 818th Engineer Aviation Battalion cleared the airport of mines and destroyed Luftwaffe aircraft. Fortunately, little battle damage was sustained, and the airport became a USAAF

Ninth Air Force The Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) is a Numbered Air Force of the United States Air Force headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. It is the Air Force Service Component of United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), a joint De ...

combat airfield, designated as "A-60" about 26 September. Under American control, the

assigned the

386th Bombardment Group 386th may refer to: * 386th Air Expeditionary Wing, provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to United States Air Forces Central *386th Fighter Squadron or 174th Air Refueling Squadron, unit of the Iowa Air National Guard 185th Air Refueli ...

to the airport which flew

B-26 Marauder The Martin B-26 Marauder is an American twin-engined medium bomber that saw extensive service during World War II. The B-26 was built at two locations: Baltimore, Maryland, and Omaha, Nebraska, by the Glenn L. Martin Company. First used in t ...

medium bombers from the facility between 2 October 1944 and 9 April 1945. The 386th was replaced by the

410th Bombardment Group 41 may refer to: * 41 (number) * one of the years 41 BC, AD 41, 1941, 2041 Art and entertainment * ''41'' (film), a 2007 documentary about Nicholas O'Neill, the youngest victim of the Station nightclub fire * ''41'', a 2012 film by Glenn Triggs * ...

, an

A-26 Invader The Douglas A-26 Invader (designated B-26 between 1948 and 1965) is an American twin-engined light bomber and ground attack aircraft. Built by Douglas Aircraft Company during World War II, the Invader also saw service during several major Col ...

group, which operated from the airport until June 1945. The Americans returned full control of the airport to French authorities on 17 July 1945.

Current

After the war, the airport appears to have been torn down, and a new facility constructed about 200m to the southeast. The wartime concrete runway remains in a field complete with many patches of bomb craters, connected to what appears to be the prewar French air base. At least one large hangar is still standing, and numerous support buildings. In addition, old taxiways reduced in width are being used as farm access roads.

Facilities

The airport resides at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has three runways: 10L/28R is paved and measures , 10R/28L is a parallel

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

runway measuring , and 05/23 has a grass surface measuring .

References

External links

* * {{authority control Airports in Île-de-France World War II airfields in France Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in France