El Daba is a village and rail station about 180 km West of

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

by road. RAF El Daba (otherwise Desert Landing Ground 105) is a former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

military airfield located approximately 4.6 kilometres south-southeast of the village. El Daba was a pre–World War II airfield, one of a number of DLGs created in the Western Desert of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

after the Munich Crisis of the late 1930s. During World War II, it was used as a military airfield by the British

and 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 ...

during the North African Campaign against Axis forces, and by the Luftwaffe. Royal Air Force Squadrons which used the airfield between 1939 and 1942 were No's 30, 33, 45, 73, 113, 211. 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 ...

units which used the airfield were: * 57th Fighter Group, 5–8 November 1942,

P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and ...

After the war, El Daba appears to have been closed about 1946. Today, the area is heavily used by agriculture. There is no evidence of the airfield's existence.

British Coordinates

* LG-105

References

* Maurer, Maurer. ''Air Force Combat Units of World War II''. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History, 1983. . * * Wisdom TH. ''Wings Over Olympus'' London, George Allen & Unwin 1942
Royal Air Force Airfield Creation for the Western Desert Campaign
* 1:250,000 Egypt and Cyrenaica Sheet 14 El Daba 1942 (MLRS Map Reprints)

External links

Royal Air Force stations in Egypt Royal Air Force stations of World War II in Egypt Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Egypt World War II airfields in Egypt Defunct airports in Egypt Military airbases established in 1939 {{RAF-stub

British Coordinates

See also

References

External links