Remnants Fliegerhorst Venlo-Herongen

The former airbase Venlo Herongen was between October 1940 and March 1941 was established as a German airfield on the Groote Heide near Venlo and was named: Fliegerhorst Venlo. The complex with two runways of 1450 meters and 1200 meters of one was equipped with the latest safety equipment, radio equipment, night lights and was the upfollowing years expanded several times. Take off and landing runways were on Netherlands territory the other buildings were on German territory. Trough Fliegerhorst ran a network of roads with a total length of about 48 km between the hangars shelters, workshops, casinos, football fields and tennis fields. Between January 1943 and August 1944 were approximately 75-100 attacks against the airbase of which a large portion of the bombs landed outside the base. On September 3, 1944, the base was bombed by 114 RAF aircraft and the landing and take off area was decommissioned. The base was left on Sept. 5 by the Germans and nearly everything that was still standing was in the days after the Germans left, blown up. After the liberation of Venlo on March 1, 1945 by the Americans, the airport was from March 10, 1945 to September 20 ,1945 used by the Americans and was called Y-55. On Dutch territory, most remnants were thoroughly cleaned, the German section is still in the state as it was left behind.

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Source

• Text: Jo Wijnhoven
• Photos: TracesofWar (1, 2, 3, 4), Jo Wijnhoven (5)
• GRIMM, P. e.a., Vliegvelden in oorlogstijd, Boom, Amsterdam, 2017.