Type Combat Airfield Built 1918 | Condition Agricultural area In use 1918–1919 | |
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Controlled by Air Service, United States Army | ||
Delouze Aerodrome was a temporary World War I airfield in France. It was located 0.8 miles (1.3 km) NE of Delouze-Rosières, in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.
Overview
A lease was signed by the Air Service for 210 acres of land on 21 December 1917. Delouze Aerodrome was designed to be the home of four day bombardment squadron, and construction of the Aerodrome did not begin until the middle of April 1918 due to labor shortages. Engineers began to erect a total of 26 buildings for barracks and a mess hall, and two additional buildings for maintenance shops. The ground station was built in the woods to the northeast of the airfield, to camouflage the facility. A headquarters complex of ten buildings and a hospital that constituted of a Nissen Hut was erected, along with a telephone and electrical system. To support the aircraft, sixteen French Bessonnenux aircraft hangars were erected at the field.
The airfield was finally turned over to the First Army Air Service First Day Bombardment Group in mid-August 1918, which moved four Dayton-Wright DH-4 bombing squadrons into it. Delouze was used during the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Campaigns. Known units that were stationed there were:
Shortly after the armistice in November 1918, the American squadrons were reassigned and the airfield was abandoned. It was turned over to the 1st Air Depot for de-construction. All hangars and other structures were dismantled and all useful supplies and equipment were removed and sent back to the Depot for storage. Upon completion, the land turned over to the French government.
Eventually the land was returned to agricultural use by the local farmers. Today, what was Delouze Airdrome is a series of cultivated fields located just to the northwest of Rosiers en Blois, with no indications of its wartime use.