|
 North
Witham Airfield in Lincolnshire
shows three intersecting runways optimally placed at 60 degree
angles to each other. The airfield was built according to
Class A Standard set by the British Air Ministry with a set of three
converging runways each containing a concrete runway for takeoffs
and landings.
The main runway was 6,000
feet in length aligned 02/20 (Hint: add a '0' to each number to
derive the compass headings, i.e., 020 and its reciprocal 200).
The secondary runways (06/24 and 12/30)e 4,200ft long. The
facility also i8ncludfed 50 loop type hardstands connected to a 50
foot wide perimeter taxiway.
In March 1944, the
Command Pathfinder School of the U.S. IX Troop Carrier Command, was
formed to train air crews and pathfinder paratroopers who would
setup beacons in advance of the main parachute drops.
Aircrews were trained on C-47s equipped with "Gee" radar
triangulation equipment. "Rebecca" interrogators were also installed
to query "Eureka" transponders which the pathfinders would setup as
homing beacons.
It was these 9th Air Force Troop Carrier Command Pathfinder School
C-47s that delivered the pathfinders of US 82nd and 101st Airborne
Divisions on the night of 5-6 June 1944 a the opening of the
airborne actions in Operation Overlord.
At 2130 hours on 5 June 1944 the first of seven serials (six of
three aircraft and one of two) with about 300 pathfinders were
dispatched from North Witham for Normandy in 20 C-47 aircraft. The
first of the pathfinders exited their aircraft at 0015 on June 6,and
were the first US troops on the ground on D-Day. |
