Orly Air Base was a United States Air Force Facility during the early part of the Cold War, located at Aéroport de Paris-Orly, south of Paris, France. The American Air Base was located on the north side of the airport, in an area east of the current-day Val-de-Marne/Essonne.
The facility was first developed as a military airfield by the Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I. With the end of the war, in 1920 it was eventually developed into a civil airport. After the 1940 Battle of France, the occupying German Luftwaffe seized the facility and used it as a military airfield. In 1944, the Germans were driven out and it subsequently became an Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) designated A-47 for the United States Army Air Forces Ninth Air Force.
Rebuilt after the war as a joint civil/military airfield, the primary use of the base was to support Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) at Rocquencourt. Secondary functions were as a personnel processing center for inbound and outbound personnel assigned to France, and as a limited operational transport base. In 1967 the American military facilities were closed as a result of France's withdrawal from NATO's integrated military command.
History Paris Orly Airport's beginnings date to World War I, and the entry of the United States into the conflict on the Western Front. The Air Service, United States Army had no suitable combat aircraft of its own when it entered the conflict in April 1917, In order to provide an effective contribution to the Allied war effort, it would be required to obtain front-line combat aircraft from its British and French allies. As nearly all of the French aircraft factories were in the Paris area at the time, a place was necessary for the American Air Service to receive aircraft from the French manufacturers in the Paris area where they could be inspected, tested, equipped and be sent to the front line combat units.Series 1, Paris Headquarters and Supply Section, Volume 21 History of American Aviation Acceptance Park No. 1 at Orly Gorrell's History of the American Expeditionary Forces Air Service, 1917–1919, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
A joint French and American military team inspected various locations in the Paris area. A suitable location of four fields was located on the Fontainebleau Road, southeast of the center of Paris, and northeast of the suburb of Orly. Today the location is part of the Greater City of Paris, the location of its headquarters being on the north side of the present-day Orly Airport in a built-up area at the southeast corner of the intersection of the Avenue de L'Europe and Rue d'Amsterdam (),.
American Air Service Acceptance Park No. 1
The American Aviation Acceptance Park was formally established on 31 March 1918, when the 6th Company, 2d Regiment Air Service mechanics arrived from the 2d Air Instructional Center at Tours Aerodrome in central France in twenty-five trucks, and established themselves on the field. At the time there were only two wooden barracks partially completed at the site and it was not yet ready for use. The Americans slept in their trucks that night, being awakened at 2:30am by a German air raid by Gotha bombers. Later that day, the Americans completed the two barracks and started construction on a third one. Eventually the facility was converted into a large aviation facility generally known as Orly Aerodrome, with scores of buildings, 78 aircraft hangars, several kilometres of cinder and gravel roads, water, sewer, electrical, and telephone facilities. On Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, there were 323 officers and 2,283 enlisted men assigned.
The organizational structure included three main groups: Airplane Operations; Engineering, and Post Operations, which were, in turn, sub-divided into various divisions and sections. A parts depot (Air Depot No. 4), was never developed as such, and was used basically for parts storage to support the internal operations of Orly Field. The Post Operations group was concerned with the administration of the facility, such as security, provost, fire marshal, quartermaster department, the post office (APO 702) and other miscellaneous offices. During 1918, construction was an ongoing process at Orly and the war ended before it was fully completed. The Engineering Department was responsible for the various shops needed to repair aircraft. Aircraft rigging, installing aircraft engines, overhauling engines, sheet metal fabrication, electronics, carpentry, fuselage and wing repairs, rubber and tire vulcanizing and the like were performed by the unit.
Aircraft operations The first meaningful use of Orly Aerodrome with the arrival of the first aircraft on 6 April 1918, when three Sopwith 1A2s landed at the field from Le Bourget Airport. The first aircraft was flown out on 20 April. During the first month of operation, a total of 37 aircraft were flown from Orly to the Front and to various training schools. At this early stage of operations, there were still few personnel assigned and much of the equipment for the Park had not yet arrived. The operations were very much makeshift until June, when the number of personnel had increased and considerably more equipment was available.
New aircraft aeeiving for acceptance at Orly were first directed to the Receiving Division. There were several sections for the various types of aircraft (SPAD, Sopwith, Salmson, etc.), being received. There, the section would perform a cursory inspection of the aircraft and determine if it needed additional equipment. If it needed a Radio, for example, it was transferred to the Radio Section. If it needed armament, it was sent to the Armament Section, etc. Once any necessary equipment was installed, the aircraft then was sent to the Inspection Section for a careful inspection to see that all corrections and any repairs necessary to the aircraft were made to insure it was ready for dispatch. After the inspection was passed, a thirty-minute flight test was made of the aircraft to verify its readiness.
Once fully inspected and flight-tested, the aircraft would either be flown out by ferry pilots assigned to the Dispatch Section to the 1st Air Depot for eventual combat operations or to one of the Training Schools. Planes to be sent directly into combat were sent fully equipped, while aircraft being sent as replacements were, as a rule, sent out partially or not equipped because guns, radios and other equipment could be installed either by the 1st Air Depot or the combat squadrons from stocks taken from salvaged planes there. By the time of the Armistice, the Air Service Acceptance Park No. 1 dispatched 1,809 aircraft, fully equipped and 332 planes unequipped. The average length of time between the arrival of an aircraft at Orly until it was Dispatched with a full complement of equipment was two or three days.
1,103 aircraft were sent to the various training schools throughout France, making a total of 3,244 aircraft processed by the Air Service Acceptance Park No. 1 at Orly. In cases where it was not on order, it was transferred to the Storage Section where it was placed in a hangar, awaiting dispatch. Each aircraft in storage was re-inspected every five days to insure it was ready for dispatch.
It was important that each aircraft flown into Orly be fully accounted for on a daily basis, and complete records of each aircraft, its condition, the amount of work done on it, the equipment installed was fully documented. Each night an inventory was made of all aircraft at the field which was sent to the Commanding Officer each morning, with a copy sent to Air Service headquarters at Chaumont and one to AEF headquarters in Paris.
Post-armistice operations With the armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918, new aircraft being received by the Air Service ended, and the work at Orly began to be the return of French and British aircraft to their respective governments. As the 1st Air Depot at Colombey-les-Belles Aerodrome was the designated demobilization center for the Air Service, foreign aircraft flown by combat organizations and also at the training schools were received by the 1st Air Depot when the various units were ordered to demobilize. These aircraft, along with the records maintained for each one were ferried to Orly over the winter of 1918-1919 and then flown to various locations in France where they were returned to their respective governments. By the beginning of February 1919, arrangements were being made with the French Government for them to take over the facilities at Orly, and the facility was ordered demobilized at the beginning of March, 1919. The Americans simply abandoned everything in place; turning it over to the French Government, and departed for home.Series "H", Section "O", Volume 14, Weekly Statistical Reports of Air Service Activities, October 1918-May 1919. Gorrell's History of the American Expeditionary Forces Air Service, 1917–1919, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Inter-war period With the peace re-established, in 1923, Eugène Freyssinet built two huge airship hangars at Orly which was developed and opened as Villeneuve-Orly Airport in 1932 as a secondary civil airport to Le Bourget. During the 1920s and 1930s, the airport's facilities expanded and grew.
World War II
German use During the 1940 Battle of France, the airfield at Orly was used by the occupying German Luftwaffe shortly after its seizure in June 1940. The Luftwaffe moved elements of two fighter wings, Jagdgeschwader 21 (JG 21) and Jagdgeschwader 54 (JG 54), in June, both equipped with Messerschmitt Bf 109Es, and a bomber wing, Kampfgeschwader 51 (KG 51), equipped with Junkers Ju 88As taking part in the battle until the armistice on 22 June. The Luftwaffe, 1933-45
After the armistice, the fighter units moved out, while KG 51 remained with its Ju 88s at Orly until March 1941, taking part in the Battle of Britain. When the bombers moved out, for about a year it was used by the Luftwaffe as a rest and rearmament airfield, with units from combat areas being withdrawn and stationed at Orly briefly until being redeployed. However, as part of the "Defense of the Reich" campaign by the Luftwaffe to defend against Allied bomber attacks, Orly in 1942 became a combat interceptor field, with Zerstörerschule 2 (ZG 2), flying Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy twin-engine day interceptor aircraft.
Beginning in early 1944, Kampfgeschwader 6 (KG 6) and Kampfgeschwader 30 (KG 30) operated Junkers Ju 88As from Orly as part of Operation Steinbock, a late war German operation carried out by the Luftwaffe between January and May 1944 against targets in southern England, mainly in and around the London area during the night. The offensive marked the Luftwaffe's last large-scale bombing operation against England, and afterward only the V1 cruise missiles and V2 ballistic rockets were used for hitting the British Isles.
The American Eighth Air Force carried out three heavy bombing raids against Orly in May and June 1944 (Missions 359, 367 and 442). The heaviest being on 20 May when 90 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed the airfield and a follow-up raid on 24 May when 151 B-24 Liberators again attacked it. By mid-July 1944, with the advancing Allied forces in Northern France, Ninth Air Force Martin B-26 Marauder light bomber and Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers began more frequent attacks, to deny the Luftwaffe use of the airfield as ground forces moved out of Normandy and into the Paris area. German use of the airfield ended in August when KG 30 pulled out and moved east to Achmer in northwest Germany.
Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) A-47