German airfield Stenay-sur-Meuse, France

[bob lembke]

I am not much of a student of the air war. My father was stationed in Stenay-sur-Meuse, north of Verdun, the HQ of the Crown Prince's 5th Army, during the second half of 1916, and there was some interaction with the pilots of a fighter (I think) unit there, not necessarily good. I would think that the quarters of the pilots would be close to the airfield itself if the field was not far from the front, in case of attack or other emergency. There also were former French barracks and a manuver ground nearby. Anyone have any ideas on this, airfields, units? I will share some anecdotes if the geographic background can emerge from the mists of time.

Bob Lembke

(Resident Hun)

[SteveMarsdin]

Hi Bob,

As far as I can recall (I'm at work at the moment) the airfield was on the high plateau to the East of Stenay.

[bob lembke]

Hi Bob,

As far as I can recall (I'm at work at the moment) the airfield was on the high plateau to the East of Stenay.

Steve;

Great. At night, upon occasion, the pilots, having had a lot of beer, would return their beer against the wall of my father's barracks. (You never really buy beer, you merely rent it! There is a lot more to this story.) This suggests that the barracks and the pilots' canteen were quite close. I would also think that the pilots' quarters and canteen would be close to the airfield; ipso facto, the airfield and barracks were close. There also was a manuver grounds about 3 km away.

I hope that there was no other airfield close by.

I should attempt to get a map of Stenay circa 1916.

Bob

[Jasta72s]

As far as I can recall (I'm at work at the moment) the airfield was on the high plateau to the East of Stenay.

This location is repeatedly mentioned at EOW, also in at least one report in the New York Times. However, there are other airfields situated near Stenay as well!

Feld-Flieger-Abteilung 25 - later called Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 274 - was based on the airfield of Stenay from (at least) February 1916 to November 1918.

Jastas of Jagdgeschwader 2 were based in Charmois - only a little way southeast of Stenay - at the end of the war.

Jasta 6 was based in Jametz - another airfield situated east of Charmois - from 23 September 1916 to 29 September 1916.

Jasta 10´s location is given as "Jametz, Stenay" between 28 October to 12 December 1916.

So, the location is not really clear and also looking at Goggle maps etc is not really helpful. However, local historians and people dealing extensively with airfields could know more.

[bob lembke]

This location is repeatedly mentioned at EOW, also in at least one report in the New York Times. However, there are other airfields situated near Stenay as well!

Feld-Flieger-Abteilung 25 - later called Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 274 - was based on the airfield of Stenay from (at least) February 1916 to November 1918.

Jastas of Jagdgeschwader 2 were based in Charmois - only a little way southeast of Stenay - at the end of the war.

Jasta 6 was based in Jametz - another airfield situated east of Charmois - from 23 September 1916 to 29 September 1916.

Jasta 10´s location is given as "Jametz, Stenay" between 28 October to 12 December 1916.

So, the location is not really clear and also looking at Goggle maps etc is not really helpful. However, local historians and people dealing extensively with airfields could know more.

Wonderful information. I was hoping that you would spot this thread and chime in. I do have a lead on a local French historian. I am thinking that with the several hints I already have I can narrow this down.

As an aviation aside, my father first flew in 1917; he was in hospital and at a nearby airfield they were performing acceptance trials of two-seaters, and if someone wanted to fly they would throw the sand-bag out of the observer's seat and you could climb in. So father took his first flight in a bathrobe. Of course the pilot put the aircraft through the most extreme manuvers to test for problems, and I recall that he did not get in an aircraft again for over 40 years. Unfortunately he spent all of 1917 in and out of hospitals, due to an infected wound that spit bone for over 10 years, in medical facilities in France, Bavaria, and Weimar, so it would be hard to pin down where that was. Would acceptance trials be held in Germany, close to the factory, or in France, close to the front? Based on no information at all, I would think in Germany. He spent a good bit of time in a hospital in a big brewery town in Bavaria.

Many thanks for your help, which I was hoping for.

Bob

[SteveMarsdin]

Hi Bob,

This information is from various articles printed in "Les Cahiers Brunehaut" by local historian Jean Clauid Delhez; a local history publication which covers topics in the Gaume region in the south of the Province of Luxembourg, in Belgium. Although not specific to Stenay it gives some indication of the concentration of airfields in the area.

The Germans built or developed 3 airfields (as oppose to temporary airstrips) on the Belgian side of the frontier (Florenville, Stenay and Habay) and around 30 at the other side of the border, in the north of the departments of Meuse and Meurther-et-Moselle (e.g. Longuyon, Doncourt, Baslieux, Cosnes, Villers-la-Chevre, Tellancourt, Louppy-sur-Loison, Jametz [as Jasta mentioned], Thonnes-les-Pres [Armee Flug Prk 5 - 5 Army's main base and pilots' school], Mouzay, Stenay, Carignan, Marville etc.). The site at Stenay was developed on only one of 2 French military airfields available to the French in the area in August 1914.

[Jasta72s]

Would acceptance trials be held in Germany, close to the factory, or in France, close to the front?

Hi Bob,

acceptance trials in the strict sense would occur close to the factory in Germany - and there was quite a number of locations of aircraft industry existing. However, test flights for new arrived / delivered machines could be held as well on replacement units, schools, air parks and even units at the front because the most transports were on railway waggons with airframe and wings separately. After arrival the Monteure would fit the wings to the airframe, do the rigging etc. and a pilot had to test fly the airplane again. So, we have plenty of potential locations for the described story again.

Btw Mouzay is probably the airfield called Charmois by the Germans.

[bob lembke]

Thanks for everyone's help here. I have to look at this a bit and poke about a bit before I can respond usefully.

Bob

[bob lembke]

Incidentally, working in another vineyard, I have just read of artillery spotting for the German attack at Caillette Woods at Verdun by a Leutnant d. Res. Heil of Artillerie Flieger Abteilung 203. The Germans were using, aside from other artillery, two batteries of 42 cm howitzers and one battery of 30.5 cm mortars in their artillery preperation. Before the assault, one or more shorts from the 42 cm guns fell on the assembled assault troops, badly rattling the men and nearly aborting the entire attack.

Were aerial spotters using one or two-way radios by this time?

Bob

[healdav]

This airfield still exists in the strict sense.

After WW2 it became the home of a Canadian squadron or two (they lost a lot of very small children (at least 30 or 40) i.e. 1 or 2 days, buried at Marville; no one now knows why) and then was, Ithink, abandoned. It is still surrounded by barbed wire with ferocious signs about it being military land. Heaven knows why as everything is derelict. Most buildings are gone.

I have no idea where the families may have lived. There is a "Canadian" area - signposted as such, at Longuyon, but noting there to see except an apartment block of cheap housing. They also left behind a very large totem pole (on the main road through the town).

There is a website relating to the Canadian squadron, and they may have some info about previous occupants, but I doubt it. If they don't know why their babies died, there is not too much hope of anything from a long way back.

[SteveMarsdin]

Good afternoon Dave,

Isn't/wasn't that Marville where the Canadians were based ?

[healdav]

Good afternoon Dave,

Isn't/wasn't that Marville where the Canadians were based ?

Well, Marville and Stenay are just a smidgin apart. I guess it was probably the same airfield. I may be wrong. There are two or three abandoned airfields in the area (all surrounded by barbed wire).

[bob lembke]

This airfield still exists in the strict sense.

After WW2 it became the home of a Canadian squadron or two (they lost a lot of very small children (at least 30 or 40) i.e. 1 or 2 days, buried at Marville; no one now knows why) and then was, Ithink, abandoned. It is still surrounded by barbed wire with ferocious signs about it being military land. Heaven knows why as everything is derelict. Most buildings are gone.

I have no idea where the families may have lived. Thre is a "Canadian" area - signposted as such, at Longuyone, but noting there to see except an apartment block of cheap housing. They also left behind a very large totem pole (on the main road through the town).

There is a website relating to the Canadian squadron, and they may have some info about previous occupants, but I doubt it. If they don't know why their babies died, there is not too much hope of anything from a long way back.

That sounds very weird, perhaps the basis of a horror movie. How many men in a squadron or two? 200-300? Losing 30 or 40 children in a few days? Sounds like the "first Passover" on steroids.

But many thanks for the information. I should try to get a period map and work from there.

Bob

[Jasta72s]

Incidentally, working in another vineyard, I have just read of artillery spotting for the German attack at Caillette Woods at Verdun by a Leutnant d. Res. Heil of Artillerie Flieger Abteilung 203. The Germans were using, aside from other artillery, two batteries of 42 cm howitzers and one battery of 30.5 cm mortars in their artillery preperation. Before the assault, one or more shorts from the 42 cm guns fell on the assembled assault troops, badly rattling the men and nearly aborting the entire attack.

Were aerial spotters using one or two-way radios by this time?

Hi Bob,

at the (Eastern) front tests with two-way radios started in mid-1915. In summer 1916 German airplanes with two-way radios were demonstrated for the Great Headquarter. Finally, "Sender-Empfänger, Type D" were massively introduced at the front in November 1916. AFA 203 was most-likely using one-way radios (if the unit was not accidently employed with some tests of two-way radios as well).

[healdav]

That sounds very weird, perhaps the basis of a horror movie. How many men in a squadron or two? 200-300? Losing 30 or 40 children in a few days? Sounds like the "first Passover" on steroids.

But many thanks for the information. I should try to get a period map and work from there.

Bob

Sorry, you have misinterpreted what I said. I meant that the babies were all a day or two old (sometimes up to a month or so), not that they all died at the same time.

They are all buried in Marville cemetery (the oldest in France, it is said). Marville itself is a bizarre place.

Weirdly, my wife and I were there a couple of weeks ago and the grave markers (standard military type) have been renewed. And yet the squadron society says they have no idea why they all died. My guess is polio although they were a bit later than I would have thought.

[bob lembke]

Sorry, you have misinterpreted what I said. I meant that the babies were all a day or two old (sometimes up to a month or so), not that they all died at the same time.

They are all buried in Marville cemetery (the oldest in France, it is said). Marville itself is a bizarre place.

Weirdly, my wife and I were there a couple of weeks ago and the grave markers (standard military type) have been renewed. And yet the squadron society says they have no idea why they all died. My guess is polio although they were a bit later than I would have thought.

That's better! The idea of having 30-40 children and them all dying at 1-2-3 days old at the same time is awful.

Especially many years ago, and in the military, you might be subjected to terrible medicine by some fool with a lot of brass on his shoulders. One is reminded of the situation in Romania, where doctors took a crazy, old idea of injecting children with a little blood to "strengthen them", and took several units of blood and blended them, then injected orphans with a little bit each, thereby giving thousands of orphan babies AIDs. Brilliant!! In the Franco=Prussian War and in 1914 the French had some really bad medicine.

I have a great true story about Transylvanian medicine, but I will control myself, it is too Off Topic even for me!

Re: Jasta's very interesting comments, I recently on another thread posted details of the biggest Flammenwerfer attack ever, 154 FW, on the East Front; the combat led by Major Dr. Reddemann, the flame regiment commander, by air control via air observers. They dropped tactical control orders to attacking columns, messages from Reddemann, attached to streamers in the middle of the battle. Think it was late 1916, so they must have had two-way radios.

Bob

[Regulus 1]

Bob,

Your father most probably ran into the men of Kampfeinsitzer Staffel or KEK Stenay.

Unfortunately this is one's of the units of which we know as good as nothing at all...

Johan

[bob lembke]

Does anyone know about a German airport with a fighter plane unit at Stenay-sur-Meuse, which was the HQ of the German Fifth Army attacking Verdun in 1916? My father served there (not at the airfield) and had a tenuous connection with the aircraft unit there.

I know little about the war in the air in WW I.

[AOK4]

There was an airfield at Stenay, behind the current-day lycée apparantly, where f.i. KEK Stenay was stationed.

 

Jan

[Martin Feledziak]

Dear Bob

I always tune into threads with Stenay in the title.

Most of my Polish family were familiar with that locality and indeed my Great Uncle Johann (4 on my signature below )died in a hospital at Stenay.

He was wounded in fighting on hill 304 in 1917.

My Grandfather was fighting in the fields around Gesnes in 1918.

You know that his brother, Another Johann (3 below) also a Pionier was killed in 1915 a member of Pionier battalion 29, Bagatelle Pavilion.

You maybe a 76 year old Zombie from Philadelphia but please give us the tale from under your hat.

Martin

[The Prussian]

Hello Bob!

Unfortunateley I don´t know much about those field-aerodroms, but here is list of flying units around Verdun in the second quarter of 1916:

Feldflieger-Abteilungen:

1, 2, 3, 3b, 7b, 19, 25, 34, 44, 70

Artillerie-Fliegerabteilungen:

203, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 228

The following Armee-Flugparks were near Verdun in 1916:

AFP 3 (Pont Faveger and Verdun)

AFP 5 (Verdun and Moselle)

AFP A (Moselle and verdun)

AFP C (Verdun and Moselle)

Probably it was FFA 1, which had his aerodrome in Mouzay (close to Stenay):

http://www.frontflieger.de/2-ffa001.html

https://www.google.de/maps/dir/Stenay,+Frankreich/Mouzay,+Frankreich/@49.4775545,5.184616,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x47eaf5d98659c445:0x40a5fb99a3ace90!2m2!1d5.187375!2d49.492437!1m5!1m1!1s0x47eaf6d77090e581:0x40a5fb99a3ad610!2m2!1d5.216921!2d49.462541

[bob lembke]

Many thanks to all on the information provided. Hopefully I will again pick up writing the material that I want to crank out, hopefully one or two books.

Martin;

I have a story, with documentation, that I would love to share, it is really extraordinary. But unfortunately there is a troll, or some other mysterious denizen of the Internet, with interest in the area of the incident and who is likely to publish it under his own name. (I have had that experience about four times, at first it was amusing, but now it is getting tiresome.) The incident at Stenay, and a series of incidents that flowed out of the first incident, is quite remarkable, and casts light on the extremely different styles of military "management" between the British and the Prussian Armies. The original incident, or a series of incidents, revolves about the relationship between an officer of my father's unit at Stenay, and the officers of an aircraft unit stationed there.

You wrote above:

"Most of my Polish family were familiar with that locality and indeed my Great Uncle Johann (4 on my signature below )died in a hospital at Stenay.

He was wounded in fighting on hill 304 in 1917.
My Grandfather was fighting in the fields around Gesnes in 1918.
You know that his brother, Another Johann (3 below) also a Pionier was killed in 1915 a member of Pionier battalion 29, Bagatelle Pavilion."

My father often mentioned the Polish soldiers in his unit, commenting that they were very good, very steady soldiers.

My father was twice wounded at Verdun, the first time on Hill 304, attempting to save to life of a French officer on a pre-dawn raid (the officer, instead of accepting "salvation", shot my father from a distance of inches (Father reported that that was quite painful, due to the muzzle blast, that burned his bare skin. The French officer was dead in seconds, his helmet and hesd bisected, some of his brain material going down my father's back collar and nape of his neck.). The second time was on Totenmann ("Dead Man's Hill"), which was serious enough to keep him out of fighting for over 18 months, and whose wound spit bone for over ten years. He lay in a hole in No Man's Land for three days before being found by the Germans; he had earlier been found by the French, in an interesting incident, in which they paid him (French) money.

It is not generally understood that the fighting at Verdun lasted almost three years, not the "official" nine months. Note your Great Uncle being wounded in 1917 on Hill 304.

[The Prussian]

Bob. What do you think about Mouzay?Is it possible?

[SteveMarsdin]

Bob,

Alain Cesarini lives in Stenay. His website is www.stenay-14-18.com. He is a member of this forum but doesn't post often but is a regular on the francophone "pages14-18" forum. I'm sure he would know.

Steve

[Kris Roelants]

This  information (in French) I found on a French website listing airfields during WW1 Aérodrome et sites aéronautiques entre le 1er août 1914 et le 11 novembre 1918 - correctifs du 24 mai 2023 (traditions-air.fr) 

Stenay

Deux champ de manœuvres sont signalés à Stenay par l'Aéro-Guide de 1913 comme des "terrains d'atterrissages": un près de Martincourt sur Meuse, l'autre sur la route de Brouenne. Toutefois, les escadrilles françaises s'installent à Cervizy, entre la Meuse et le canal, juste en aval de Stenay. Les Allemands se déplaceront en amont de Stenay, à Mouzay.

Translation is as follows:

Two exercising areas are mentionned in Stenay in the 1913 aeroguide as "'landing strips", one near Martincourt sur Meuse, the second one on the road to Brouenne. However the french sqaudrons were based at Cervizy (this is a hamlet north of Stenay now a part of the city) in the area between the Meuse (river) and the canal (which runs parallel to the river). The Germans installed themselves upstream of Stenay (this means south) at Mouzay (Mouzay is about 3 km south of Stenay). 

 

By the way: Hermann Goring was stationned in Stenay in 1915 and made his first flights there (reconnaissance flights), looking for info on his whereabouts there I stumbled on your post.