Help identifying location - Riga-Splive or not?
 

I'm trying to identify the location of this photo. An idea is that it could be Riga-Splive but I would like to verify or discard that theory. Does anyone recognize the buildings?

Re: Help identifying location - Riga-Splive or not?
 

Does this help?

IIRC the three hangars at Riga were sound and in the picture couple of them seem to be carcasses. Which would point to Siverskaja ,Russia or so? I may also be completelely off.

Does this help?:
http://latvianaviation.com/index.php.../Aero_Riga.ssi


Cheers,
Kari

Re: Help identifying location - Riga-Splive or not?
 

Thanks Kari,
I've reached the conclusion that it is not Riga-Splive but should be another location in the East. Siverskaya could be an option. Thanks!
/Mike

Re: Help identifying location - Riga-Splive or not?
 

Siversky Airbase seems it coud fit, see, if photo taken from north west to SE (against sun), showing hangars along ramp road east of field (runvay NE SW) building in middle possibly long gone.

https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/ge...E_type:airport

https://www.flickr.com/photos/28092068@N03/5281648956

Re: Help identifying location - Riga-Splive or not?
 

E. Nord -

Flugplatz Siverskaya near Krasnogvardeisk on the Leningrad front, or Flugplatz Novgorod Severski to the north of Konotop on the Central Sector of the front in Russia? Your map link shows the former so that must be the one. IIRC, Siverskaya was a pre-war Soviet military airfield and there was no terminal building. See below under Infrastructure:

Siwerskaja (RUSS) (a.k.a. Siverskaya) (ZNr. 10-0191) (59 21 24 N – 30 02 11 E)
General: airfield (Fliegerhorst) in N Russia 67 km SSW of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) and 30 km S of Krasnogvardeisk (Gatchina). Airfield located NW of Siverskaya village and immediately W of the Luga-Krasnogvardeisk railway line.
History: built in 1937 as a VVS base on a landing ground that was first reported there in 1933. The Siverskaya-Gatchina area was taken by German forces in mid-Sep 41 and then evacuated in late January 1944.
Dimensions: 1350 x 1700 meters (1475 x 1860 yards).
Surface and Runways: dirt and grass with a runway of dirt, sand and gravel measuring 1180 meters (1290 yards).
Fuel and Ammunition: both stocked and available.
Infrastructure: had 6 hangars in a row along the side of a taxiway in 1941, but by 1944 these had all been burned out as a result of demolition and bombing. According to German reports, there were a total of 15 concrete hangars by the beginning of 1944, but this seems doubtful or excessive even though the Luftwaffe did build some additional structures while in German hands. Workshops and warehouse storage facilities were near the hangars. There was 1 x 3-storey barrack building along a road leading to the airfield from the village of Vyra.
..............

L.

Re: Help identifying location - Riga-Splive or not?
 

Just a suggestion

Re: Help identifying location - Riga-Splive or not?
 

Ed & Larry, thank you!

Larry, would you know if there was an airfield located 63 km north east of Orscha called Jarzevo/Yartsevo/Ярцево that was still in the hands of the Germans in January 1943?

I'm trying to match a photo with a known loss/accident and the aircraft itself doesn't give any clue to unit since no markings are visible and it is under dissasembly for recovery.

Re: Help identifying location - Riga-Splive or not?
 

Hi Mike -

There was no airfield by the name of Jarzewo (Yartsevo). However, after the Russians recaptured or liberated Yartsevo in September 1943, they built a field airstrip or landing ground 3.75 km E of the village of Yartsevo at coordinates 55 03 11 N - 32 44 30 E. To the best of my knowledge, there was no German landing ground here before that. Aside from the one detailed below, the Luftwaffe had airfields at Dorogobuzh to the east and at Duchovshchina to the NW. Yartsevo was a rail town and the location of vital supply dumps during the German occupation because it sat astride the main rail line and Rollbahn between Smolensk and Vyazma.


Prost (RUSS) (ZNr. 10-8070) (c. 55 01 04 N – 32 53 50 E)
General: landing ground (Landeplatz) in W Russia 60 km ENE of Smolensk, 14.5 km SE of Yartsevo and 1 km NNE of the hamlet of Prost. History: no information found. Appears to have been an unimproved field or meadow that may have been used by a few aircraft during the German pullback from the Vyazma-Dugino area in March 1943. Surface and Dimensions: natural surface of unstated dimensions. Infrastructure: none. Dispersal: no organized dispersal facilities.
Remarks: none.
Operational Units: none identified.
Station Commands: none identified.
Station Units (on various dates – not complete): Trsp.Kol. d.Lw. 69/VI (Mar 43).
[Sources: chronologies; AFHRA, BA-MA; NARA incl. T-321 roll 239/OKL 903; OKL Flugplatzatlas; PRO/NA; web site ww2.dk]

L.