[hautemarnechris]

Thanks so much for your responses. As usual a lot of really helpful info. I'm not sure where to start.

There definately was an airfield variously called Athis / Tours-sur-marne and sometimes Plivot - all of those names are used in the Ultra decrypts (the ones which have the intelligence appreciatin/interpretation added).

After the Luftwaffe left it was used briefly in 1944 by the USAAF and then abandoned. According to local historians modern day Epernay/Plivot a/f - a few Ks to the West - was built to replace Athis which was so badly damaged that it didn't make economic sense to rebuild it. Like most of the wartime airfields in the Chalons area - Vraux, Conentre, Vertus and others - it was returned to farmland after the war.

I was aware of Laon-Aethis and have taken the possibility of misspellings, etc into account when trying to make sense of that pesky Athis airfield.

My source describes the airfield as "Tours" by which he meant Tours sur Marne - the source was located only a few kilometers away at Bouzy so I'm quite certain he wasn't talking about the other Tours which is several hundred Ks distant.

II./Jg3 transferred there on the 10/11th August and left 20/21st August. I'm not quite sure who was there before - possibly Jg27 because it sent a signal to II JagdKorps for II./Jg3 on about the 11th saying that Athis/Plivot was cleared for landing. Jg27 (can't remember the gruppe off-hand) had been recalled to Germany and left its few remaining aircraft behind for II./Jg3 (according to Ultra)

Athis lay just across the river Marne from Tours-sur-Marne. The info about Epernay/Plivot repair shop looks like a really interesting line of enquiry. I'm beginning to wonder if Athis was, as I think Larry suggests actually Epernay / Plivot, - the a/f being moved a few Ks further west of Athis village after the war.

So far as bad weather preventing raids on the 22nd August go - I also wasn't able to trace the raid referred to by Kent. But I put that down to my amateur status in matters like this.

Like Larry I think it would be very unlikely that the destruction of a Gruppe would not go unremarked - that's probably why OKL (OberKommand Luft?) queried Jg76's 23/8/44 returns via JagdKorps II. Surely the losses they reported amount at least to the majority of a Gruppe?

I'm satisfied that II./Jg3 was at Athis/Plivot/Tours from about 10th to 20th August and that they didn't take much in the way of losses on the ground during that time. I'm also satisfied that III./Jg76 took over the same field from II./Jg3 and were there for about a week before they were withdrawn. I Imagine the a/f was then trashed as part of Model's expertise in scorched earth but I haven't got that far in the Ultra decrypts yet. A/F demolition preparations are usually recorded in the Ultra files and I'd be surprised if its not there - especially because the German High Command seemed to be getting very touchy about units withdrawing prematurely and abandoning useful equipment at that point in the break-out.

The only question in my mind is whether the losses recorded by Jg76 on the 23rd were the result of an attack on the airfield or were air combat losses. I don't know enough about this subject area to make a judgement which is why I asked. But commonsense tells me that missing aircraft and belly landings suggest air combat. Also, was the raid in which Brassler lost his life connected to the big losses reported by Jg76 on the 23rd August (Rob who started this whole darn thing off mentions a low-level strafing of "Tours-sur-Marne" airfield). It would be good to know his source because that might settle the matter.

My sole interest in this is to either verify or debunk a claim by an Allied agent working in Bouzy that he called down a raid on "Tours" airfield which "exterminated" the Udet. Obviously it's a ridiculous or at least grossly exagerated claim but there might be a bit of truth in it - for example, could the agent be referring to the losses suffered by Jg76 on 22nd August? And could that have been the raid in which Brassler lost his life?

This probably doesn't seem very important - and in a way it isn't but I'm writing a book about this individual and I have to be fastiduous about the detail before I start trashing an individual's reputation in print.

Once again thank you everybody - I never fail to be helped here by people whose knowledge and research skills is, frankly, awesome. For example, if it wasn't for Nick Beale's suggestion I would never have thought of looking at Ultra and wouldn't have known how to make sense of it. I love this forum but I'm still getting to grips with its subject matter which, as you may have grasped, is slightly tangential to my focus of interest. But I'd love to hear some more ideas - after 5 days reading Ultra decrypts I'm badly in need of stimulation!