Hello everybody
Pity about the missing microfilm which Larry mentions - that would probably settle the matter.
just back from France where I took the opportunity to visit the impressive Vraux avaiation museum and speak to the curator. I also visted Plivot and stooged around in the fields near Athis looking for signs of the airfield mentioned in Wikapedia. I can really recommend a visit to the Vraux museum. It's run by extremely helpful and knowledgeable aviation enthusiasts and has numerous interesting exhibits including one dedicated to Tours-sur-Marne airfield.
The exhibit dedicated to Tours-sur-Marne airfield has amongst other things a wartime arial photograph of the airfield obtained from Keele, a German combat report from an officer of Jg 3 in which he describes shooting down a US aircraft on the 22nd August shortly after taking off from Tours-sur-Marne, a plan of the airfield, and several photographs taken shortly after it was captured with several damaged Bf109s, etc. The curator told me it wasn't bombed by the allies but it was subjected to some strafing attacks.
I've taken photographs of the exhibit but unfortunately my pesky wife has taken the camera today. I shall post them here tomorrow.
Nobody I spoke to in the area knows anything about Athis airfield as described in the Wikapedia entry. The Wikapedia entry says there were two German-built 1700 metre concrete runways at Athis whereas, according to at least two sources, the Tours-sur-Marne airfield had a single sod & SMT 5000 x120 foot runway at an azimuth of 101deg. That's consistent with the plans exhibited at Vraux. It's possible that the Wikapedia entry is confusing Athis with Plivot. It says that Plivot was rebuilt in its current location (west of Athis village) after the war. However, the people I spoke to believe that current Plivot was built in the 1930s and was used by the allies in 1940 but it was not used by the Luftwaffe which instead built the Tours-sur-Marne airfield because it gave better concealment to its aircraft.
When US forces captured Tours-sur-Marne airfield they called it Athis (ref A-76). That fits with both the US document I posted earlier, the entry in
http://www.ixengineercommand.com/airfields/physical.php, the various items exhibited at Vraux aviation museum and other sources.
So I think the remaining puzzle centres on whether Plivot was originally sited closer to Athis village but was rebuilt in its current location after the war. If that is the case then the Wikapedia entry is confusing Plivot with Athis. If Plivot was not rebuilt then the Wikapedia entry is almost certainly wrong. Perhaps it's significant that there's no evidence that Plivot was used by the allies after August 1944. Instead the allies used nearby Tours-sur-Marne/Athis. That suggests that Plivot was too badly damaged to be used - thus supporting the hypothesis that Plivot was rebuilt in its current location after the war. The evidence against that hypothesis is Larry's source (see his earlier entry) which gives co-ordinates placing wartime Plivot in its current location.
There are also some issues around the names used in the Ultra decrypts - variously 'Plivot', 'Athis-Plivot' and 'Athis'. 'Tours-sur-Marne' is not used but 'Athis' is described in an Ultra decrypt as being east of Epernay between the river Marne and the railway line which fits Tours-sur-Marne airfield. I'm not qualified to say whether those are decrypts of names given in clear in the original Luftwaffe signal or an interpretation by the code-breakers of Luftwaffe airfield codes used in the original signals. Perhaps Nick can help with this? Re Nick's info about Pocancy: according to Ultra and other sources III./Jg 3 was operating from Chalons airfield which was some way fom Pocancy.
Chris