Airfield located.

[RSwank]

I checked the MACRs for other planes from the 553rd lost on 29 August beside Aal's crash of 44-19580. There was a 2nd P-47 from the the 553rd FG, 350th FS, #42-26668 flown by William Smith that was lost in an attack on the airfield at Beauvechain. It would appear that airfields were the targets on that day. It would be interesting if we could get the mission lists and dailies for the 553rd for August 44.

I think the airfield at Orsmaal was a small field with a grass landing strip used by NJG1 for night fighters. It was used as was described in the first post. The night fighters would take off at night on their missions. They did not return to land at night at Orsmaal but rather would land at St Trond (Brustem) where the planes were rearmed and serviced. In the morning, as soon as there was enough daylight to see, the planes were flown to the grass strip at Orsmaal and were dispersed under the trees. During the day there would have been no activity at the field, there may have been nothing much there but a hidden refueling truck and the dispersed planes. At night, the pilots were trucked in and they took off for their night missions.