JG 51 airfields around Orel

[Larry deZeng]

Orel airfields - a real mess!

Orel (RUSS) (e. Orel or Orël) (52 58 N – 36 04 E). 6 airfields identified: Orel I, Orel II, Orel-North, Orel-Optukha, Orel-Sloboda and Orel-Slovitski.
General: on 25 Jan 42 total strength of all Lw. personnel in Orel and at its airfields: 68 officers, 2,261 NCOs and men. 19 Mar 43: total strength of all Lw. personnel in Orel and at its airfields: 82 officers and 2,606 NCOs and men. April 43: Operation Zitadelle plans called for an increase in the number of airfields in the vicinity of Orel from 3 to 15 and additional Luftwaffe construction battalions and technical services be brought up to build and staff them.

The problem is that the majority of those additional airfields built between April and July 1943 were actually satellite strips adjacent to one of the already existing airfields. I have been trying to sort them out for years regarding their exact location around Orel and the various names they were known by, but the absence of reliable data just leads to more confusion. Most of the Orel airfields were known by 2 and 3 different names. I have examined all of the Pz.AOK 2 Ia and O.Qu. records for that period hoping to find definitive information, but came up empty handed.

Larry