B.104 Damm and B.106 Twente

[Henk Welting]

B.104 Damm was on map location 5141N - 0650E.
Regards,
Henk.

[Stig Jarlevik]

Thanks Allan

Hope you don't find me a pain in the
Now we are on the same track again and of course my possibillities to say anything else stops right here. I tried to locate Damm however, and the only thing I could come up with was a tiny place just east of Rhine which now seems situated in a national reserve of some sort. I don't think it could be the well known place Jüterbog-Damm of pre-war fame, since the only Jüterbog I could find was much further to the east.

My own thinking also goes something like this. With the German collapse very close, I believe everyone in the upper echelons felt that it was no use trying to make anything out of this "wretched-Damm-place" (almost wrote Damn place...), so when all these negative reports came in they decided just to move on. The danger of attacks on congested airfields must have been slimmer with every new day.

Would be interesting if you can come up with anything, but I believe all ground parties simply abandoned whatever they were doing and moved on to their next object.

Cheers
Stig

[Stig Jarlevik]

Thanks Henk

That must be same place I was looking at. My map says 51.40N and 6.48E

Cheers
Stig

[Larry deZeng]

There are 11 place names “Damm” in Germany, plus 1 forest by that name and 1 lake by that name, according to the digital atlas “Vector Globe”, which lists and displays over 3,000,000 place names:

1. Damm: 36 km ESE of Frankfurt/M.
2. Damm: 31.6 km SE of Schwerin.
3. Damm: suburb 3.5 km NE of Mönchengladbach.
4. Damm: village 6.7 km NE of Kiel.
5. Damm: tiny village 10.9 km ESE of Mönchengladbach.
6. Damm: tiny village 8.1 km SSE of Rostock.
7. Damm: tiny village 46.6 km ESE of Rostock.
8. Damm: tiny village 57.6 km SSE of Berlin.
9. Damm: village 62 km SSW of Berlin.
10. Damm: tiny village 26.2 km ENE of Bonn.
11. Damm: tiny village 16.2 N of Giessen.
12. Damm Wald (Woods): 22.8 km SSE of Lübeck.
13. Damm See (Lake): 63 km NE of Berlin.


However, the coordinates provided by Henk W. (5141N – 0650E) places Damm along Highway 58 11.4 km east of Wesel, and indeed there is a tiny village there by that name, evidently so tiny that it does not appear on most maps including digital maps.

So Henk’s find must be the one since the others listed above do not seen to fit.

[Kutscha]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

Thanks Henk

That must be same place I was looking at. My map says 51.40N and 6.48E

Cheers
Stig

Stig your coords are ~40km sw of Henk's coords.

According to Google Earth, Damm is at 51* 41' 06.18"N, 6* 48' 01.92"E

Plugging in Henk's coords of 51*41N - 06*50E, one finds a place named Bricht which ~2.5km east of Damm.

[Allan125]

Originally Posted by Kutscha

Stig your coords are ~40km sw of Henk's coords.

Originally Posted by Kutscha

According to Google Earth, Damm is at 51* 41' 06.18"N, 6* 48' 01.92"E

Plugging in Henk's coords of 51*41N - 06*50E, one finds a place named Bricht which ~2.5km east of Damm.

Thanks Kutscha

We know that the Damm in question is the one relatively close to Wesel by a) from Dad b) from the 125 Wing ORB and c) JEJ in "Wing Leader" - I have an area map, kindly supplied some years ago by Jaap Woortman but have been unable to find an actual map of the airfield layout - one should have been produced as I have some other ALG's occupied by 125 Wing and constructed by a Royal Engineers Airfield Construction Group.

We also know why they moved on without awaiting completion - apart from the fast moving BLA of course - the comment by JEJ "We could never operate our Spitfires from this site until it had thoroughly dried out, so I phoned the Group Commander and said that it wasn't on. "Never mind" he said, "The army has just captured a far better place, Twente, in Holland, and very close to the German border. Get your Wing there at once."

Similar comments are probably written in the 39 Recce Wing ORB, and also that of both the relevant Royal Engineers Airfield Construction Group and, I believe, the Royal Signals No. 11 Air Formation Signals.

cheers

Allan

[Steve Brew]

Thanks gents

I'm surprised at the interest this has generated. Thanks for all the feedback on Twente and Damm, which is most helpful.

I had Damm located around 8.5 miles east-north-east of Wesel, so this appears to tally with the consensus.

I've had a lot of difficulty finding any information on Damm beyond the sources mentioned by Allan, but I did find one further small mention in the 83 Group ORB, which states that on 12 April 1945, after the other echelons had moved on, 3 AFAS was based at Damm (whatever this unit was?), but by 17 April, the unit had moved on to B.110 Achmer.

Thanks again gents, most appreciated
Steve

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Larry deZeng

There are 11 place names “Damm” in Germany, plus 1 forest by that name and 1 lake by that name, according to the digital atlas “Vector Globe”

It's probably widespread because "Damm" means something like "causeway" hence the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin (according to a history I read of the city). There was also an airfield at Jüterbog-Damm but that's in the former East Germany, so no good to Steve.

[Larry deZeng]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

It's probably widespread because "Damm" means something like "causeway" hence the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin (according to a history I read of the city). There was also an airfield at Jüterbog-Damm but that's in the former East Germany, so no good to Steve.

Yep, "causeway" is one of the principal translations; also: dam, dike, dyke, embankment, mole, pier. "Dammweg" also means causeway. So the little village could have been astride a raised earthen path or causeway/embankment in an otherwise marshy area that was made for the passage of people, carts, troops, etc., many centuries ago. There is a narrow stream running north-south just 100 to 200 meters to the east of the village of Damm and another in the same north-south direction about 1 kilometer west of the village. So it could have also been named after a dam, I'd guess. Damm sits on the southern edge of the heavily wooded Forst Wesel, so eactly where this ALG was supposed to be is something of a mystery. The only open land is south of Damm across Route 58.