Trying to locate an airfield named "Courgirause", France, listed as base for I./StG77 during mid-June, 1940

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

The records for I./StG77 list a base for mid-June, 1940, as "Courgirause" or "Courgivause" Neither of these locations show up on Google Maps. This should be somewhere in northern France, probably in the area between Lille and Dunkerque. Can anyone help us figure out where this German auxiliary airfield was?

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator

[Luc Vervoort]

Hi Larry,

Could this be Courgivaux ? This small French village is situated at 48°42'N 3°29'E

Warm regards from Belgium

Luc

[Larry deZeng]

Using Google Earth, see if any of these look right.

French Airfields and Landing Grounds with Their Alternate Names Beginning with “Cour…”:
Courbes (La Fere-en-Tardenois)
Courboin (Chateau-Thierry/Courboin)
Courcelles (Montbeliard/Courcelles)
Cour-Cheverny
Courcy (Reims/Champagne)
Courgain (Guines/Courgain)


L.

[Kutscha]

Maybe Contescourt 9.6.40 - 11.6.40

http://www.ww2.dk/air/attack/stg77.htm

Contescourt is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contescourt

Also Courgivause (14.6.40 - 18.6.40) but is near the Swiss border.

[Larry deZeng]

Three unavoidable facts from someone who has been through just about every last scrap of documentation on this topic, except for entries in Flugbücher:

1) during campaigns, the Aufklärungs-, Jagd- und Sturzkampfflieger units did not always use recognized airfields and landing grounds; just about any reasonably level farm field or cow pasture would do for a 1 to 3 days stay;

2) these improvised fields were often identified by different names in the documents, usually the name of a nearby village or hamlet;

3) during the excitement and exhaustion of battle, the spelling skills of Luftwaffe personnel went into decline and place names got badly corrupted in the paperwork.

Everyone here already knows this, but it’s good to repeat it once in a while.

L.

[Horst Weber]

Well explained, Larry

[Larry deZeng]

Thanks, Horst.

You know, in taking another look at this I am having trouble seeing where the problem is. My published account of I./St.G. 77 that I did with co-author Doug Stankey, says in part:

I./St.G. 77

2 Jun 40: began flying ground support missions for the pursuit and destruction of French troop concentrations, positions and retreating columns south of the River Somme, and the crossing of the Rivers Marne, Seine and Loire by the advancing German Army to the conclusion of hostilities on 22 June.
5 Jun 40: now operating from Guise-Crupilly/34 km E of St-Quentin.
9 Jun 40: transferred to Contescourt/6 km SW of St-Quentin.
11 Jun 40: advanced to Maast/50 km W of Reims.
14 Jun 40: moved forward to Courgivaux/86 km E of Paris.
15 Jun 40: attacked French positions and strong points near Auxerre.
18 Jun 40: to Auxerre/156 km SSE of Paris. With combat virtually at an end, the Gruppe had about 8 to 10 days of respite at Auxerre and then transferred north around 25-28 June to La Ferté near Caen. There it busied itself with replenishment and training in preparation for the opening phase of the air offensive against the British Isles.

Auxerre is approx. 100 km S of Courgivaux and thus well within the range of the Stukas. So this is a case of I./St.G. 77 operating from an improvised forward field that was probably no more than farm land or pasture land. It was only there for 3 or 4 days and then moved to the well-established airfield at Auxerre.

L.

[Pieter H]

Guys, may I make another general remark.
I regularly see questions about locations that don't show up in Google Maps.
It's very simple: Google Maps is OK for finding capitals, oceans and moutain ranges, but for small villages and hamlets in Europe it's not.
My recommendation for locations in Western Europe: use Via Michelin.

In this particular case type in Courgival and you find it directly, exactly on the location described by Larry, including all its streets and surroundings.
Looking where woods, fields and streams are you can often even guess where the landing ground was.

Especially for hamlets and local features these maps are great and the best you find on the Internet. For free!

Regards, Pieter

[Larry deZeng]

Hi Pieter,

In addition to Google Earth, I've been using Vector Globe as a primary source for finding the smaller locations because it has approximately 3,000,000 place names in its data base along with a cartographic display. Unfortunately, Vector Globe is a CD-ROM that costs $29.95, so it's not free and available on the internet. Also, it does not zoom in close enough so you can see buildings, natural features, layout, etc., like you can on Google Earth. So the Michelin web site sounds like a greatly improved alternative and I am going to see if I can find it. If I can't, then I will be back to ask for its URL.

Larry

[Pieter H]

Hi Larry,

Apologies, forgot to add the link.
http://www.viamichelin.fr/
This one is for France, but it also covers the adjacent countries.
By changing the last two letters in the link you can get to German (de), Belgian (be), Dutch (nl) and other versions.

Regards, Pieter