US Army Temporary Landing Grounds

"After the Battle" magazine no. 73 circa 1991 has an article on pages 44-53 concerning "US Army Airstrips in Britain, 1942-1945" by Ken Wakefield. Grampound is listed without a specific location. Unit is given as 190th FA (Field Artillery) Group (I think should be battalion), which would typically have had 2 Piper Cubs or Stinson Sentinel aircraft. They could comfortably operate on a 400 yard grass strip.

That's a great help John. I have a listing for the 190th:

Grampound 190 Field Artillery Battalion (155Gun) (-), HQ & HQ Btry Cornwall VX3771

Now I need to translate those co-ordinates!

Using an online converter its giving me a location to the east of Grampound - see image below

[IMG]/community/150007=17887-Grampound GE.jpg[/img]
This is on the brow of a hill, has small fields, and not somewhere I'd consider suitable for landing any kind of aircraft! However, it may just be the field where the 190 FA Btn had their camp rather than their airstrip.
Hmm, more questions for the villagers when we talk next week!

I also have this listing:

Grampound 190 Field Artillery Group (Motorized), Headquarters Cornwall VX3771

which is probably what Ken Wakefield based his comment on. Parts of the group were spread throughout Devon & Cornwall.

Alan M Kent and Danny LJ Merrifield in their "The Book of Probus" (Published by Halsgrove, 2004) in the chapter that covers the Second World War in a paragraph about the American presence in the locality on page 130 state "At the same time, a small airfield was constructed near Grampound Road." No further comment, no source or reference given.

My understanding for the use of these TLG's ( In what I heard referred to as the ' southern riviera area ' and only used between 1943 to 1944 ) had been to train and evaluate there use by the OSS & Free French operatives as they prepared for D-Day.

I understood that they were single engined high wing short landing/take off aircraft and not heavy transport types.

Their principle objective had been to land with the load intact and to take off again with out being detected by the local population.

The load had been either one or two operatives plus equipment.

The second objective had been to make their way undetected to a nominated safe house.

I understood that they only used these USA-TLG's to enable a quick recovery of equipment in the event of a hard landing where the aircraft had been unable to take off again.

Caution: I've never been unable to substantiate this by documentary evidence.( In fact I had discounted it until this forum was able to explain why my relatives had been transporting their special guests from Falmouth to Thame Park. )

We are not talking clandestine operations at Grampound Road. Any airfield would have been in the middle of one of the biggest concentrations of US troops in Cornwall in tented camps prior to embarkation at Turnaware Point and Tolverne for D-Day.

CornwallPhil;150414 wrote:

We are not talking clandestine operations at Grampound Road. Any airfield would have been in the middle of one of the biggest concentrations of US troops in Cornwall in tented camps prior to embarkation at Turnaware Point and Tolverne for D-Day.

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Agreed ~ I understood that there were a number of significant incidents.

I believe that it was more of a controlled environment where these incidents could be controlled.

They were training exercises where people could be transitioned in the event of an accident so their demise during training could be attributed to another unspecified location.

Appreciated your latest video's

Dave.

I understand what you are saying and guess it may have been used for that purpose. However, I still have the hunch the primary reason for locating an airfield at Grampound Road would have been the presence of the 375 Engineer General Service Regt and the four Quartermaster Service Companies there, and also the US military hospital (100 beds) at Parkengear with its two motorised Ambulance Companies, let alone the 190 Field Artillery at Grampound mentioned above and the Ordnance Ammunition Companies associated with them plus the HQ of 34 Tank Battalion.

The Piper Cubs or Stinsen Sentinel aircraft mentioned earlier in this thread were sometimes used as medical evacuation aircraft so a landing ground close to the hospital would not be unsurprising.

Glad you enjoyed the videos.

Ken Wakefield in his article states the the majority of strips were used by field artillery units with the aircraft for artillery spotting (Air OP) but also personnel transport, communications and courier duties.

Other locations in Cornwall are listed as Bodmin-110th FA Btn (on Racecourse Downs east of Bodmin?), Bude-190th FA Btn (the strip area and some buildings still present in 1991), Liskeard (no unit details but possibly on the Boconnoc Estate which had a US presence). This would tie in with the US artillery range on Bodmin Moor with remote firing positions at Laneast, Minions (near Liskeard with gun hard stands still extant) and south of Colliford Lake. Wakefield states most of the airstrips in the UK had disappeared by October 1944.