PARIS AIRPORTS GALLIC GATEWAYS TO THE EU

摘要

One of the main tasks of the government set up by General dc Gaulle after the Liberation of France in the summer of 1944 was to rebuild the country's transportation infrastructure. A combination of Allied bombings and sabotage by the French resistance movement had combined to wreak havoc on roads, rail lines and airports. Particularly affected was the prewar Le Bourgct Airport on the northeastern outskirts of Paris, which had been given the identifier A-54 under the Advanced Landing Grounds designation system in August 1944. Initially intended to be used by the USAAF, which began by clearing rubble away from the site, which had suffered from heavy bombing, Le Bourget was transferred to British control before military operations commenced. South of Paris, the USAAF had settled at Orly Advanced Landing Ground A-47, an airfield created in the spring of 1918 as the American Aviation Acceptance Park and which initially housed the 6th Company, 2nd Air Service Mechanic Regiment. During the German occupation of World War Two, Orly (ORY), like Le Bourget (LBG), had been repeatedly bombed and both fields lay pretty much in ruin at the time of the Liberation.