Between Bazenville ( where we have set up camp ) and Crepon, on June 6th 1944 at Midnight, B2 Advanced landing ground was started. Initially it was to take just 3 days to complete but a B-24 liberator crashed and ripped up some of the runway, delaying completion until 11th June 1944, servicing the first 36 Spitfires of 127 wing that same day.
With the main runway being a mile long and tents for up to 1000 personnel, this was quite a large ground, important due to its proximity to Gold Beach.
Built by the Royal Engineers 16th Airfield construction group together with the RAF's 3207 and 3209 servicing commandos and consisting of a runway, dispersal areas, communications facilities, landing lights and many other requirements to run an airfield.
( photos are all documented to be of the airfield, credit's mostly to the IWM. )
It has also been documented that the church was used as control tower and HQ. I found quite a lot of high class graffiti on the stone around the church, maybe German, maybe British, maybe French..... Time and weather is slowly erasing it but I'm sure, at the time, someone wanted to leave their mark, if only their initials.
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