My latest effort to highlight abandoned airfields and the dedication of thousands who built and maintained the airfields during WWII can be viewed here:
http://vimeo.com/23461281
Enjoy!
Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
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Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
nice project, good job.
Just some thoughts, no criticism on your organisation or work:
A lot of the infrastructure of WW2 ( everywhere in the world ) was made of inferior materials, too quickly build, neglecting local needs or even archeology. It was a war of survival.
The wooden baracks have gone. Many concrete structures have fallen apart because of concrete rot and rusty reinforcment steel. It wasn't build to last, just to do its work for the war effort. ( If I am not wrong, the Allies calculated that the war would last untill 1946-beginning 1947 ) The same infrastructure built after the war was of much better quality and many buildings of the Cold War era are still being used.
Something different: those 60,000 workers ! Many of them were men, because of the hard labour. ( some women were driving lorries or manning cranes ) Now I wonder why those men were not enlisted as soldiers. Probably because of a kind of physical disability. And also coloured people. An Englishman told me that they kept coloured Brittish away from the front to avoid mistreatment by the nazi's in case of imprisonment. Is this true?
We here in Flanders are confronted by a lack of interest in anything military by the youth - younger people. When the generation who witnessed WW2 fades away, the next generation grows up without hearing the stories first handed. I guess there is a major gap in interest from people younger than 40 . When I was in primary school, the grandfather of a schoolboy came to tell about his experience as a trench soldier. And we were quiet, I can tell you that !
And this is just such a pity. People who neglect and even disrespect history - or in this case the visual remnants of the fight for freedom - will act differently in political/social/etnical/economical life.
On the other hand, I hope you don't dream to keep > 600 airstrips active
Just some thoughts, no criticism on your organisation or work:
A lot of the infrastructure of WW2 ( everywhere in the world ) was made of inferior materials, too quickly build, neglecting local needs or even archeology. It was a war of survival.
The wooden baracks have gone. Many concrete structures have fallen apart because of concrete rot and rusty reinforcment steel. It wasn't build to last, just to do its work for the war effort. ( If I am not wrong, the Allies calculated that the war would last untill 1946-beginning 1947 ) The same infrastructure built after the war was of much better quality and many buildings of the Cold War era are still being used.
Something different: those 60,000 workers ! Many of them were men, because of the hard labour. ( some women were driving lorries or manning cranes ) Now I wonder why those men were not enlisted as soldiers. Probably because of a kind of physical disability. And also coloured people. An Englishman told me that they kept coloured Brittish away from the front to avoid mistreatment by the nazi's in case of imprisonment. Is this true?
We here in Flanders are confronted by a lack of interest in anything military by the youth - younger people. When the generation who witnessed WW2 fades away, the next generation grows up without hearing the stories first handed. I guess there is a major gap in interest from people younger than 40 . When I was in primary school, the grandfather of a schoolboy came to tell about his experience as a trench soldier. And we were quiet, I can tell you that !
And this is just such a pity. People who neglect and even disrespect history - or in this case the visual remnants of the fight for freedom - will act differently in political/social/etnical/economical life.
On the other hand, I hope you don't dream to keep > 600 airstrips active
Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
Wow, you make some amazing points here! Thanks for the insight! Your descriptions of the materials used certainly makes sense. Yes, many buildings are beyond salvage! I did not know about the colored British aspect and keeping them away from the front. Certainly possible to some degree. And yes, the gap in interest of WW2 history is present among many. Hopefully my video will compensate and educate in a very tiny way to bridge the gap. No, certainly no intentions to keep 600 plus airstrips alive. Just enough to make a mark for historical history/preservation.regi wrote: A lot of the infrastructure of WW2 ( everywhere in the world ) was made of inferior materials, too quickly build, neglecting local needs or even archeology. It was a war of survival.
The wooden baracks have gone. Many concrete structures have fallen apart because of concrete rot and rusty reinforcment steel. It wasn't build to last, just to do its work for the war effort. ( If I am not wrong, the Allies calculated that the war would last untill 1946-beginning 1947 ) The same infrastructure built after the war was of much better quality and many buildings of the Cold War era are still being used.
Something different: those 60,000 workers ! Many of them were men, because of the hard labour. ( some women were driving lorries or manning cranes ) Now I wonder why those men were not enlisted as soldiers. Probably because of a kind of physical disability. And also coloured people. An Englishman told me that they kept coloured Brittish away from the front to avoid mistreatment by the nazi's in case of imprisonment. Is this true?
We here in Flanders are confronted by a lack of interest in anything military by the youth - younger people. When the generation who witnessed WW2 fades away, the next generation grows up without hearing the stories first handed. I guess there is a major gap in interest from people younger than 40 . When I was in primary school, the grandfather of a schoolboy came to tell about his experience as a trench soldier. And we were quiet, I can tell you that !
And this is just such a pity. People who neglect and even disrespect history - or in this case the visual remnants of the fight for freedom - will act differently in political/social/etnical/economical life.
On the other hand, I hope you don't dream to keep > 600 airstrips active
Thanks again for the chat!
Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
Hi regi
A quote from another forum on WWII airfield buildings:
"Generally speaking the basic building materials were not inferior to that used in civil engineering, apart from maybe prefabrication most of which came about because raw materials were becoming harder to source (like Canadian Cedar wood or other quality timber sourced in the Baltic states) so we had to make do with home grown timber (for example) which is inferior to the real stuff. Archaeology yes was neglected during WWII but not during the expansion period where archaeology was carried out as when artifacts were found, there are plenty of reports published on this. With regards to wooden barracks, well I can assure you that expansion period timber huts, if they were regularly maintained would have lasted way beyond 2011 (Canadian Cedar). Indeed I have seen WWI huts which are nearly 100 years old in good condition!
Concrete has suffered not because, the mix was wrong or the design was wrong, but because the original specifications were not adhered to by the contractors and this problem is not just to do with the austerity conditions of WWII, but a factor even with modern contractors. The problem with concrete, is the thickness of the outer layer over the reinforcing bars - this is often too thin, enabling damp to get at the bars and the bars rusting, thus expanding and spalling the concrete. If the proper specs were maintained by the contractor in the first place then these structures would be good today."
A quote from another forum on WWII airfield buildings:
"Generally speaking the basic building materials were not inferior to that used in civil engineering, apart from maybe prefabrication most of which came about because raw materials were becoming harder to source (like Canadian Cedar wood or other quality timber sourced in the Baltic states) so we had to make do with home grown timber (for example) which is inferior to the real stuff. Archaeology yes was neglected during WWII but not during the expansion period where archaeology was carried out as when artifacts were found, there are plenty of reports published on this. With regards to wooden barracks, well I can assure you that expansion period timber huts, if they were regularly maintained would have lasted way beyond 2011 (Canadian Cedar). Indeed I have seen WWI huts which are nearly 100 years old in good condition!
Concrete has suffered not because, the mix was wrong or the design was wrong, but because the original specifications were not adhered to by the contractors and this problem is not just to do with the austerity conditions of WWII, but a factor even with modern contractors. The problem with concrete, is the thickness of the outer layer over the reinforcing bars - this is often too thin, enabling damp to get at the bars and the bars rusting, thus expanding and spalling the concrete. If the proper specs were maintained by the contractor in the first place then these structures would be good today."
Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
Thank you for the reply, and your effort to come back on the different subjects.
Archeology:
Yes, a lot was found, and quickly investigated. But it could not be done in the proper way because the airstrips had to be made asap. Positive is that because of those surface excavations, so much was found on places where nobody would look otherwise. And is not so bad that some soil and concrete is poured over it to a depth of +- 1 meter (
) It keeps scavengers away. The redundant airfields will probably undergo indepth archeological investigations afterwards.
Quality: it is a known fact that many wooden barracks were made of wood that had not dried long enough ( no time ) and was not well treated. ( lack of the right material )
Concrete building and contractors: yes, there are stories about private contractors who cheated by purpose. But others did it wrong because of lack of knowledge.
Just a small detail: my late grandfather who was a forced labourer on the Atlantikwall told stories how they sabotaged the work by messing with the right mix of the concrete.
But this is something that British labourers never would have done on their own construction sites.
I don't know if German/Italian POW's were involved in the construction of those airfields.
Archeology:
Yes, a lot was found, and quickly investigated. But it could not be done in the proper way because the airstrips had to be made asap. Positive is that because of those surface excavations, so much was found on places where nobody would look otherwise. And is not so bad that some soil and concrete is poured over it to a depth of +- 1 meter (
) It keeps scavengers away. The redundant airfields will probably undergo indepth archeological investigations afterwards.Quality: it is a known fact that many wooden barracks were made of wood that had not dried long enough ( no time ) and was not well treated. ( lack of the right material )
Concrete building and contractors: yes, there are stories about private contractors who cheated by purpose. But others did it wrong because of lack of knowledge.
Just a small detail: my late grandfather who was a forced labourer on the Atlantikwall told stories how they sabotaged the work by messing with the right mix of the concrete.
But this is something that British labourers never would have done on their own construction sites.
I don't know if German/Italian POW's were involved in the construction of those airfields.
Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
I'm waiting for the first airfield that has to close temporarily because some scavengers dug a big hole in the runway at night to search for valuable artefacts. Next to my workplace there is a dike from the 17th century which at the time was made from, among other things, garbage. Needless to say that 17th century garbage can be quite valuable, and people started digging holes in the dike looking for treasures...regi wrote: And is not so bad that some soil and concrete is poured over it to a depth of +- 1 meter (
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jan_olieslagers
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Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
Just to put in my little 0.02 euro: you should try the concrete road behind Antwerp airport, next to the railway. I always understood, though I have no factual information, that this road, and others like it at and around the airport, were constructed as part of the German war effort. And even after 67 years of absolute neglect, it is crumbling but still very solid in places. I can't imagine any road is built today to the same strength and durability.
Back to the thread opening: the effort is laudable, I could only wish a similar publication researched the former Belgian airfields.
Back to the thread opening: the effort is laudable, I could only wish a similar publication researched the former Belgian airfields.
Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
That is a good 0.02 euro!jan_olieslagers wrote:Just to put in my little 0.02 euro: you should try the concrete road behind Antwerp airport, next to the railway. I always understood, though I have no factual information, that this road, and others like it at and around the airport, were constructed as part of the German war effort. And even after 67 years of absolute neglect, it is crumbling but still very solid in places. I can't imagine any road is built today to the same strength and durability.
Back to the thread opening: the effort is laudable, I could only wish a similar publication researched the former Belgian airfields.
Thanks for the comments. Would love to do another on the airfields in Belgium if I had the time. Many will not realize the time spent in archives to find rare photos. I actually started researching this video last November. Many contacts, many dead ends. Hundreds of hours researching and putting this together. I am confident to say that, in terms of the construction photos, I am sure I have put together the largest single collection. Even contacting the construction firms, they could not even supply a single photo from the WW2 period.
Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
Yes, it was a time for hard working and...secrecy ! Could it be that very few pictures exist from the work in progress because it was not allowed to take pictures?
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jan_olieslagers
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Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
That is certainly relevant. But even without the obvious want for secrecy, photography was much more expensive than it is today, and people were (on the whole) a good deal poorer. Survival is an art, in a wartime economy! There must have been very few photographers around, and the few that were must indeed have been closely watched if not actively distrusted.
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Desert Rat
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Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
A bit off-topic, but on one of the old building at Florennes AFB, there was an insigna of the Nachtjagdgeschwader 4 made of concrete, I don't know it it is still there though....
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _badge.svg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _badge.svg
Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
Very interesting points about the cost of photography the the secrecy issue. Both would certainly deter any photography.
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jan_olieslagers
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Re: Critical Foundations - WWII Airfields
You have (perhaps unduly) convinced me into a little aside: I can even imagine it wasn't easy to obtain the chemicals required for developing and printing photography. You youngsters might be forgetting that digital photography was still several decades away! And that producing a nice photograph required expensive equipment, some determination, some good luck, a fair deal of artisanal effort, and rare chemical products.
Photography was certainly considered a critical factor in the war effort. When the allies attacked Mortsel on the ill-fated 8th May of 1943, my mother was working in the Gevaert factory, producing film behind what was at that time the world's largest blind wall (it stands to this day, in the Hendrik Kuypersstraat). The workers were guarded, much to their fears, by armed soldiers!
Photography was certainly considered a critical factor in the war effort. When the allies attacked Mortsel on the ill-fated 8th May of 1943, my mother was working in the Gevaert factory, producing film behind what was at that time the world's largest blind wall (it stands to this day, in the Hendrik Kuypersstraat). The workers were guarded, much to their fears, by armed soldiers!