Qualla: Lippstadt Airfield

Lippstadt Airfield: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Achim Raschka (talk), CC BY-SA 4.0. On 5 October 1944, the airfield at Lippstadt absorbed 318 tons of general-purpose bombs and 176 tons of incendiaries in a single afternoon. The Eighth Air Force sent 120 B-25 Mitchells from the 14th and 20th Combat Bombardment Wings, escorted by 107 P-51 Mustangs from the 355th and 361st Fighter Groups and 51 P-47 Thunderbolts from the 356th. Then 56 more bombers from other wings, intended for Paderborn, dumped their loads on Lippstadt by mistake. Anyone who has ever stood on a German airfield in the 1940s and looked up to see four hundred American aircraft heading directly toward them knows what that day was. Six months later the airfield was over.

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Image: Achim Raschka (talk) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lippstadt Airfield: Cradle of the Fighter Force

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Achim Raschka (talk), CC BY-SA 4.0. Fliegerhorst Lippstadt opened in 1936 as one of the first airfields of the reconstituted Luftwaffe. The very first unit based here, Jagdgeschwader 132 (JG 132), was activated in March 1936 with Heinkel He 51 biplanes - a stubby, slow, single-seat fighter that was the first fighte...

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Image: Achim Raschka (talk) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lippstadt Airfield: Night Hunters

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Filiusque, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1944 Lippstadt had been repurposed for night fighters - one of the airfields from which the Luftwaffe tried to intercept RAF Bomber Command's nightly procession over the Ruhr toward Berlin and Hamburg. Anti-aircraft FlaK batteries ringed the perimeter. Then the Americans got t...

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Image: Filiusque | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lippstadt Airfield: The Pocket Closes Here

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Filiusque, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 1 April 1945, units of the British XXI Army Group sweeping down from the north met the American First and Ninth Armies pushing up from the south near Lippstadt. The Ruhr Pocket - encircling the bulk of German Army Group B - snapped shut at this exact place. Over the following ...

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Image: Filiusque | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lippstadt Airfield: Y-98 Lippstadt

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit US Air Force, Public domain. By 20 April the field could host operational combat units. The Ninth Air Force's 373rd Fighter Group flew in with P-47 Thunderbolts and supported American ground forces racing east toward the Elbe. They flew for just over two weeks before the German surrender on 7 May ended the w...

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Image: US Air Force | Public domain

Lippstadt Airfield: Camp El Alamein and After

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Filiusque, CC BY-SA 4.0. The British Army built a new garrison across the former airfield and named it Camp El Alamein - after the desert battle that had given Montgomery and the Eighth Army their reputation. From 1958 the Bundeswehr took it over and renamed it Lipperland-Kaserne; German soldiers lived i...

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Image: Filiusque | CC BY-SA 4.0