Laon-Couvron Air Base - U.S. Acquisition and Use

U.S. Acquisition and Use

With the outbreak of the Cold War in the late 1940s and the Berlin Airlift and the ongoing threat from the Soviet Union to Western Europe, the Soviet threat appeared to be growing. Thus negotiations began in November 1950 between NATO and the United States to station combat forces in France to meet European defense needs. During the site selection negotiations, Laon-Couvron was initially proposed by the USAF to become a Light Bomber air base, and also an Air Division Headquarters base. Also, the USAF had historically used the base, and it was presently unused. An agreement was reached with the French Air Ministry in early 1951 for the Americans to return to Laon-Couvron and redevelop the base, and that a USAF light bomber wing would be stationed there as soon as possible.

On 15 June 1951 construction began to upgrade the wartime facilities to NATO standards. When USAF engineers arrived they found the base much as the USAAF had left it in 1945, with wrecked hangars and support facilities full of garbage and vermin after years of abandonment, still in ruins from the numerous bombing raids; two patched runways, and various amounts of aircraft wreckage moved off the grass areas which were leased to farmers in the postwar years. The entire base had to be bulldozed and cleared before construction could begin. New water wells were dug and new water lines and sewage pipes were laid. A new water treatment plant, along with upgraded roads were built. A new jet runway was constructed over the existing wartime secondary runway, the primary being resurfaced and used as a taxiway to a new maintenance support site.

The design of the airfield was to space park aircraft as far apart as possible by the construction of a circular marguerite system of hardstands that could be revetted later with earth for added protection. Typically the margueriete consisted of fifteen to eighteen hardstands around a large central hangar. Each hardstand held one or two aircraft, and allowed the planes to be spaced approximately 150 feet (50 m) apart. Each squadron was assigned to a separate hangar/hardstand complex. This construction can be seen clearly in the satellite image link at the bottom of this article. By 1954 the base was ready for use by operational Air Force Wings.