IX Engineer Command

front and went to work on a clutch of fields in the Verdun, Luxembourg, Metz triangle. In the north, the First Engineer Aviation Brigade began developing fields in Belgium and on the tip of the Belgian-Dutch border. Its regiments, the 922nd and 924th, had notable spots in the "Buzz-bomb alley" sector around Liege and St. Trond, while Brigade Headquarters at Spa was directly on the main line, at a point where the V-1's crossed and shifted gears.

Meanwhile, in the rear areas, between Paris and Reims, an equally important project was being pushed, looking toward the basing of the IX Bomb Division on the fields which the fighters had recently abandoned. As previous construction effort on these fields had been hasty in nature, major reconstruction was required. All this construction, plus work on tactical air depots and the winterization program placed a full burden on the engineers. To add to the task, a good share of the engineering effort had to be shifted to an organized maintenance program. This was accomplished by establishing a provisional maintenance regiment, manned by Lieutenant Colonel D. P. Barnes' 937th Engineer Aviation Camouflage Battalion, to which other units were attached from time to time.

The need for speed was still great, but the emphasis shifted to durability and the all-weather type of construction. This required additional time and effort. Bad weather and the supply factor lengthened construction time to an average of 38 days during the winter months. The consequent slowing down in the rate of completion forced a major change in airdrome layout to provide maximum economy in trucking and the heavy construction materials. While initially the fields based one group and provided for a wide dispersion of parked aircraft, they were now redesigned for a second group with a more concentrated dispersal plan. At first, double hardstandings were- employed, but later this was changed to a Christmas tree effect in which six standings were built off a single plank stem.

Battalions on jobs during this time used as much as 14 inches of rock and gravel on the subgrade before the steel plank could be laid as runway surfacing. On one day the tonnage of rock and gravel hauled to sites surpassed the total tonnage of all other supplies shipped to the entire American forces in the ETO