Kirkenes-See

69°43'37"N 030°04'12"E (estimated)

runway: n/a - n/a - water

Kirkenes-See airfield (Seefliegerhorst Kirkenes-See) was an airfield in Kirkenes, the most Northern town of Norway and Europe.
The airfield was probably built by the Luftwaffe in the early years (1940-1941) of the German occupation of Norway during World War II.
As 'Flugplatzkommando A 132/IX (See) Kirkenes', it served to support the Luftwaffes seaplanes operating over the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean.
Together with the airbase at Kirkenes it formed Kommando Flughafenbereich 26/III Kirkenes.
It is known to have been operational in the Summer of 1941.
At that time protoype Blohm&Voss BV222 'Wiking' (BV 222V-1, CC+EQ, ex-D-ANTE) performed 7 supply flights to Kirkenes, carrying 65 tons of cargo and returning 221 wounded soldiers over 30,000km.
The airfield is known to have been used by He-59 seaplanes of 5.Seenotstaffel and by BV138 'Seedrache' long range reconnaissance seaplanes of 3.(F)/Seeaufklarungsgruppe (SAGr.)130.
The BV138s played an important role in locating the Allied convoys to Murmansk, carrying vital supplies to the Soviet Army.
The Kirkenes area was one of the main bases of the Germany for the war in the Murmansk front.


Kirkenes is second after Malta on a list of European towns experiencing air-raid alarms and attacks, with more than 1,000 alarms and 320 air attacks.
In October 1944 the Germans used a scorched earth tactic to halt the Soviet Red Army.
As a consequence, few houses in Kirkenes survived the war, and a large part of the population was forcefully evacuated further south .
Both Kirkenes-See and the nearby airbase Høybuktmoen were completely destroyed by the fleeing Wehrmacht.
Kirkenes was liberated by the Red Army on 25 October 1944 and soon transferred to Norwegian control, brought in from England.
They found only 13 houses had survived the war.

After the war Kirkenes was left with no infrastructure.
The German Wehrmacht had not only destroyed the city and the air stations, but also most of the main roads.
As a result, airline Widerøe performed sea plane flights to the city until the new civilian airport was opened in 1963, using De Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otters.
Civilian air traffic has since moved completely to the new airport.
Although there no longer is a seaplane port in Kirkenes, seaplane opereations may still be conducted.

 

Unfortunately I could not locate any maps of the airfield