Marine Flugpark Koolkerke

50°56'00"N 003°09'00"E

Marine Flugpark Koolkerke (Dutch: Marine vliegveld Koolkerke) was a German airfield built during World War I in Koolkerke (near Bruges and Dudzele) in West-Flanders (Dutch: West-Vlaanderen) in Belgium.
It had 4 wooden hangars on the south side of the Flugpark, another 10 on the north side, and it's headquarters were at Chateau Ten Berghe just outside Bruges
The Flugpark was built ca. 1917 to protect the harbours of Bruges and Zeebrugge, where U-boats of the Kriegsmarine were stationed.
The location of the Flugpark was chosen because it was the only place in the area where the soil was several feet higher than the rest of the area, a critical advantage in the Low Countries if you want to keep your feet dry when it rains.


Koolkerke ca.1917.



Albatross fighter aircraft, presumably at Koolkerke ca1917.



Detail of Koolkerke ca1917.

The north side of the Flugplatz was home of Marine-Feldjagdstaffel 1 (MFJ-1) and MFJ-2, which later merged into the Marine-Jagdgruppe (English: Navy Fighter Group).
The 4 wooden hangars on the south side belonged with the Marinekorps Flandern (English: Navy Corps Flanders), tasked with supplying the nearby floatplane unit at Zeebrugge with new or repaired aircraft
Because of it's geographical location the airfield also served as a refuellling stop for German bombers flying to England
Today nothing remains of the old Flugplatz.

Thanks to Filip Vlaminck and Yvonne at ForumEersteWereldoorlog.nl for pointing out this airfield and a wonderful article about it at Aeropedia.be.

All images about this airfield were taken from the Aeropedia article about this airfield, and used with permission