Saint-Brieuc

48°30'46"N 002°48'16"W

runway: 10/29 - 1400x45m - asphalt (CLOSED)
runway: 16/34 - 1110x60m - grass (CLOSED)

Saint-Brieuc airfield (French: Aéroport de St-Brieuc Armor, also known as Ploufragan or Plaineville) was an airfield 380 kilometers west of Paris.
Although an airshow had been held at the site in 1912, the airfield was built between 1937 and 1939. It opened as a civilian airfield, but after only a few weeks of civilian use it was requisitioned by the Armée de l 'Air to accommodate Armée de l'Air school number 25. During the invasion of May 1940, while the Germans continued their advance on French soil, the school was transferred to Pau.

On 18 June 1940, seven Messerschmidt Bf-109s settled on the airfield. During the conflict, several fighter and reconnaissance groups used the airfield as a primary or secondary site, including:
I./JG 2 with Bf-109E.
III./JG53 (Bf-109F) flew from here from late March until 7 April 1941.
So did III./JG26 (Bf-109F), except for 7 Staffel, which was in the Mediterranean.
1 and 2 Staffel of Stab./NAGr13 (FW-190A) flew from here from October 1942 until August 1943.
III./JG2 (FW-190s) was stationed at Vannes, but frequently flew from St-Brieuc as a secondary airfield.
So did I./JG27 stationed at Evreux with Bf-109Gs.
At the begining of the conflict, the airfield also saw frequent use by Ju-88s and Do-17s. To accommodate all these aircraft, the layout was largely redesigned. The field went from 32 ha to 75 ha and the military zone extended over 300 hectares. Concrete taxitracks, parking stands and shelters were laid out around the airfield. The airfield was frequently the objective of reconnaissance flights.
It was also bombed several times, the last one on 24 may 1944, when a squadron of P-38 Lightnings bombed the airfield for half an hour, causing significant damage.


Copy of a German map of St. Brieuc airfield, with the bars in the south depicting the minefields that were protecting the bases Flak batteries.

When American forces poured into Brittany at the beginning of August 1944, the Germans left the airfield, destroying much upon their departure. Belorussians took their place on 6 August in an effort to keep the airfield under control. They were attacked by the Americans and Free French forces.
The Americans remained at the base between August and December 1944. After France was liberated, the airfield still cost lives, due to German minefields around the airfield. First to die were 5 Germans on 30 August 1945. Some time later several civilians on a horse carriage died also. It was not until 1946 that the airport was returned to civilian life.


No photos or maps of the immediate postwar period have been located

What happened to the airfield after the war is largely reconstructed from aerial photography. The airfield remained almost unchanged until the mid 1950s. By 1959 it had been reconstructed considerably. 3 grass runways had been laid out and marked, along with a location marker and a communications board. The longest of the three runways stretched out of the original flying field by a considerable length to the west.


St.-Brieuc airfield photographed in June 1952, almost unchanged from when it was under German management 10 years earlier (IGN)


In June 1959 St.-Brieuc was photographed again, this time there had been some major renovating, adding three grass runways (IGN)


Close up view of above photo, clearly showing a location marker with the name St.-Brieuc, two hangars and a communications board (IGN)

In 1961 the airfield still had three grass runways, oriented 06/24, 11/29 and 17/35. The airfield then underwent a major upgrade. It gained a hardened (asphalt) runway, which -judging from arial photography from 1966- must have been completed about two years prior. The hardened runway, oriented 11/29, meant that the short grass runway 06/24 was closed and removed. By this time the built up areas of the surrounding villages and especially of St. Brieuc were creeping in on the airfield.


St.-Brieuc in June 1961, showing three grass runways (IGN).


St.-Brieuc in April 1966. An asphalt runway had been introduced over the grass 11/29 and the 06/24 runway had disappeared (IGN).

Changes in the earth's magnetic variation meant that the runways had to be renumbered in the 1970s. As a result the asphalt 11/29 runway was renumbered to 10/28 and the grass runway was accordingly adjusted to 16/34. It was clear by this time that the airfield was to be closed in the near future. In 1975 discussions had begun about the location of a new airport. The decision was made in 1980 to build the new airport to the northwest of Saint-Brieuc airfield, near the 4 lane highway that crossed the area. The new airfield was opened on 30 November 1985 and the old airfield closed around the same time.


St.-Brieuc in August 1978. Only three aircraft are visible in this photo: a Douglas DC-3/C-47 on the east side of the platform next to a hangar and a Fokker F.27 and an unidentified small sports aircraft on the platform (IGN).

The airfield remained abandoned, except for the presence of rabbits for the next 25 years. The grass North-South runway grew over with weeds, but the remainder remained essentially the same, although some buildings were removed. The asphalt runway only received large X's at both ends to indicate the airfield was closed. Even the remains of German fortifications and taxitrack were still clearly visible in the early 21st century.
In October 2010 the St Brieuc city council decided to finally convert the old airfield. They announced their plan for an eco-comminity would end all the illegal activities that had taken place at the airfield in the years before. In 2012 it became clear what they meant with "illegal activities", when the police discovered 60 cubic meters of trash (mainly old cans and tires) set ablaze at the old airfield. Local firefighters said they had put out a similar illegal waste fire only months before.


The airfield in 2003, when it was still largely intact in spite of not having been used for 18 years (Google Earth)


The former airfield in 2013. Construction is finally taking over the airfield (Geoportail)


By 2014, the airfield was on the edge of being built over (Google Earth)