The WW2 Foggia Airfield Complex in the Bradford Archive of Aerial Photographs

A matter of considerable interest but also considerable difficulty to students of the WW2 air war over Europe is the nature of the so-called Foggia airfield complex in Puglia, southeast Italy. Using the John Bradford Archive of aerial photographs, in association with original USAAF documentation, the 1950s Italian Istituto Geografico Militare mapping of the region, aerial coverage provided by Google Earth, and other allied and later Italian aerial photographs, this paper finally locates and characterizes the majority of these airfields, resolving many of the uncertainties surrounding them. Areas of particular interest include: the difference between the airfields of the different combatants; the form and structure of these over time; a divergence between what is visible in the photos and the extant record; and for the US airfields, the quarries used in their construction, and their final decommissioning. The paper includes 70 figures, many of them from previously unpublished RAF and USAAF aerial photographs.