If you don't know what to do during the holidays...

[BikerBabe]

...you can always track down WW2-related places in Google Earth and Google Maps.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a french website, Anciens Aérodromes - in english: Former Airfields, owned and maintained by a small group of people with an interest in WW2 history - among them is a guy named Nicolas Grebert.

Monsieur Grebert have visited Audembert, home of (among others) JG 26, during WW2.

Audembert | Anciens Aérodromes

Using Grebert's map of that area, I started Google Earth and Google Maps, and made some screencaps:

First, Grebert's map from the homepage:

A screen cap from Google Earth:

Some 109 shelter remains are still visible in Audembert. Image from the Anciens Aérodrome website:

Viewed with Google Street View:

The 109 shelters can be found where the red circle is on this GE overview:

The yellow circle shows the old taxiway, and the blue circle is the JG 26 HQ - Le Hameau du Colombier, where some familiar photos were once shot - images from the website:

First, the JG 26 HQ - it's the lower white building in the aerial photo from the website.
If you look to the slightly lower left in the photo, you'll see some old 109 hangars/shelters in the garden of Le Hameau du Colombier:

Same area in GE - top blue square is the building with surrounding area (the tiny brighter square by the building is the terrace) - lower blue square shows 109 shelters:

Next, a couple of pilots relax on the terrace of the HQ.

The terrace a few years ago - the old wall and tiles are still there:

Then - Galland and his hunting dog "Schweinebauch" relaxes on the terrace:

Now - same corner, same tiles and wall again:

Galland and Mölders - together with a third unknown person:

The building is almost the same as back then:

The old taxiway - yellow circle on the overview GE screencap - from the homepage:

Taxiway - GE screencap - yellow square shows another 109 shelter:

So...if you've got nothing else planned for your christmas holiday, I'll suggest that you go treasure hunting with Google Earth and Google Street View.
You can always start on the abovementioned website, there's plenty of places to explore.
And if you're curious, here's the GE file for JG 26 - Audembert:

http://www.bmwmc.dk/2011/JG_26_Audembert.kmz

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Cool idea Maria, my Christmas day will be quite quiet so I may do just that if I don't work on the A-20.

 

[evangilder]

I'll have to look around our local area. They did have German POWs near here. They picked oranges and other crops here in Ventura County, California. I guess that far from home, there wasn't a point in trying to escape!

 

[BikerBabe]

EG: Guess not.
Maybe you can find some stuff online to start with?

 

[evangilder]

A little digging has found a couple of interesting things. There was a POW transit location in Griffith Park, where the Travel Town Museum is today. I have been there on a few occasions not even knowing that POWs came through there.

The real interesting thing is that there was a Satellite camp for Camp Cooke right in Saticoy, which is literally about 15 minutes from where I sit. They house about 450 POWs and the camp didn't actually close until after 1946! It makes you wonder how long the POWs stayed here.

Additionally, a WWII Japanese balloon bomb was released in Saticoy and the balloon itself was recovered right here in Moorpark! So there may be more history here than I thought. Our sleepy little family community has an interesting past.

 

[BikerBabe]

EG: I guess that it's just a matter of digging - or sometimes just scratching the surface, before you find some interesting WW2 stuff.
And it gets really interesting when it happened in places you actually know.
For example I didn't know that the danish resistance fighters during WW2 used to bring captured snitches to the local forest - Hareskoven - to execute and leave the bodies there.
That forest is only half an hour on bicycle from where I live, and I have gone on family trips and fishing trips in that forest without knowing anything of this very fascinating part of danish history.

The things you found about the prisoners and the balloon sounds very interesting, I hope you find more.

 

[Airframes]

Great stuff Maria. I did a bit of Google earth stuff a while back, looking at various former Luftwaffe bases in France - fascinating stuff !

 

[evangilder]

You definitely sparked something I hadn't thought of, Maria. I figured our little out of the way neighborhood wouldn't have any WWII history, but it looks like I was wrong. They actually discovered 2 balloon bombs in Moorpark, on January 15th and January 17th, 1945. Some of the more historical things about Moorpark is that at one time, it was the largest egg producing place in the world. Here is a brief history of Egg City:

In 1961, Julius Goldman founded Egg City, which was a massive chicken farm north of Moorpark, with many chicken coops spread over acres of concrete with millions of chickens in them. Most of the roads to the ranch were lined by large palm trees, which are still present on the site to this day. The main office building had a giant chicken statue on the top of it. Local residents were somewhat irked by the farm, when the smell of it wafted to Moorpark on windy days. The odors also commonly flowed to the nearby town of Fillmore. The Pacific ocean can be seen from the property, although it is very far inland. The business suffered a setback in 1972, when more than 3 million chickens were slaughtered because of the threat of Newcastle disease. There were three well sites on the property and a man made lake near the main entrance gate. Egg gathering was done from 36 houses by hand, with workers placing eggs onto plastic flats while riding electric carts. Liquid, dry and shell eggs were processed at the facility, with yolk and albumen available in individually.The farm finally closed in 1996. In early December 2006, a wildfire destroyed the dilapidated remains of Egg City.

You can still see the huge coop foundations on google earth. The building on the right at the intersection of Grimes Canyon and Shekell was the start of a huge fire a couple of years ago here when that building caught fire and it burned the hills for several miles. That building is quite large, so compare that to the coop foundations and one could only image the smell!

Anyway, great idea, Maria. I won't hijack your thread.

 

[vikingBerserker]

What a cool thread, well done Maria!