22nd Air Base

The 22nd Air Base (Polish: 22. Baza Lotnicza) is a Polish Air Force Air Force Base east of Malbork, Poland, near the village of Królewo Malborskie. It was officially constituted on 1 January 2001, replacing the disbanded 41st Fighter Aviation Regiment. The main unit based there is the 41st Air Tactical Squadron flying MiG-29 fighters.

22nd Air Base
Summary
Airport typeMilitary
OperatorPolish Air Force
Coordinates54°01′36″N 19°08′11″E
Map
EPMB
Location in Poland

History
B-17s destroyed all but one of the buildings at the Marienburg Focke-Wulf factory on October 9, 1943.[1]:280
Polish Air Force MiG-29 in the 22nd Air Base

A civilian airfield was established in 1929 at Königsdorf near Marienburg - as it was known then. It was acquired by the Luftwaffe in 1934.[2] Near the airfield was a 100-acre (0.40 km2) Focke-Wulf aircraft production plant that had been moved from Bremen[3] and which produced approximately half of all Focke-Wulf Fw 190s,[4] and the Stalag XX-B prisoner-of-war camp was nearby.[5] A US Eighth Air Force air raid on the "industrial area in Marienburg" on October 9, 1943, by 96 B-17 Flying Fortresses[6] was called the Marienburg raid by Life magazine.[7] The plant was attacked a second time by 98 B-17s on April 9, 1944.[6]

Post-war, Marienburg became Malbork, Poland; and Soviet Air force units were based there for a few years. In 1952 41st Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Air Force of the Polish Army was formed to be based there, initially equipped with MiG-15 fighters, later replaced with MiG-17s, and from 1964 MiG-21s.[8] In 2001 the regiment was dissolved and its ground and air components separated, to form the 22 Air Base and 41st Air Tactical Squadron respectively. In 2003 the last MiG-21s were retired, and in 2004 the squadron was rearmed with refurbished MiG-29s obtained from Germany.

The base was used by French Air Force aircraft deployed in May 2014 as part of NATO's response to the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Initially, Dassault Rafale aircraft were deployed, though on 2 June 2014, four Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters from EC 1/2 and EC 2/5 relieved the Rafales.[9] General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon from the Netherlands and then from Belgium stationed in Malbork until August 2015 when Baltic Air Policing activities were reduced from three to two bases.[10]

On 6 July 2018, another MiG-29 crashed near Pasłęk, with its pilot dying in an ejection attempt. Technical issues are suspected to have played a role in the crash.

See also
For the FMPU film which includes footage of the Marienburg raid[7] in 1943, see Target for Today.

References
  1. Coffey, Thomas M. (1977), Decision over Schweinfurt: The U.S. 8th Air Force Battle for Daylight Bombing, New York: David McKay Company, pp. 280, 465, The Germans were caught by surprise at Marienburg … which was so far east they didn't realize it had to be defended … Only one building of the factory [was] not destroyed on October 9, 1943. (p. 465)
  2. "Historia - Ryszard Rząd" (in Polish). Retrieved 2009-12-24.
  3. AAFRH-10 (PDF), p. 21 (page 27 in pdf), archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-09-02
  4. Gurney, Gene (Major, USAF) (1962), The War in the Air: a pictorial history of World War II Air Forces in combat, New York: Bonanza Books, p. 219
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-09-24. Retrieved 2009-12-24.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. McKillop, Jack. "Combat Chronology of the USAAF". Archived from the original on 2012-05-31. Retrieved 2007-05-25.
  7. "U.S. Bombing: Arnold calls the Marienburg raid the best example of precision bombing" (pdf). Life: 119. November 8, 1943. Retrieved 2009-12-24.
  8. 41st Air Tactical Squadron official page Archived 2010-01-12 at the Wayback Machine
  9. "France Replaces Rafales with Mirages on Polish Det". Air Forces Monthly (317): 11. August 2014.
  10. NATO’s Baltic Air Policing down to eight aircraft.
External images
strike and recon images
Before 1943 bombing
After 1943 bombing
2009 photo gallery


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