Memorial to the 373rd Figther Group of the 9th AIR FORCE.
St. James A-29 airfield memorial recalls the presence here of the 373rd Figther Group of the 9th Air force.
Stele text.
In June 1944,as Allied troops advanced, the American General Staff
decided to build "Advanced Landing Ground" airfields (A.L.G.) facilitating their advance on French territory.
At the end of a "lightning" breakthrough (Operation Cobra), American troops liberate Avranches on July 30, then st James on August 1.
As early as August 2 the American military authorities decide to establish an advanced air base at Saint-James.
In just one week, the construction machinery of the825nd Engineer Aviation Battalion builds theA-29 base from scratch to accommodate the
P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers of the 373rd Fighter group of the 9th Air Force. The landscape is, then, profoundly altered to
give way to a 1,500m-long runway, fully landscaped and covered with wire mesh. This airfield extended from the current site, where
the Saint James knitwear factory is located( route d'Argouges) to the route de Fougères( hameau de la Huretterie).
From August 19, P-47 fighter-bombers occupy the base and go into action to protect ground troops to the west, advancing towards
Brittany, and to the east to encircle the German 7th Army in the Falaise pocket. Two pilots were killed there in a plane collision.
On August 27 or 28, General Eisenhower reportedly flew from ST James to meet General De Gaulle after the liberation of PARIS.
On September 19, the fighters left ST James for Reims and the eastern front; and the base was abandoned and disused on September 28, 1944.
The SAINT JAMES company was established in 1977 on part of this airfield, on the precise spot where the planes landed. It has forgotten neither the anguished days of that terrible summer of 1944, nor the euphoria of liberation. 4,410 American soldiers, who perished during the liberation of western FRANCE, are buried in the SAINT-JAMES cemetery.
