Angaur Airstrip ( Japanese: アンガウル飛行場, Hepburn: Angauru hikōjō, ) is a small

airstrip An aerodrome, airfield, or airstrip is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for public or private use. Aerodromes in ...

Angaur , or in Palauan, is an island and state in the Island country, island nation of Palau. History Angaur was traditionally divided among some eight clans. Traditional features within clan areas represent important symbols giving identity to fam ...

, one of the islands of

Palau Palau, officially the Republic of Palau, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean. The Republic of Palau consists of approximately 340 islands and is the western part of the Caroline Islands ...

. It also served as an airfield during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

History

World War II

The day the island was declared secured on September 20, 1944, construction of the airfield began on the eastern edge of the island. As there was no existing airfield to build on, two Army engineering battalions had to clear jungle and level the terrain to create the airfield. On 19 October 1944 the airfield with its runway aligned NE/SW together with taxiways and hardstands for 120 aircraft were ready for use. The 494th Bombardment Group operating B-24J Liberator bombers arrived at Angaur on 16 October and commenced operations on 3 November. The Wing remained at Angaur until June 1945 when it moved to Yontan Airfield on Okinawa. The 22nd Bombardment Group operating B-24s was based at Angaur from November 1944 until January 1945 when it moved to Guiuan Airfield in the Philippines.

Postwar

In April 2010 the Palau Senate passed a resolution asking the President to offer Angaur airstrip as a site for the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa. In 2020 a joint U.S. civil/military team carried out the Angaur Airfield Joint Improvement Project to improve the runway with the work completed by 27 August. The runway improvements give Palau a secondary airfield capable of handling cargo aircraft to back up to Roman Tmetuchl International Airport.

Facilities and aircraft

The airport resides at an estimated

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

. It has one

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

designated 5/23 with a

gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...

surface measuring by . For the 12-month period ending May 23, 1987, the airport had 1,500

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. History The concept of air taxis existed as early as the 1910s. This concept goes back as early as 1917 with Glenn Curtiss’ prototype, the auto-plane. Furthermor ...

aircraft operations, an average of 125 per month.

Airlines and destinations

References

External links

www.pacificwrecks.com
* {{authority control Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II Airports in Palau Angaur Airports established in 1944