El Daba is a village and rail station about 180 km West of

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

by road. RAF El Daba (otherwise Desert Landing Ground 105) is a former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

military airfield located approximately 4.6 kilometres south-southeast of the village. El Daba was a pre–World War II airfield, one of a number of DLGs created in the Western Desert of

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

after the Munich Crisis of the late 1930s. During World War II, it was used as a military airfield by the British

and the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

during the

North African campaign The North African campaign of World War II took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943, fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers. It included campaigns in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts (Western Desert campaign, Desert Wa ...

against Axis forces, and by the Luftwaffe. Royal Air Force Squadrons which used the airfield between 1939 and 1943 were No's 30, 33, 45, 73, 74 113, 211. USAAF

Ninth Air Force The Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) is a Numbered Air Force of the United States Air Force headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. It is the Air Force Service Component of United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), a joint D ...

units which used the airfield were: * 57th Fighter Group, 5–8 November 1942,

P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter-bomber that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and enabled a rapid entry ...

After the war, El Daba appears to have been closed about 1946. Today, the area is heavily used by agriculture. There is no evidence of the airfield's existence.

British Coordinates

* LG-105

References

* Maurer, Maurer. ''Air Force Combat Units of World War II''. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History, 1983. . * * Wisdom TH. ''Wings Over Olympus'' London, George Allen & Unwin 1942
Royal Air Force Airfield Creation for the Western Desert Campaign
* 1:250,000 Egypt and Cyrenaica Sheet 14 El Daba 1942 (MLRS Map Reprints) Royal Air Force stations in Egypt Royal Air Force stations of World War II in Egypt Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Egypt World War II airfields in Egypt Defunct airports in Egypt Military airbases established in 1939 {{RAF-stub

British Coordinates

See also

References