Flight to Vaiņode airfield
The story of the German air raid on Vaiņode airfield in June 1941
It was 1941. June, grazed cows. Many planes appeared in the air above the airfield, with yellow wings. I drive the cows off. Something was falling out of the planes. I think about how candy is thrown on aviation holidays. I left the cows, ran to catch the candy. But the parachutes did not look. After 50m I stopped. The explosions drifted, the ground went through the air - there was only one such German attack. Throw air bombs at the airfield, then turned over Kalšu mire and away. The road from the airfield was for narrow stonemasons, they fled somewhere. Horses with semi-wheels - broken. The Russians ran back and forth, fled in retreat, did not blow anything. A day later, Polutarka arrived with Russian soldiers and weapons. He drove to the dairy and left the car. Entered the garrison. Shots were heard, the clothing store caught fire. The next day, a pillar of fire rose in the air at the cemetery above the ammunition depots. There were three such pillars of fire. Glass fell on our house and the shock wave itself was thrown against the wall.
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Vaiņode air base
Vaiņode airfield still has 16 Soviet-era aircraft hangars and an 1800 m section of the once 2500 m long runway. The airfield can only be visited with a previous booking. Vaiņode airfield was established during the Latvian independence as one of the cradles of Latvian aviation and was later one of the largest military airfields in the Baltic States. In 1916, two hangars for German Army airships were built. Airships were used to gather intelligence and bomb the positions of the Russian Army. Later the city of Riga bought the airship hangars and used their roof structures to build the pavilions of the Riga Central Market. In May 1940, the 31st Fast Bomber Aviation Regiment of the Red Army moved to Vaiņode, and the construction of a standardized concrete slab runway began. At the end of the summer of 1944 the partially completed airfield was used by various German aviation units, however, at the end of World War II, the same airfield was used by the Red Army aviation units fighting the German Army group called ‘Kurzeme’. After World War II the Soviet Air Forces were stationed in Vaiņode until 1992.
