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Piryatin Airport is an airport located approximately 7 miles (11.3 km) south of Piryatin,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. Its current status and use is undetermined.
History
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the airport was provided to the
United States Army Air ForcesThe United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....
during the summer of 1944 as a heavy bomber airfield, used by the
EighthThe Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana....
and
Fifteenth Air ForceThe Fifteenth Expeditionary Mobility Task Force is one of two EMTFs assigned to the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command . It is headquartered at Travis Air Force Base, California....
s for shuttle bombing missions (
Operation Frantic-Airfields:In February 1944, the USAAF received access to six air bases in Ukraine, but it turned out only three were set up for the effort. In haste, the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe established a headquarters detachment at Poltava Airfield, near Kiev in the Soviet Union in late...
).
Piryatin was designated as USAAF Station 560 for security purposes and was referred to as Station 560 in all messages and written correspondence. Piryatin was one of three Ukraine installations operated by Headquarters, Eastern Command,
United States Strategic Air ForcesThe US Eighth Air Force in World War II, later designated the United States Strategic and Tactical Air Forces was the first and became the overall command and control authority of the United States Army Air Forces against the European Axis members during World War II, where it'd started as a...
Aircraft would fly into the Airfield from either
Great BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
or Southern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
after attacking enemy targets in
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. The aircraft would refuel and rearm at the airport, then attack enemy targets on return missions to Southern Italy.
Operation Frantic ended in September 1944, and the Americans returned to their home bases.