Gusap Airport

Gusap Airport
IATA: GAP – ICAO: AYGP – LID: Gusap Airport Gusap Airport (Papua New Guinea)
Summary
Airport type	Public
Location	Gusap, Papua New Guinea
Elevation AMSL	1,450 ft / 442 m
Coordinates	06°03′12.93″S 145°57′37.23″E / 6.0535917°S 145.9603417°E / -6.0535917; 145.9603417
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 03/21 5,250 1,600 Grass
Source: World Aero Data

Gusap Airport is a general aviation airport in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. (IATA: GAP) located at the base of the Finisterre Range. It has no scheduled commercial airline service.

History

Gusap Airport was built by US Army engineers of the 871st, 872nd and 875th Airborne Aviation Engineer Battalions during World War II, and was developed into major base consisting of ten airstrips and numerous facilities for fighters and light bombers of the Fifth Air Force. Later during the war, the airfield was also a base for Royal Australian Air Force aircraft. The base was built around eight grass runways, with 180 revetments in the complex. The airstrip at Gusap "paid for itself many times over in the quantity of Japanese aircraft, equipment and personnel destroyed by Allied attack missions projected from it."^[1]

Allied units assigned to Gusap Airfield

• Headquarters, 85th Fighter Wing (25 February-24 July 1944)
• Headquarters, 310th Bombardment Wing (1 February-6 May 1944)
• 312th Bombardment Group (1 January–June 1944)

Headquarters, 386th, 387th, 388th, 389th Bomb Squadrons, A-20 Havoc

• 35th Fighter Group (7 February-22 July 1944)

Headquarters, 39th, 41st Fighter Squadrons, P-47 Thunderbolt

• 49th Fighter Group (20 November 1943 – 19 April 1944)

Headquarters, 7th, 8th, 9th Fighter Squadrons, P-40 Warhawk (1943), P-47 Thunderbolt (1944)

See also

• USAAF in the Southwest Pacific

Notes

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.

• Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-89201-092-4.
• www.pacificwrecks.com

External links

USAAF Fifth Air Force in World War II
Previously: Philippine Department Air Force (1941); Far East Air Force (1941-1942)
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