Aviation in Corsica

Charley,
from my diary, I will tell you of my visit to Corsica;

We were aware of 3 airfields in Corsica for emergencies, Ajaccio, in the South west, Ghissannio, north east and Calvi in the north west.
On Feb 4, 1944 our target was Toulon Harbor/sub base We ran into headwinds flying at 25000 ft that were over 100 mph,(jet stream, unknown at the time) we were over an hour late getting to the target, estimate 15 planes of the groups turned back because of low fuel. After bombs away, after losing 2 planes and encountering heavy flak, we decided to head for Ajaccio, Corsica to refuel. We had severe turbulance because the field was in the midst of mountains. It was chaotic, because 35-40 planes trying to land at once with no semblance of a traffic pattern, every plane was very low on fuel. We had to spend the night around the plane, waiting for morning to get refueled. I finally took off at 1415, I was one of the last to leave. Two more planes never returned to base, don’t know what happened to them

I had forgotten that Bastia airport in Corsica was the site of Antoine de St-Exupery’s last take-off. There is a memorial stone at the airport. A short drive away is a small Commonwealth war cemetery containing about 60 graves, some of them air force with a sad sprinkling of unknowns. Apparently there is a mangled Heinkel 111 at the bottom of Bastia harbour and on the west coast a very intact B17 that you can dive if so inclined. A Lanc and a couple of P47s are also down there, apparently, but I did not find any photos of them. And I flew there on a Fokker 100 with a ropey pressurisation system – probably counts as historic aviation these days.

Hi Charley

Did you ever go to Corsica?
Did I miss the follow-up thread?
Did you find anything interesting aviation-wise?