and its employees revealed themselves as being members of the armed forces by openly wearing uniforms. In the course of time, the type of aircraft stationed at Celle became larger and larger and crews were trained on almost all current military aircraft. The extent of the training activities necessitated the construction of external landing strips at Hustedt and Scheuen. The training in blind flight, the precursor of instrument flight, even had to be moved to Wesendorf. At the beginning of World War II the training school was relocated to Leipzig and Celle Air Base was used by varying units, none of which were stationed there for any long period of time. Although some production facilities for the Junkers Ju 88 were placed in Hangar V, Celle Air Base played only a secondary role during World War II. This, together with skilful camouflaging of the hangars, prevented the air base from becoming a serious target for Allied tactical or strategic bombing. Contemporary witnesses reported an American fighter plane attacking Hangar V in 1944 until the anti-aircraft fire forced the pilot to abandon his aircraft. Without having suffered any serious damage the air base was surrendered by a German NCO to the British Army on 11 April 1945. A few days previously, members of the last German unit stationed at Celle Air Base, Flying School A/B 6, had destroyed all remaining aircraft and left the base. Furthermore, a last Allied attack on the airfield on 9 April 1945 had not caused any serious damage to the airfield. Allied occupation 1945 until 1957 After having been taken over by British forces, it came under the control of the Royal Air Force Germany and was renamed RAF Station Celle. Under British occupation metal plates were laid on the entire airfield in order to enable the landing of larger aircraft. The airfield retained its secondary role and was mainly used for liaison flights to the United Kingdom. After some flight movements in 1945 and 1946, no flights were recorded in 1947 and the hangars were instead used as storage facilities for furniture and tanks. With the beginning of the Berlin Airlift in 1948 this, however, changed radically. The Western allies, the United States, the United Kingdom and France, were looking for additional air bases that could be utilised for the airlift. Strategically, Celle offered favourable conditions for supply flights being located at the end of