of Southern France in August 1944 and was repaired and placed into operational use by the United States Army Air Forces XII Engineer Command, being turned over to Twelfth Air Force on 27 August 1944. The airfield was designated by the Americans as Istres/Le Tubé Airfield or Advanced Landing Ground Y-17. It was also given the AAF designation of USAAF Station 196. Twelfth Air Force initially assigned the 324th Fighter Group to the airfield on 2 September, with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts. However the 324th only remained a few days before moving forward to Amberieu on 6 September. The main USAAF use of Istres was by the 64th Troop Carrier Group, which operated Douglas C-47 Skytrain transports from the airfield from September to November 1944. When the combat units moved north into eastern France, Istres was used by Air Transport Command as a transshipment point for supplies and Allied personnel, being administratively controlled by the 1411th Army Air Force Base Unit. With the end of the war, the Americans used Istres as a staging point between Occupied Germany and Morocco for air transport of personnel back to the United States. It was returned to full French control in October 1945. Sometime after World War II, until May 1958, Base Aérienne 125 was host to the Royal Air Force Liaison Party, that serviced transient British and Commonwealth military aircraft staging to and from the United Kingdom. In May 1958, the Royal Air Force Liaison Party, moved to Base Aérienne 115 Orange-Caritat where it continued into the early 1960s. Incidents On 31 March 1992, Trans-Air Service Flight 671, a Boeing 707, made an emergency landing at Istres after engines 3 and 4 had separated from the wing in turbulence at . The aircraft performed a flapless, downwind landing with a touch-down speed of nearly and the right wing on fire from the pouring fuel. The gear failed and the aircraft slid off the far end of the runway, but the crew of five survived and the cargo was saved. The incident brought to light severe deficiencies in Kabo Air's operations — the aircraft had passed mandatory maintenance and was overloaded. See also Advanced Landing Ground References External links Official BA125 site (French) Strike squadron 3/4 Limousin site (French) Tanker squadron 00.093 Bretagne site (French) Aerospace research institutes Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in France Airports established in 1917 Aviation history