Coleman Barracks/Coleman Army Airfield Mannheim/Sandhofen Airfield (Y-79) |
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Baden-Württemberg, Germany |
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Coordinates | 49°33′47″N 008°27′46″E / 49.56306°N 8.46278°E |
Type | Military airfield on foreign soil |
Site history | |
Built | 1925 |
In use | 1937–1945 (Luftwaffe) Apr–July 1945 (USAAF) Jul 1945–Aug 2013 (United States Army) |
Coleman Barracks, Mannheim Germany Drive through |
Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Coleman Barracks/Coleman Army Airfield (ICAO: ETOR) is a United States Army military installation located in the Sandhofen district of Mannheim, Germany. It is assigned to U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR) and administered by the U.S. Army Installation Management Command-Europe (IMCOM-E). Coleman Barracks should not be confused with the former "Coleman Kaserne", located in Gelnhausen. The U.S. Army named the airfield after Lieutenant Colonel Wilson D. Coleman, who was killed in action in France on 30 July 1944.
The first commercial airport in Mannheim was founded on 16 May 1925, as Flughafen Mannheim-Heidelberg-Ludwigshafen in the northern district of Sandhofen. With its opening Mannheim became part of an important air track, running from north to south and vice versa. In the late 1920s and early 1930s Deutsche Aero Lloyd operated cargo and passenger flights from Hamburg to Zürich stopping in Mannheim. Balair from Switzerland flew between Geneva and Amsterdam via Basel, Mannheim, Frankfurt, and Essen. Badisch-Pfälzische Luftverkehrs AG operated the black forest route to Konstanz, via Karlsruhe, Baden-Baden and Villingen.