Operation Crossbow Site

The Operation Crossbow Site is a historic location at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. During World War II, a reconstruction of a German V-1 flying bomb launch site was built to test the measures needed to destroy the actual bases in France.

Operation Crossbow Site
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
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Location	Eglin Air Force Base, Florida
Coordinates	30°36′10″N 86°18′04″W
Area	14 acres (5.7 ha)
Built	1944
NRHP reference No.	98001256[1]
Added to NRHP	October 22, 1998

In January 1944, General Grandison Gardner orders read, "Reproduction of the ski sites in complete detail and destruction in various ways." He determined low-level bombing with the heaviest bombs achieved the greatest accuracy.[2][3]

On October 22, 1998, it was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places.

The Site was built in a hurry, "working around the clock for 13 days" in 1944 on a "remote part of the Eglin reservation".

Current state

"Portions of nine concrete and brick structures" remain on the 14-acre site. Some buildings are "virtually intact and show little damage from the many attempts over the years to destroy them."[4] A 2014 Historic American Engineering Record survey noted two existing clusters of buildings, left as they had been in 1944.[5]

See also

• V-1 flying bomb facilities
• Operation Crossbow

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
2. Dornberger, Walter (1954). V-2. New York: The Viking Press, Inc. p. 155-157.
3. Zaloga, Steven (2008). German V-Weapon Sites 1943-45. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. pp. 29-30. ISBN 9781846032479.
4. "Operation Crossbow National Historic District". Fact Sheets. 96th Air Base Wing Public Affairs Office. Retrieved 2009-03-04.
5. "Operation Crossbow Historic District, Test Areas C-80-B and C-52-C, Eglin Air Force Base, Mossy Head, Walton County, FL". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2019-12-14.