page_title: Romorantin - Pruniers Air Detachment
section_title: Post Armistice use
hierarchical_section_title: Romorantin - Pruniers Air Detachment / History / World War I / Post Armistice use
caption_attribution_description: English: Romorantin Aerodrome, abandoned Buildings
context_page_description: Romorantin - Pruniers Air Detachment is a French Air Force military facility, located 6 km southwest of Romorantin-Lanthenay, in the Loir-et-Cher department of central France.
  Pruniers airfield was part of a huge depot built for the Air Service, United States Army during World War I as an aircraft engineering facility. After the Armistice, the airfield stayed operational, with a French Air Force depot built in 1934. The airfield is slightly widened during World War II by the German Luftwaffe, but not much used. It returned to French control in September 1944, still as a depot.
context_section_description: With the end of combat in November 1918,  the mission of Romorantin was wound down.  The depot began receiving large numbers of DH-4 Combat Aircraft from the 1st Air Depot that were used in combat.  The aircraft, basically having no further use,  were disassembled, and their engines either piled in storage or sold. Also captured German aircraft, abandoned on airfields in France, were sent to Romorantin for various testing and then dis-assembly for shipment back to the United States.
  When the Air Service in France was ordered demobilized in April 1919,  the Americans at Romorantin turned the facility over to the French Government, leaving warehouses full of supplies, equipment, tools dis-assembled aircraft and trucks to the care of the French, abandoning almost everything in place.
  The French, in turn, contracted with a private company for the sale and disposal of the facility for liquidation. Sales were held for clothing, hardware and small tools. Entire buildings were sold to buyers and everything inside it. In the countryside, many farms found themselves with former American buildings being used for various purposes. A group of 200 guards were hired to protect the facility, however many people looted and ransacked the deserted buildings still filled with goods. Fortunes were made at the expense of the public good.
caption: Abandoned buildings at Romorantin, Summer, 1919
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