Vernouillet is a commune

Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 in the Eure-et-Loir

Eure-et-Loir

Eure-et-Loir is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers.-History:Eure-et-Loir is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790 pursuant to the Act of December 22, 1789...

 department in northern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

It lies adjacent to the south side of the town of Dreux

Dreux

Dreux is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.-History:Dreux was known in ancient times as Durocassium, the capital of the Durocasses Celtic tribe. Despite the legend, its name was not related with Druids. The Romans established here a fortified camp known as Castrum...

.

Population

International relations

It is twinned with Cheddar

Cheddar

Cheddar is a large village and civil parish in the Sedgemoor district of the English county of Somerset. It is situated on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, north-west of Wells. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Nyland and Bradley Cross...

 in the United Kingdom as well as Felsberg

Felsberg, Germany

- Geography :The landscape around Felsberg is marked by hills and small lakes, as well as the remains of gravel quarrying. As part of the West Hesse Basin, it lies in a sunken area formed by volcanic activity in the Tertiary subera. The change from partly basaltic hills to smooth river valleys is...

 in Germany.

Vernouillet Airport

Built prior to World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 as a civil airport, Vernouillet Airport was seized by the Germans in June 1940 during the Battle of France

Battle of France

In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...

. They used it as a major Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

 military airfield during the occupation. It was liberated by Allied ground forces about 21 August 1944 during the Northern France Campaign. It was then used by the United States Army Air Force Ninth Air Force

Ninth Air Force

The Ninth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force's Air Combat Command . It is headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina....

 as a combat Advanced Landing Ground

Advanced Landing Ground

Advanced Landing Ground was the term given to the temporary advance airfields constructed by the Allies during World War II in support of the invasion of Europe...

. Declared operational on 26 August, the airfield was designated as "A-41

Vernouillet Airport

Vernouillet Airport is a regional airport in France . It supports general aviation with no commercial airline service scheduled.-History:Dreux airport was built in the 1920s as a grass airfield. In the 1930s it was upgraded to include two concrete runways, a primary 02/20 at 5500' and a secondary...

", and was used by combat units until the end of the war. Afterward the airport was returned to civil control.. The airport was closed after the war due to a conflict of airspace with the expanding Orly Airport

Orly Airport

Paris-Orly Airport is an airport located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, south of Paris, France. It has flights to cities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, North America and Southeast Asia. Prior to the construction of Charles de Gaulle Airport, Orly was...

 near Paris, and is now a small grass airfield general aviation

General aviation

General aviation is one of the two categories of civil aviation. It refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and regular cargo flights, both private and commercial. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to large, non-scheduled cargo jet flights...

 airport with no commercial traffic.

Personalities

• Louis-Nicolas Robert
  Louis-Nicolas Robert
  Louis-Nicolas Robert was a French soldier and mechanical engineer, who is credited with a paper-making invention that became the blueprint of the Fourdrinier machine....
  
  , the inventor of the original Fourdrinier machine
  Fourdrinier machine
  This article contains a glossary section at the end.Most modern papermaking machines are based on the principles of the Fourdrinier Machine. It has been used in some variation since its inception...
  
  for production of continuous rolls of paper, was a resident. He is commemorated by a statue in front of the church. Also, the Collège de Louis-Nicolas Robert in the quartier des Grandes Vauvettes is named in his honour.

External links

• Official website (in French)