The advancing
Imperial German Air Service established it as a military airfield
Flugplatz Brüssel in 1914 during
World War I. In February 1915, they completed an additional
Zeppelin hangar. This was partially destroyed on 7 June 1915 during an attack on
airship LZ38. Although the hangar was repaired, airships were no longer parked at the airfield. At the end of the war, the airfield was abandoned by the Germans when they withdrew from Belgium in the aftermath of the
November 1918 Armistice. The airfield being in the Belgian capital, it became the home of the
Belgian Army Air Force during the 1920s. The Zeppelin hangar was not torn down until 1923, as it was used to park aircraft left behind by the Germans. Some of the aircraft were used for the first civilian flights at the airfield. Increasingly, it became the hub of Belgian civil aviation. In 1923, a radio centre was built, along with a new terminal. In February 1925,
Sabena inaugurated the first
Congo flight, when a
Handley Page W8f departed the airfield for
Leopoldstad. A notable visitor was
Charles Lindbergh, who flew into Haren only a week after his historic
New-York-Paris flight in 1927. Air traffic continued its steady growth, and by 1929 a new terminal (the third) was inaugurated. Several international airlines used Haren in the 1930s, such as
Imperial Airways,
KLM,
Air France,
Deutsche Luft Hansa and
British Continental Airways. After the
German invasion of Belgium in May 1940, the
Luftwaffe expanded the airfield, by building a new hangar (VIII) and an 820m long concrete runway (09-27). In addition, the Germans began building a new airfield at nearby Melsbroek (near Zaventem) and in November 1942 had connected the two airfields with a taxiway. On 3 September 1944 Haren-Evere area was liberated, and only three days later the first
Royal Air Force squadrons landed. It was designated as
Advanced Landing Ground B-56 Evere. As the Germans had left in a hurry, the twin airfields needed very little repair work. Between September 1944 and October 1945, the British further expanded the runways, taxiways and aprons. When World War II ended, the two airfields continued to be used by the military. It took until March 1946 before the airfields were fully released for civilian use. Due to the encroaching urban area of Brussels, the Haren-Evere airfield began shutting down in the late 1940s and airport development focused on its twin airfield nearby, Melsbroek (which would eventually develop into the current
Brussels Airport), although repair services of Sabena and the Belgian Air Force would remain in Haren-Evere until the early 1950s, which is when all aircraft handling activities ceased. ==Aftermath==