Harmon Air Force Base

Harmon Air Force Base
Depot Field
Part of Twentieth Air Force (FEAF)

Harmon Field, Guam, 16 December 1944
Type Military airfield
Built 1944
In use 1944–1949
Controlled by United States Army Air Forces
United States Air Force

Harmon Air Force Base is a former World War II United States Army Air Forces airfield, and postwar United States Air Force Base on Guam in the Mariana Islands. Originally named "Depot Field", it was renamed in honor of Lieutenant General Millard F. Harmon, who was killed on a routine flight from Hawaii in March 1945 over the Marshall Islands when his plane was lost. Despite the most intensive search by Army and Navy planes and surface vessels, no trace of the plane was ever found. On February 27, 1946, he was declared officially dead.

Contents

History

Harmon Field was the headquarters for the XXI Bomber Command and later Twentieth Air Force which directed the B-29 Superfortress strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese Home Islands. It was also the major B-29 aircraft depot and maintenance facility in the Western Pacific during the war, and that mission continued for Far East Air Forces until its closure.

Harmon was used operationally by the USAF 11th Bombardment Group as an operational B-29 Base after the warp the 9th Bombardment Group as a base for strategic reconnaissance missions and by the 374th Troop Carrier Group, being used by Technical Service Command for transport of supplies and equipment from its depot facilities. Harmon AFB was closed in 1949 due to budget constraints and was merged with the neighboring Naval Air Station Agana.

Today, the technical facilities are an industrial area to the northeast of the Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport, which served as the main airfield for both Harmon AFB and NAS Agana.

Major units assigned

56th Air Depot Group, Air Technical Service Command, 9 November 1944 – 31 August 1945
24th Air Depot Group, Air Technical Service Command, 8 November 1944 – 1 July 1949
55th Air Depot Group, Air Technical Service Command, 1 January 1945 – 21 December 1945
25th Air Depot Group, Air Technical Service Command, 21 January 1945 – 1 November 1949

See also

United States Air Force portal
Military of the United States portal
World War II portal

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.

External links