Harmon Air Force Base Depot Field |
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Part of Twentieth Air Force (FEAF) | |
Harmon Field, Guam, 16 December 1944 |
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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.
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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.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.
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