Squantum Victory Yard

Naval Air Station Squantum

Squantum Naval Air Station was active from the 1929 until 1953. The airport on which it was based, Denison Field, dates back to 1910. It was based on Squantum Point, located in Quincy, Massachusetts. It also abuts Boston Harbor.

History

Early usage of the airfield dates to 1910 when the Massachusetts Naval Militia used the field for training. During WWI, the Navy took the field over and used it for a shipyard and a base for coastal patrols. "Squantum Victory Yard" was constructed specifically for the building of destroyers for the war effort, to free up the Fore River Shipyard for other vessels including the battlecruiser USS Lexington. It it said to have had in 1931 a 30 acre triangular cinder field. It was also said to have had 3 runways, with the longest being an 1,800' east/west strip, along with a 120' x 120' landplane hangar & a 100' x 60' seaplane hangar. In 1940, the base expanded and the shipyard was razed, partially because it was gutted by a previous fire. Yet its location on a peninsula pretty much doomed it during the dawn of the jet age. Interestingly enough, the 1946 & 1949 USGS topo maps labeled the property as “U.S. Naval Reservation”, but did not depict an airfield. Yet the airport's location also doomed it again. It was very close to Logan International Airport. Its proximity was so great that the Boston Logan Instrument Landing System was lined up almost perfectly with Runway 2 of Squantum.

Squadrons Based There

854 Naval Air Squadron

Closure

The location of the airport doomed it to be closed in 1953. Operations were moved to the nearby South Weymouth NAS. In 1957, the Navy transferred to the Air Force for an electronic research annex, the Squantum Electronics Research Annex. By 1960, the site was labeled "Abandoned Airport."

Present-Day Usage

Today a marina sits on its northern end; the air station's main hangar was its main building into the 1990s. Boston Scientific is also located on the site. A 2,700 foot portion of the primary northwest runway was opened to the public in 2001 as Squantum Point Park. Other than that, condominiums and other buildings dot the landscape of the former naval air station.

Famous People

Amelia Earhart flew from and had financial interests in the air station.
Harriet Quimby and William A.P. Willard were killed there in a place crash on July 1, 1912.