Ernest Harmon Air Force Base - Construction and Operation

Construction and Operation

During 1940, Germany was threatening the majority of Europe, as well as North America through its successful air, land and sea campaigns. The destructiveness of the Luftwaffe (air force) and Kriegsmarine (navy) in the Battle of Britain and Battle of the Atlantic alarmed military planners in the United States who theorized that the Nazis could in future establish a beachhead on the island of Newfoundland and the adjacent French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon and use it for launching air attacks and eventually land and sea attacks on the industrial heartland of North America.

In 1940, the United States entered into the Destroyers for Bases deal with the government of the United Kingdom, allowing the US military to establish facilities in British Overseas Territories in the Western Hemisphere. The primary focus for North American defence from Nazi aggression was Newfoundland, which the United States sought to arm as a geographic buffer much as it was doing with its Alaska territory to defend North America against Japan in the northwest.

The United States established an administrative army air force base named Fort Pepperell (no airfield) in St. John's, along with a deepwater naval base and naval aviation field at Argentia on the Avalon Peninsula. The northeast coast of Newfoundland and the strategically important Strait of Belle Isle were left exposed, therefore military planners sought to establish an army air force base on 8,159 acres (33.02 km2) of land at the northeast end of Bay St. George near the coastal hamlet of Stephenville. The 76th Congress approved the 99 year lease and in April 1941, construction began on a deepwater port and adjacent air field.

The air force base was originally referred to as Stephenville Air Base. On September 1, 1943, the Newfoundland Base Command transferred control of the Stephenville Air Base to the North Atlantic Wing, Air Transport Command. The base was actively used throughout the war and was one of the largest U.S. military airfields located outside of the continental United States; it was capable of landing the largest cargo aircraft in the world at that time and the base became a frequent stopping and refueling point for USAAF aircraft crossing the Atlantic. Stephenville Air Base was renamed Ernest Harmon Air Force Base on June 23, 1948, in honor of Captain Ernest Emery Harmon. Capt Harmon was a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot who was killed in an air crash in 1933. The deepwater port which supported the base was named Port Harmon at this time.

Ernest Harmon AFB was transferred to Northeast Air Command in October 1950. The 6605th Air Base Wing served as the host unit at the base. In April 1957, with the rising threat of nuclear war, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) assumed control of the base for use as a forward refuelling point. The 6605th Wing was superseded by the 4081st Strategic Wing. Ernest Harmon AFB became home to a fleet of KC-97 Stratotanker air refueling aircraft, which were kept on alert in order to meet and refuel nuclear armed B-52 Stratofortress bombers in the skies over western Newfoundland. The base also saw use as a refueling stop for transatlantic military flights and the base supported three Aerospace Defense Command (ADC) units. On the 16 September 1951 a bulldozer accidentally destroyed 200 feet (61 m) of 51 pair telephone cable before construction began on the new runway. Restoration of telephone service was completed 48 hours later. Base Communications personnel laid the cable and the splicing and repair was done by the Avalon Telephone Company of Newfoundland. The cable was buried 25–30 feet below the new runway. In 1957, the Canadian Department of Transport constructed an airport terminal to accommodate Trans-Canada Air Lines (now Air Canada) commercial flights; Ernest Harmon AFB being the only air field in western Newfoundland.