History
Hanscom Air Force Base is named after Laurence G. Hanscom (1906–1941) in honor of the pilot, aviation enthusiast, and State House reporter who was killed in a plane crash at Saugus, Massachusetts when he had been lobbying for the establishment of an airfield in Bedford. Laurence G. Hanscom was a reporter for the Worcester Telegram-Gazette. Hanscom was active in early aviation, founding the Massachusetts Civil Air Reserve. The base was named in his honor on 26 June 1941.
Founded at the start of World War II, the focus of Hanscom had shifted from combat missions to radar technology development by the end of the war. After the war, Hanscom encouraged the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to institute a research laboratory, Lincoln Laboratory, with which it collaborated to develop the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) air defense system. In 1961, Hanscom became the headquarters for the Air Force's Electronic Systems Division. Hanscom developed several important systems for intelligence-gathering aircraft in the 1970s and 1980s, and underwent significant expansion in the 1980s.
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