Bangor Air National Guard Base

Bangor Air National Guard Base is a United States Air National Guard base located on the grounds of Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine.

Created in 1927 as the commercial Godfrey Field, the airfield was taken over by the U.S. Army just before World War II and renamed Bangor Army Air Field and later Dow Field. It became Dow Air Force Base (AFB) in 1948, when the newly formed U.S. Air Force took over many Army air assets.

In 1968, Dow AFB was closed as part of a nationwide reduction in stateside air force bases and naval air stations to free up funds for combat operations in Southeast Asia. The base was given to the city of Bangor by the General Services Administration as a civilian airport. Maine Air National Guard units continue to be based at the airport in a lease agreement with the city, in an area they had previously occupied when the base was under Air Force control.

Godfrey Field opened in 1927 as a commercial airport. Northeast Airlines began commercial operations there in 1931.

Just before World War II, the United States Army Air Corps took over the base, renamed it Bangor Army Air Field, and placed it under the 8th Service Group, Air Service Command. Bangor AAF prepared and maintained the Lend-Lease aircraft that would be flown by AAC Ferrying Command to RCAF Stations in Newfoundland for eventual transport to Britain. The Army expanded the civil airport, adding three hard-surfaced 7,000-foot runways, aligned 01/19 (N/S), 08/26 (NE/SW) and a main (NW/SE) runway aligned 14/32; along with many hardstands and taxiways to allow the temporary parking of large numbers of aircraft.

In 1942, the station's name was changed to Dow Field to honor James Frederick Dow, an Army Air Corps pilot whose bomber collided with another near Mitchel Field on Long Island, New York, on 17 June 1940. During this time, Milford Auxiliary Airfield was opened nearby at the Bangor Precision Bombing Range.

On 28 February 1942, Dow Field was transferred to Air Service Command (ASC) because of its proximity to the Air Transport Command (ATC) North Atlantic air ferry route to the United Kingdom. Its mission became servicing long-range Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and, later, Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers and other combat aircraft before they flew via the Great Circle Route to Prestwick Airport, Scotland; and airfields in Northern Ireland. One of the B-17s that passed through Dow became the most famous B-17 of the war, the Memphis Belle (aircraft). (Once in the British isles, the aircraft were modified for combat missions by Eighth Air Force units for use over Nazi-occupied Europe.) On 5 March 1944, Dow was transferred to Air Transport Command's North Atlantic Wing. In 1944, more than 8,400 aircraft passed through Dow, and about 2,150 in January through May 1945.

After the end of the European war in May 1945, many aircraft returned to the United States via Dow.