Hanscom Air Force Base

Hanscom Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force base located predominantly within Bedford, Massachusetts, with portions extending into the adjoining towns of Lincoln, Concord and Lexington. The facility is adjacent to Hanscom Field which provides general aviation and charter service.

Hanscom AFB is a part of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, one of six centers under Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC). The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center is the single center responsible for total life cycle management of Air Force weapon systems and is headquartered at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The host unit at Hanscom is the 66th Air Base Group (66 ABG) assigned to AFMC.

A portion of the base is listed as a census-designated place by the U.S. Census Bureau for statistical purposes. The resident population as of 2020 was 1,516 at the 2020 census.

A non-flying base, Hanscom Air Force Base is named after Laurence G. Hanscom (1906–1941), a pilot, aviation enthusiast, and State House reporter who was killed in a plane crash at Saugus, Massachusetts. Hanscom was a reporter for the Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram & Gazette and the Wilmington (MA) News. Hanscom was active in early aviation, founding the Massachusetts Civil Air Reserve. At the time of his death, Hanscom had been lobbying for the establishment of an airfield in Bedford. The base was named in his honor on 26 June 1941.

Hanscom Field, a civilian general-aviation airport adjacent to the Air Force Base, and Massport are the primary operators of the air field and runways. Less than one percent of the air traffic at Hanscom Field is military aircraft.

Hanscom Air Force Base began its existence while the United States was considering its entry into World War II. In May 1941, the Massachusetts Legislature authorized the purchase of a large tract of farmland spanning the borders of the towns of Bedford, Lincoln, Concord and Lexington for a Boston Auxiliary Airport. Funds to build the new airport were contributed by the federal government, which had appropriated $40 million to build 250 new civil airports across the United States that could serve for future national defense.

In mid-1942, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts leased the Bedford airport to the War Department for use by the Army Air Forces. Fighter squadrons trained there in 1942 through 1943. The 85th Fighter Squadron and the 318th Fighter Squadron, who trained at Bedford on the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, went on to combat in North Africa and Europe.

In February 1943, the airport was renamed Laurence G. Hanscom Field in honor of a Massachusetts-born pilot and aviation enthusiast who had been a reporter for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Hanscom had died in February 1941, in an aircraft accident in Saugus, Massachusetts, while he was lobbying vigorously at the State House for the establishment of the airport at Bedford.