Grenier Field

  June 1927 to present

  United States of America

CITY: Manchester, NH

IATA/ICAO CODES: MHT / KMHT

COORDINATES: 42°56'N / 71°26'W

OTHER NAMES: Manchester (1927-1940), New Boston AFS (1940-1942), Grenier Field (1942-1947), Grenier AFB (1947-1966), Manchester-Boston Regional (1978-present)

Right: over 100 aircraft parked at Grenier on their way to Europe in July 1944. In two years, the base grew from a small airfield in the forest to a major hub on the North Atlantic route.
Photo credit: USAF / Tom Hildreth

New Boston AFS, later Grenier Field, was a military base built just before World War II by the USAAF at the small Manchester airfield. Grenier Field served initially as a bomber and anti-submarine base for the North Atlantic.

Air Transport Command personnel visited Grenier on 4 December 1943, and recommended the North Atlantic Wing HQ relocate there from Presque Isle AAF, ME. The New Hampshire site offered several major advantages over the previous location. There were three 150 foot-wide paved runways at Grenier that ranged in length from 1,800 to 2,300 meters. The annual snowfall was considerably lower than in Maine, and close proximity to the coast made it a convenient alternate landing site for aircraft inbound from Europe. Grenier was not without shortcomings. Only one of its six hangars could properly accommodate heavy bombers. No suitable building on base existed to house the wing headquarters, so the Reconstruction Finance Corporation offered the Hoyt Building at 497 Silver Street for this purpose.

Under the command of Colonel Lawrence G. Fritz, ATC North Atlantic Wing operations began at Grenier on 1 January 1944. Fritz had flown the North Atlantic route many times as vice president in charge of operations at TWA. Grenier Field's main mission at this time was to equip and process transient heavy bombers and aircrew for overseas duty. Base personnel quickly aligned all of their efforts to support this critical role. Manchester soon became an Aerial Port Of Embarkation, and the first group of B-17s passed through the base on 18 January. By the end of 1944, the North Atlantic Wing would supervise the shipment of nearly 9,000 tactical aircraft to Europe and Africa from bases in the northeastern USA. A total of 170 B-17s arrived in Manchester in February, by which time extreme cold along the Northern Route had become a hazard. At Goose Bay, NL, fliers suffered frostbite as they serviced their aircraft. The majority of these young combat crewmen had recently trained at southern US bases, and it became the responsibility of instructors at Grenier to quickly educate them on the hazards of winter flying.

The processing of tactical aircraft at Grenier Field peaked during the summer of 1944, but a substantial flow of bombers enroute to the European and Mediterranean theaters continued into 1945. By the end of March, 5,447 heavy bombers had passed through Grenier since the beginning of North Atlantic Wing's operations 15 months earlier. Processing the 51,000 crewmen aboard these aircraft was a huge task. Many of the crewmen were given physical exams by base medical personnel. The staff at Grenier briefed the flyers on a wide range of operational subjects such as cruise control, ditching at sea, navigation techniques and radio procedures. Electrically-heated flight suits and box lunches were issued to all. The aircraft needed preparation also. Engine maintenance accounted for many thousands of man-hours. Flight controls had to be rigged and hydraulic leaks repaired while machine gun ammunition and other combat gear was taken aboard. For many of the aircraft the list of maintenance discrepancies was long.

Grenier was returned to civilian use in 1966.

110^th, 112^th & 1377^th AAF Base Unit (Grenier Field)

ATC North Atlantic Wing headquarters (1 January 1944 to unknown date)

Left: a Commando parked in front of Grenier's historical 1937 terminal building.
Photo credit: NH Aviation Historical Society