Abandoned seaplane hangar Fort Pickering Salem MA P1000596

Coast Guard Air Station Salem was a

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, m ...

air station located in

Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the North Shore (Massachusetts), North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the ...

from 1935 to 1970. Its area of coverage extended from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to the

Canada–United States border The border between Canada and the United States is the longest international border in the world. The terrestrial boundary (including boundaries in the Great Lakes, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts) is long. The land border has two sections: ...

Mission

The air station's missions included search and rescue, law enforcement, counting migratory waterfowl for the U.S. Biological Survey, and assisting icebound islands by delivering provisions. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

anti-submarine An anti-submarine weapon (ASW) is any one of a number of devices that are intended to act against a submarine and its crew, to destroy (sink) the vessel or reduce its capability as a weapon of war. In its simplest sense, an anti-submarine weapo ...

patrols were also conducted from the air station.

History

With little room to expand at Coast Guard Aviation Station Ten Pound Island in

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east o ...

, a new air station was established at Salem in 1935. CGAS Salem was built with a barracks, hangar, a

radio shack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

, an

apron An apron is a garment that is worn over other clothing to cover the front of the body. The word comes from old French ''napron'' meaning a small piece of cloth, however over time "a napron" became "an apron", through a linguistics process cal ...

, and a

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

ramp; it never had facilities for fixed-wing landplanes. The station was built on

Winter Island Winter Island is an island connected by a causeway to Salem Neck in Salem, Massachusetts. It is about in size, and is bounded by Smith Pool to the northwest, Cat Cove to the west, Salem Channel to the south and east, and Juniper Cove to the ...

, on land adjacent to the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It be ...

vintage

Fort Pickering Fort Pickering is a 17th-century historic fort site on Winter Island in Salem, Massachusetts. Fort Pickering operated as a strategic coastal defense and military barracks for Salem Harbor during a variety of periods, serving as a fortification f ...

, and on or near the site of the construction of the sail frigate by one of

Enos Briggs Enos Briggs (1746–1819) was an American shipbuilder. Life He was born on July 20, 1746, in Pembroke, Massachusetts. He was the son of Seth Briggs, another shipbuilder. He died in Salem, Massachusetts in 1819. Career He is most famous ...

' shipyards in 1799. The station performed 26

medevac Medical evacuation, often shortened to medevac or medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to wounded being evacuated from a battlefield, to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of a ...

missions in its first year of operation. During World War II anti-submarine patrols were conducted from the air station. In October 1944 the station was the first on the eastern seaboard to be designated as part of the Air-Sea Rescue Service. In 1950, Air Detachment

Quonset Point Quonset Point (), also known simply as Quonset, is a small peninsula in Narragansett Bay in the town of North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Its name is widely known from the Quonset hut, which was first manufactured there. ''Quonset'' is an Algo ...

, Rhode Island was established as a sub unit of Air Station Salem. During the 1950s, helicopters were introduced with a great deal of success as a rescue platform. With the development circa 1960 of the Sikorsky HH-52A, an

amphibious helicopter An amphibious helicopter is a helicopter that is intended to land on and take off from both land and water. Amphibious helicopters are used for a variety of specialized purposes including air-sea rescue, marine salvage and oceanography, in additio ...

, the need for flying boats was lessened. The US Navy retired its last seaplane, the

P5M Marlin The Martin P5M Marlin (P-5 Marlin after 1962), built by the Glenn L. Martin Company of Middle River, Maryland, was a twin piston-engined flying boat that entered service in 1951, and served into the late 1960s with the United States Navy perfo ...

, in 1967. Therefore, air stations having only water landing capabilities, such as Salem, were phased out. It was replaced by

Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod is a United States Coast Guard air station located on Joint Base Cape Cod in Sandwich, Massachusetts. It operates from New York City to the Canada–US border. It was founded in 1970 as a replacement to Coast Gua ...

in 1970, and CGAS Salem closed that year. The station's surviving facilities are part of Salem's Winter Island Marine Park, and the radio shack was converted to the office of the Salem Harbormaster Department.

Aircraft

Over its history from 1935 to 1970 CGAS Salem operated numerous types of

s and

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

s. Seaplanes included the

Vought UO Vought was the name of several related American aerospace firms. These have included, in the past, Lewis and Vought Corporation, Chance Vought, Vought-Sikorsky, LTV Aerospace (part of Ling-Temco-Vought), Vought Aircraft Companies, and Vought Ai ...

-4,

General Aviation PJ The General Aviation PJ was a flying boat produced in the United States in the 1930s as a search-and-rescue aircraft for the Coast Guard. Design Originally designated FLB (for "Flying Life Boat"), it was a conventional high-wing cantilever mo ...

-1, J4F Widgeon, Curtiss SOC-4, Grumman JRF Goose, Vought OS2U Kingfisher, Martin PBM-5,

Consolidated PBY The Consolidated PBY Catalina is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft that was produced in the 1930s and 1940s. In Canadian service it was known as the Canso. It was one of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II. Catalinas served wit ...

, and the

Grumman HU-16 Albatross The Grumman HU-16 Albatross is a large, twin–radial engined amphibious seaplane that was used by the United States Air Force (USAF), the U.S. Navy (USN), and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), primarily as a search and rescue (SAR) aircraft. Origi ...

. Helicopters included the Sikorsky HO3S, HH-52A Seaguard, Piasecki HUP Army Mule, and the Piasecki HRP-1. An indoor

Link Trainer The term Link Trainer, also known as the "Blue box" and "Pilot Trainer" is commonly used to refer to a series of flight simulators produced between the early 1930s and early 1950s by Link Aviation Devices, founded and headed by Ed Link, based o ...

was also at the air station for pilot proficiency.CGAS Salem at airfields-freeman.com (archived)
/ref>
/ref>

References

External links

*http://uscgaviationhistory.aoptero.org/coldfusion/inactive_airsta_srch.cfm
Air Station Salem at USCG.mil (archived)
{{MA Airport United States Coast Guard Air Stations United States Coast Guard Aviation Military installations in Massachusetts Defunct airports in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Salem, Massachusetts Airports in Essex County, Massachusetts Closed facilities of the United States Coast Guard

Mission

History

Aircraft

See also

References

External links