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Point of Interest

Houlton Army Airfield

Street Address: 5 Terminal Dr, Houlton, ME 04730, USA

In 1939, an airfield was built outside Houlton, Maine as a Work Relief Project, within a kilometre of the international border. From 1939 through 1941, America could not legally sell military equipment directly to belligerent countries without violating its neutrality. However, military aircraft flew into the Houlton airfield and few ever flew out. A keen observer would have noted aircraft being towed by tractor from the airfield across the international border into New Brunswick to Parks Hill. There the Woodstock highway would be closed, while aircraft used its roadway as a runway. The first occasion this nefarious method was used was in June 1940 when 33 light Stinson Model 105 airplanes purchased by the French gvernment crossed the border. Plans had been made to build a companion airfield on the Canadian side of the border, but this became unnecessary when the United States entered the war in December 1941.

Once the United States had entered the war, the Houlton airfield was operated by the United States Army Air Corps with the primary functions of servicing aircraft and facilitating their transfer to Canada. On 5 December 1942, a twin engine light bomber, a Lockheed Ventura, from the RCAF Ferry Command, en route from Dorval, Quebec, to Gander, Newfoundland, experienced difficulties, circled the Houlton airfield twice, then crashed, killing all four crew members. The bodies of Co-Pilot Sergeant Leroy Beckwell, age 20, from Battville, Saskatchewan, and Navigator Sergeant Arthur Gordon Gibson, age 23, from St Catherines, Ontario, were returned to Canada for burial. Pilot Officer George Newall Harrison, age 22, of the Royal New Zealand Air Force was buried in the Veterans’ Plot in the Houlton Cemetery. This is the only New Zealand casualty from the Second World War to be buried in the United States. For reasons unknown, Radio Operator Sergeant Henry Bordewick, age 19, from Vancouver, was not returned to Canada but was buried beside his pilot. Both these Commonwealth War Graves are carefully maintained by the Houlton Branch of the American Legion.