Books for the Aviator in Your Life

The eyes of the United States Navy first focused on Quincy's Squantum peninsula in 1909, when daring young pilots from around the world gathered for the Harvard Air Meet. By the 1930s, the Victory Plant--a destroyer plant that set production records--had come and gone and the navy had set up the nation's first naval reserve aviation training center on the site. When air traffic over Boston Harbor thickened in the 1930s, the navy moved its aerial operations inland to the South Weymouth Naval Air Station. That base and its ubiquitous hangar became South Shore landmarks for more than a half-century. Squantum and South Weymouth Naval Air Stations brings back to life the early age of naval aviation on the South Shore, from biplanes to blimps to bombers and beyond.

The Coast Guard's deepest roots run through Massachusetts, the ancestral home to three of the five predecessor agencies that make up the service today. The Coast Guard formed in 1915 and since that time has served the citizens of the Bay State at lifeboat stations, air stations, lighthouses, LORAN stations, and radio stations, as well as on lightships and cutters of all sizes. They have protected the Massachusetts coastline during numerous wars, performing some of the most dramatic rescues in American history--from the Pendleton to the Argo Merchant to the Etrusco and more. The story of the Coast Guard in Massachusetts is one of heroism, honor, respect, and devotion to duty.

Shortly after the Wright brothers took to the air, aviation fever gripped Massachusetts. The biggest names in the industry, including Wilbur Wright, Glenn Curtiss, and Claude Graham-White, among others, flew in for the first major air shows, further exciting the people of the Bay State about the potential of manned flight in the realms of military tactics, the expansion of commerce, and even personal transportation. By the 1920s, Massachusetts had become home to the first Naval Air Reserve Base, in Quincy; one of the first Coast Guard Air Stations, in Gloucester; and the Boston Airfield, which would become the largest international airport in New England. Within a few decades, individuals like Edward Lawrence Logan, Frank Otis, Oscar Westover, and Laurence G. Hanscomb would permanently leave their names on the Massachusetts landscape in connection with the airports and airfields still used today.