Brunswick Naval Air Station, Maine
Naval Air Station (NAS) Brunswick, Maine, is located 26 miles northeast from Maine's largest city, Portland, and 31 miles south from the capital city of Augusta. Brunswick is the largest town of a tri-town area made up of Brunswick, Topsham, and Bath. The cost of living is higher in the immediate area of the base, but decreases as you travel any direction (except south) of the station. The total population of the 3 towns is approximately 40,000. Brunswick is situated on the Androscoggin River which flows into Merrymeeting Bay and then into the Atlantic Ocean, located only a few miles away.
NAS Brunswick serves the military members and families of one operational squadron and supports the Naval Operation Support Command, one reserve squadron (VR-62), Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Bath, the crews of ships under construction at Bath Iron Works and the Fleet Aviation Specialized Operational Training Group Atlantic Detachment (FASO). NAS Brunswick also supports an outstanding team of DoD civilian employees and members and families of other services, including the Army Recruiting Battalion and the Marine Corps Reserve Training Center, both located at the Topsham Annex.
Family Housing here is privatized.
This base is scheduled for closure in May of 2011.
Constructed on land which from the 1700's had been used only for the purpose of growing blueberries, NAS, Brunswick, Maine, was commissioned on April 15, 1943. The primary purpose was to train Canadian and British Air Force pilots of the British Naval Command. This activity continued until the end of WWII. The base was deactivated in 1947, and reactivated in 1951, with the primary mission of anti-submarine warfare.