Harris Neck Army Air Field

Harris Neck Army Airfield is an abandoned military airfield located in what is now the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, McIntosh County, Georgia. It is located north of the intersection of Route 131 and Harris Neck Airport Road, about 30mi southwest of Savannah, Georgia.HistoryEarly yearsHarris Neck is a coastal peninsula located 30mi south of Savannah, Georgia in McIntosh County. The nearest town is South Newport, six miles (10 km) to the west. Originally named Dickinson's Neck, the peninsula was renamed when William Thomas Harris became the principal land owner in the mid 18th century.The original Harris Neck airfield was built in 1930 and leased from Courtney Thorpe by the US Dept. of Commerce. It was named "Harris Neck Intermediate Field Site #8", it was an emergency airfield for commercial and airmail planes on the Richmond-Jacksonville air route. The field consisted of a cross-shaped 93acre sod parcel, with two sod runways 2,600' east/west & 2,550' north/south. The emergency field was illuminated and included an 81 foot tall beacon tower, but offered only emergency services to pilots. Harris Neck Site 8 airfield was secured by an army detachment from Hunter airfield in Savannah on Dec. 7, 1941 and closed to the public on 1 January 1942 when the Civil Air Patrol began anti-submarine flights. It was closed for military use in 1943 when the new expanded military airfield was opened a half-mile north. There is no trace of the CAA airfield existence today but its outline by property fencing on the southern boundary.