South Weymouth Naval Air Station museum will now be open monthly

The Shea Field Naval Aviation Historical Museum, at 495 Shea Memorial Drive at the closed air base, has been open by appointment only, but that's about to change.

The nonprofit Patriot Squadron, an affiliate of the national Association of Naval Aviation, plans to open the museum from 9 to 11 a.m. on the last Saturday of each month, beginning this weekend.

The is no admission charge.

"We are starting gradually," Marc Frattasio of Pembroke, a member of Patriot Squadron's board of directors, said Sunday. "If we have more volunteers and there is an interest from the public, we can open it on more Saturdays."

The museum is a repository for photos, documents and other artifacts connected to the military history and heritage of the South Weymouth base, which closed in 1997.

The 1,400-acre site, now called SouthField, is being redeveloped into a mixed-use residential and commercial community.

"This is a legitimate museum," said Frattasio, a Navy veteran and one-time member of Patrol Squadron 92 at the air base. "The developers have promised that we will get a permanent home at some point. We certainly feel we have enough material to open it to the public."

The museum's temporary quarters are in the Shea Fitness Center, the former Navy gymnasium.

"We are hoping that (having regular hours) may induce people to donate to the museum," said Frattasio, 50, an information systems manager for NStar and a private pilot. "We want to let them know there is a repository for this sort of material."

Patriot Squadron consists of veterans and others interested in continuing the legacy of Navy and Marine Corps aviation in eastern Massachusetts. Many of them were assigned to Navy or Marine Corps units at the air bases in South Weymouth and Squantum in Quincy.

In addition to the museum, Patriot Squadron maintains Shea Memorial Grove, a small park that has a cosmetically restored Douglas A-4B Skyhawk jet as its centerpiece. Pilots flew Skyhawks from the air base during the 1960s.

For more information, visit www.anapatriotsquadron.org or e-mail [email protected]

WEB EXTRA