diff -r 1cb486f4e18d Lib/test/test_urllib.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_urllib.py	Thu Mar 17 11:04:34 2011 -0400
+++ b/Lib/test/test_urllib.py	Thu Mar 17 14:23:37 2011 -0400
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@
                          "did not return the expected text")
 
     def test_close(self):
-        # Test close() by calling it hear and then having it be called again
+        # Test close() by calling it here and then having it be called again
         # by the tearDown() method for the test
         self.returned_obj.close()
 
@@ -174,6 +174,11 @@
         finally:
             self.unfakehttp()
 
+    def test_willclose(self):
+        self.fakehttp(b"HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n\r\nHello!")
+        resp = urlopen("http://www.python.org")
+        self.assertTrue(resp.fp.will_close)
+
     def test_read_0_9(self):
         # "0.9" response accepted (but not "simple responses" without
         # a status line)
diff -r 1cb486f4e18d Lib/urllib/request.py
--- a/Lib/urllib/request.py	Thu Mar 17 11:04:34 2011 -0400
+++ b/Lib/urllib/request.py	Thu Mar 17 14:23:37 2011 -0400
@@ -1650,7 +1650,12 @@
         else:
             auth = None
         http_conn = connection_factory(host)
-        headers = {}
+
+        # Force decouple of HTTPConnection & HTTPResponse as we're not
+        # interested in Keep Alive. The response object should own
+        # the close action.
+        headers = {'Connection': 'close'}
+
         if proxy_auth:
             headers["Proxy-Authorization"] = "Basic %s" % proxy_auth
         if auth: