diff --git a/Lib/urllib2.py b/Lib/urllib2.py
index abc84b1..2641619 100644
--- a/Lib/urllib2.py
+++ b/Lib/urllib2.py
@@ -1172,6 +1172,8 @@
                 r = h.getresponse()
         except socket.error, err: # XXX what error?
             raise URLError(err)
+        finally:
+            h.close()
 
         # Pick apart the HTTPResponse object to get the addinfourl
         # object initialized properly.