Bermuda Base Command
Bermuda Base Command | |
---|---|
Active | April 1941–c. 1948 |
Country | United States |
Branch | United States Army |
Type | Command |
Part of | Eastern Defense Command |
The Bermuda Base Command was a command of the
. It was created in April 1941 when United States Army troops were sent to the island.History
Development of Imperial defenses of Bermuda
Although the
The Bermuda government had allowed the militia to lapse following the American
As an Imperial fortress, the British Government could not ignore Bermuda's defence, and as the local government had refused for decades to be bullied or duped into shouldering any part of the cost of the garrison, it fully-funded the new reserve units, which were considered fully parts of the British Army rather than Auxiliary forces (as the Yeomanry, Militia, and Volunteer force in the British Isles and British Empire originally were, and most in the British Overseas Territories remain), and which were necessarily incorporated into the regular garrison with their roles defined in the Imperial Defence Plan.
Following the First World War, with the removal of the threat posed to Britain maritime supremacy by the German navy, a peace that was presumed to be lasting, and a policy of economic austerity to recover from the cost of the war, the British Army was reduced below its pre-war capacity, with most colonial garrisons either removed or slashed. As Bermuda, with its Royal Naval Dockyard and, should it be captured, its potential usefulness to an enemy as a base to be used against British shipping, could not be left undefended, the War Office re-organised the local reserves from Militia and Volunteer units to Territorial units (the BVRC converted in 1921 and the BMA in 1928, though neither unit's name was updated to reflect the change) to enable the withdrawal of regular units, and funded new reserve units, which included the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (created in 1930), and the Bermuda Militia Infantry and the Home Guard (both created during the Second World War).
By the time war was declared in 1939, the professional component of the army garrison had been reduced to the Commander-in-Chief (normally a Lieutenant-General or Major-General, who also held the office of civil
The Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers had withdrawn their regular companies entirely in 1928, leaving their roles to their part-time reserves (the
In 1942, with the buildup of American units and artillery in Bermuda, as well as the containment of the German and Italian surface fleets to home waters, the moratorium on drafts overseas from the local units (which had been emplaced after a BVRC contingent had been sent to the Lincolnshire Regiment in England (with BMA and BVE attachments joining their respective corps) in June 1940) was lifted. As a consequence, in 1943 a Command Training Battalion was composed from contingents of volunteers from the BVRC and the BMA and BMI to prepare for deployment to Europe (the BVRC element traveled to England as a rifle company to join the Lincolnshire Regiment). The BMA and BMI soldiers were sent to North Carolina as the training cadre for the newly formed Caribbean Regiment, serving thereafter as part of that regiment in Italy, North Africa, and Palestine.
Support of the Allies by the neutral USA
The United States Navy had been leased
During the early years of the Second World War, the US Government, under President
As the war expanded (Germany had invaded the Soviet Union at the end of June), and Britain's purchases from US factories seriously upset the
American airbases in Bermuda
The Destroyers for Bases Agreement was originally meant to give the US leases in a number of West Indian territories. Ultimately, neither of the two most important base locations, both from the perspective of defending the United States from attack, and for the purposes of aiding and protecting air and sea transport across the Atlantic, was in the West Indies. As they were not originally part of the Agreement, the 99-year leases granted to the US for bases in Bermuda and
Two bases were planned for Bermuda, a US Navy base to cater to both shipping and flying boats, and a United States Army Air Forces airfield to allow landplanes to use Bermuda as a trans-Atlantic staging post as only seaplanes had previously been able to. When American surveyors arrived in 1941, the Bermudian government was horrified to learn that tentative plans called for depopulating and levelling most of the West of the archipelago and infilling the
The US Navy's
The US Army established
US Army ground forces in Bermuda
In addition to the airbases, the US built up a large garrison to protect its new assets and the entire archipelago from attack or invasion. US Army coast and field artillery batteries were put in long-term emplacements around Bermuda, from St. George's Island to Southampton.[5] This greatly supplemented the artillery defenses of the Bermuda Militia Artillery, the active forts of which contained only four 6-inch guns in April 1941, at St David's Battery and Warwick Camp.[6]
The
The US coast artillery firing batteries included:[13]
Location | No. of guns | Gun type | Carriage type | Years active |
---|---|---|---|---|
Scaur Hill Fort | 2 | 8-inch gun M1888 | railway M1918 | 1941-1944 |
Fort Victoria | 2 | 8-inch gun M1888 | railway M1918 | 1941-1944 |
Turtle Hill | 2 | 155 mm gun M1918 |
towed with "Panama mounts" | 1942-1946 |
Cooper's Island | 2 | 155 mm gun M1918 | towed with "Panama mounts" | 1942-1946 |
Tudor (Stone) Hill | 2 | 6-inch gun M1905 |
shielded barbette M1 | 1943-1946 |
Fort Victoria | 2 | 6-inch gun M1905 | shielded barbette M1 | 1943-1946 |
Fort Victoria | 4 | 90 mm gun |
fixed T2/M1 | unknown |
The railway guns were placed on short sections of track that were not connected to rail lines.[5] The 6-inch batteries at Tudor Hill and Fort Victoria were known as Battery Construction Numbers 283 and 284, respectively. The 90 mm guns were dual-purpose, and were called Anti-Motor Torpedo Boat guns.[13]
Postwar
The United States Army would continue to garrison Bermuda for the remainder of the war. Following the end of hostilities, the ground forces were withdrawn, other than those required for the defense of Fort Bell and Kindley Field. On 1 January 1946 the US Army Air Transport Command took control of the entire base. The airfield ceased to be distinguished within the base, as the name Fort Bell was discontinued, and Kindley Field was applied to the entire facility.[14] The US Army finally exited Bermuda in 1948, when the US Army Air Forces became the independent United States Air Force, and Kindley Field Kindley Air Force Base.[15][16][17]
See also
- Caribbean Defense Command
- Greenland Base Command
- Iceland Base Command
- Newfoundland Base Command
- Seacoast defense in the United States
References
Citations
- ^ a b Generously Given, Gladly Received: The US Bases in Bermuda and Charles Fahy. By Ross David Pollack. The Bermudian. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. March, 1998.
- ^ a b A Strong Base of Inestimable Value: The US Bases in Bermuda and Charles Fahy, Part II. By Ross David Pollack. The Bermudian. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. April, 1998
- ISBN 0-9698332-4-5.
- ISBN 0-921560-03-6
- ^ a b c McGovern & Harris 2018, pp. 45–50.
- ^ McGovern & Harris 2018, p. 56.
- ^ Stanton 1991, pp. 458–460, 478.
- ^ Conn, Engelman & Fairchild 2000, pp. 389–390.
- ^ Stanton 1991, p. 214.
- ^ Conn, Engelman & Fairchild 2000, p. 39.
- ^ Stanton 1991, p. 484.
- ^ Gaines, pp. 26-28, 33
- ^ a b Berhow 2015, p. 225.
- ^ Bermudians at NASA Tracking Station Cooper's Island, Bermuda: The History of Kindley Air Force Base
- ISBN 0-921560-11-7
- Edward C. Harris. The Royal Gazette. Published 28 July 2012
- ^ MEDICAL SUPPLY IN THE WAR AGAINST THE EUROPEAN AXIS, United States Army Medical Department Office of Medical History
Bibliography
- Berhow, Mark A., ed. (2015). American Seacoast Defenses, A Reference Guide (Third ed.). McLean, Virginia: CDSG Press. ISBN 978-0-9748167-3-9.
- Conn, Stetson; Engelman, Rose C.; Fairchild, Byron (2000) [1964]. Guarding the United States and its Outposts. United States Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army. Archived from the original on 25 December 2007. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
- Gaines, William C., Coast Artillery Organizational History, 1917-1950, Coast Defense Journal, vol. 23, issue 2
- McGovern, Terrance; Harris, Edward (2018). Defenses of Bermuda 1612–1995 (Fortress 112). New York: Osprey Publishing c/o Bloomsbury Publishing.
- Stanton, Shelby L. (1991). World War II Order of Battle. Galahad Books. ISBN 0-88365-775-9.