Prior to American entry into the
Second World War, an agreement was arranged between the governments of British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill and U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt for the loan of a number of obsolete, mothballed ex-US Naval
destroyers to the
Royal Navy and the
Royal Canadian Navy, in exchange for which the USA was granted 99-year base rights in a number of British
West Indian territories. This
Destroyers for Bases Agreement, a forerunner of the
Lend-Lease Agreement, had the sleight-of-hand effect of placing the defence of those territories in the hands of the neutral USA, allowing British forces to be sent to the sharper ends of the War. Although not part of this exchange, Churchill also granted the US similar base rights in
Bermuda and
Newfoundland, however no destroyers or other war material were received by Britain in exchange.
Naval Operating Base The grants came as a surprise to the
Colonial Government, when US engineers arrived in 1940 to begin surveying the colony for the construction of an airfield that was envisioned as taking over most of the West End of the Island. Frantic protests by the Governor and local politicians led to those plans being revised. The
US Army would build an airfield at the North of
Castle Harbour. The US Navy would build a flying boat station at the West End. The US Navy began initial operation of
Anti-submarine patrols by an Inshore Patrol squadron flying
Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplanes operating from the
Royal Air Force station on
Darrell's Island, while its own base was being constructed. trains in the Internal Security (IS) role at NAS Bermuda Annex in 1994. Two islands at the western side of
Ely's Harbour,
Tucker's and
Morgan's, were levelled, adding to Bermuda's landmass, and creating a peninsula extending from the Main Island. The entire base measured . It was not long enough to allow a useful runway, but did have extensive
tarmac and
hangar areas. Large
Martin flying boats could be pulled ashore for hangarage, and servicing. When the area was first occupied by the
US Navy, it was titled the
Naval Operating Base. Once the
Naval Air Station was completed, the US Navy relocated its air operations to it from Darrell's Island. The base continued to be used for this purpose until 1965, when the last flying boats were withdrawn from service. US Navy
P-2 Neptune landplanes, based at the USAF's
Kindley Air Force Base, then took over the
maritime patrol role. The former Naval Air Station was redubbed the
Naval Air Station Bermuda Annex (NAS Annex). It served primarily as a dock area for US Naval shipping, until the closure of all of the US bases at the end of the
Cold War, in 1995.
Kindley Field The
US Navy moved its
anti-submarine air-patrol operations from the old flying boat base, to the USAF Base at Kindley Field when its
Martin P5M Marlin flying boats were removed from service in the 1960s. They were replaced by
Lockheed P-2 Neptune landplanes, which could not operate from the Annex (the old flying boat base), which had no hard surface runway ashore. The US Navy took over the airfield entirely from the USAF in 1970 and the base continued to operate anti-submarine patrols, first with P-2 Neptunes, then with Lockheed
P-3 Orions. In the 1980s, the P-3s were occasionally augmented by carrier-based
S-3 Vikings operating ashore, as well as Canadian Forces' Lockheed
CP-140 Aurora and
Royal Air Force Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR.2 aircraft. from
VP-16 returning to NAS Bermuda, 1985. By the early 1990s, the range of
Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) had so increased that
Soviet submarines no longer found it necessary to come within range of Bermuda-based patrol aircraft in order to strike their targets in the United States. This was followed by the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1991, and a general lessening of tensions between the USSR's successor state, the
Russian Federation and the US. Reflecting these developments, the US Naval air detachment at Bermuda had been steadily reduced from a full squadron of Regular Navy P-3Cs on six month rotations to an average of three P-3B or P-3C aircraft, primarily from Atlantic Fleet
Navy Reserve P-3 squadrons on 60-day rotations, plus the air station's own
UH-1N Twin Huey search and rescue aircraft. In 1992, a scathing investigative report by
Sam Donaldson, of
ABC News, labelled the base as the '
Club Med of the Navy', because of its questionable use by senior military officers and DoD civilian and other U.S. Government civilian officials as a
de facto vacation retreat. Subsequently, all three US Naval bases in Bermuda were slated for closure by
BRAC. Except for the
NASA tracking station on
Coopers Island (at the Eastern End of NAS Bermuda), all US facilities in Bermuda were closed in 1995. of
VS-22 at NAS Bermuda, 1985. The Bermudian government took over operation of the field in 1995, being obliged to spend a great deal of money making it conform to international civil standards. This involved changes to lighting systems, fencing, and razing any objects over a certain height, within a certain distance of the runway (which included both the former base commander's residence, and the hillock it stood on). The US Government still held the lease, which was for initially set at 99 years back in WWII however, until negotiations were completed regarding the cleanup of toxic waste left behind. The cost of clean-up of all US Navy facilities in Bermuda was then estimated at $65.7 million, although that included $9.5 million for replacing the Longbird Bridge. The final compromise negotiated by the UK, Bermuda, and USA governments, which comprised an $11 million payment for the replacement of Longbird Bridge, has been denounced by many in Bermuda as a betrayal, but the field has now been transferred entirely to the Bermuda Government as the
Bermuda International Airport. It was an alternative landing site for NASA's
Space Shuttle. Areas for clean-up identified in 1997 by a private contractor were: • Cleaning up petroleum and heavy-metal contamination • Eliminating
friable and non-friable asbestos • Demolishing derelict and unsafe buildings • Replacing Longbird Bridge, which they described as unsafe and prone to malfunction The estimated cost was $65.7 million: • $11.7 million would be spent on the environmental cleanup. • $30.9 million would be spent on removing asbestos. • $8.6 million would be spent on demolition. • $5.1 million would be spent on managing the work. • $9.5 million would be spent on replacing Longbird Bridge. The lands which hosted the base were formally returned to Bermuda in 2002. == Additional US Navy Commands formerly in Bermuda ==