Bermuda was first documented by a European in 1503 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez. In 1609, the English Virginia Company, which had established Jamestown in Virginia two years earlier, permanently settled Bermuda in the aftermath of a hurricane, when the crew and passengers of Sea Venture steered the ship onto the surrounding reef to prevent it from sinking, then landed ashore. Bermuda's first capital, St. George's, was established in 1612.
While the defence of Bermuda remains the responsibility of the government of the United Kingdom, rather than of the local Bermudian Government, the island still maintains a militia for the purpose of defence.
HMS Orion was a Leander-class light cruiser which served with distinction in the Royal Navy during World War II. She received 13 battle honours, a record only exceeded by HMS Warspite and matched by two others.
Portland Harbour is located beside the Isle of Portland, Dorset, on the south coast of England. Construction of the harbour began in 1849; when completed in 1872, its 520-hectare (1,300-acre) surface area made it the largest human-made harbour in the world, and it remains one of the largest in the world today. It is naturally sheltered by Portland to the south, Chesil Beach to the west and mainland Dorset to the north. It consists of four breakwaters: two southern and two northern. These have a total length of 4.57 km (2.84 mi) and enclose approximately 1,000 ha of water.
HMS Sidon was a submarine of the Royal Navy, launched in September 1944, one of the third group of S class built by Cammell Laird & Co Limited, Birkenhead, named after the naval bombardment of Sidon in 1840. An explosion caused by a faulty torpedo sank her in Portland Harbour with the loss of 13 lives.
Jack Foreman Mantle, VC was a sailor in the Royal Navy and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
A stone frigate is a naval establishment on land.
Royal Navy Dockyards were state-owned harbour facilities where ships of the Royal Navy were built, based, repaired and refitted. Until the mid-19th century the Royal Dockyards were the largest industrial complexes in Britain.
HMS Maidstone was a submarine depot ship of the Royal Navy. It operated in the Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. It was later used as a barracks ship and then a prison ship in Northern Ireland.
Ireland Island is the north-westernmost island in the chain which comprises Bermuda. It forms a long finger of land pointing northeastwards from the main island, the last link in a chain which also includes Boaz Island and Somerset Island. It lies within Sandys Parish, and forms the northwestern coast of the Great Sound. It is regarded as one of the six principal islands of Bermuda, and part of the West End of the archipelago.
HMD Bermuda was the principal base of the Royal Navy in the Western Atlantic between American independence and the Cold War. The Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda had occupied a useful position astride the homeward leg taken by many European vessels from the New World since before its settlement by England in 1609. French privateers may have used the islands as a staging place for operations against Spanish galleons in the 16th century. Bermudian privateers certainly played a role in many English and British wars following settlement, with its utility as a base for his privateers leading to the Earl of Warwick, the namesake of Warwick Parish, becoming the most important investor of the Somers Isles Company. Despite this, it was not until the loss of bases on most of the North American Atlantic seaboard threatened Britain's supremacy in the Western Atlantic that the island assumed great importance as a naval base. In 1818 the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda officially replaced the Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax, as the British headquarters for the North America Station (which would become the North America and West Indies Station after absorbing the Jamaica Station in 1830.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) operated from two locations in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda during the Second World War. Bermuda's location had made it an important naval station since US independence, and, with the advent of the aeroplane, had made it as important to trans-Atlantic aviation in the decades before the Jet Age. The limited, hilly land mass had prevented the construction of an airfield, but, with most large airliners in the 1930s being flying boats, this was not initially a limitation.
HMT Bedfordshire (FY141) was an armed naval trawler in the service of the Royal Naval Patrol Service during World War II. Transferred to the East Coast of the United States to assist the United States Navy with anti-submarine patrols, she was staffed by a British and Canadian crew. Bedfordshire was sunk by the German submarine U-558 on 11 May 1942 off the coast of Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, with the loss of all hands.
Rear Admiral Charles John Austen CB was an officer in the Royal Navy and the youngest brother of novelist Jane Austen. He served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and beyond, eventually rising to the rank of rear-admiral.
Blue Beach Military Cemetery at San Carlos is a British war cemetery in the Falkland Islands holding the remains of 14 of the 255 British casualties killed during the Falklands War in 1982, and one other killed in early 1984. It is situated close to where 3 Commando Brigade had its initial headquarters after landing on 21 May 1982.
The Naval Museum of Halifax is a Canadian Forces museum located at CFB Halifax in the former official residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the North America Station (1819–1905). Also known as the "Admiralty House", the residence is a National Historic Site of Canada located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The museum collects, preserves and displays the artifacts and history of the Royal Canadian Navy.
The United States Naval Station Whites Island was a United States Navy (USN) facility located on White's Island in Hamilton Harbour, in the British Colony of Bermuda, 640 miles off the coast of North Carolina.
HMS Castle Harbour was a civilian harbour vessel of 730 tons that was taken-up from trade (TUFT) during the Second World War by the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda for use by the Royal Naval Examination Service and later armed and commissioned as a warship, providing harbour defence from submarines.
HMS Sumar (FY1003) was a yacht purchased by the Admiralty of the United Kingdom during the Second World War converted to an armed yacht and equipped for anti-submarine warfare, replacing HMS Castle Harbour as the Royal Naval Examination Service vessel at Bermuda. She was based at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda until the end of the war.
