As Britain could afford neither to lose the use of Bermuda as a base for British forces, nor to allow it to fall into the hands of an enemy that would make similar use of it against Britain, vast sums were invested during the Nineteenth Century on its defence, which had previously been left from 1612 to 1701 to the non-professional military forces (militia and volunteers),[7] with the addition of a small force of regular infantry from 1701 'til the Napoleonic Wars (excepting several years between the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence during which there were no regular soldiers). During the Nineteenth Century the regular Board of Ordnance and British Army establishment in Bermuda grew large.[8][9]
The large number of fortified coastal artillery batteries that the amateur gunners had erected primarily along the north-eastern sends of St. George's Island, Paget Island, Governor's Island, and St. David's Island, the fortifications at Castle Harbour, along the South Shore of the Main Island, and the western coasts of the Main Island, Somerset Island, Daniel's Island, and Ireland Island, were re-built and re-armed with more modern weapons, or (particularly in the case of the South Shore batteries on the Main Island) or stripped of their fixed armament and converted into prepared gun positions to which mobile artillery pieces could be deployed as required from Prospect Camp via the military road built along the South shore in the 1860s. The only shipping channel by which any of Bermuda's harbours could be reached through the encompassing barrier reef by large vessels ran close to shore at the East End, rounding St. David's and St. George's Island to give access to the northern lagoon (where Murray's Anchorage, the old anchorage used by the Royal Navy from the 1790s while the naval base was at St. George's Town pending the construction of the dockyard, was located off St. George's Island), the Great Sound (a large, nearly enclosed body of water, including the main naval anchorage at Grassy Bay, with its main opening at the North to the Northern lagoon, and minor entries between Ireland and Boaz Islands, between Boaz and Watford Islands until the Army built an isthmus to link them, between Watford and Somerset Islands, and between Somerset and Main Islands via Ely's Harbour and a narrow channel over which Somerset Bridge, Bermuda was constructed.
1885 Map of Bermuda and its reefs, showing the Hogfish Cut (channel)
Due to the location of the main channel through the reefs being at the East End, the bulk of the fortifications and fixed coastal batteries from the Nineteenth Century were located there, armed with large, high-velocity guns capable of reaching and sinking large vessels off shore or entering or navigating the channel. Three large forts (Fort Prospect, Fort Langton, and Fort Hamilton), known collectively as the Prospect Hill Position, were built in Prospect Camp to prevent any enemy force that succeeded in landing on the Main Island from advancing field guns to Spanish Point on the eastern side of the mouth of the Great Sound, from where they might fire upon the Royal Naval Dockyard or naval vessels anchored at Grassy Bay. The small batteries along the South Shore had been generally been armed with small calibre fixed guns by the volunteer artillery as they were expected to be employed against small boats attempting to carry landing parties over the reefline to the South Shore beaches. The regular Royal Artillery anticipated the same employment, which could be met more economically in both material and manpower terms by a handful of field guns kept at Prospect Camp and drawn wherever required by horse team.
At the West End, however, were two minor channels used mainly by fishing boats and small ocean-going vessels. The Battle of Wreck Hill had taken place here during the American War of Independence, when entry via the Hogfish Cut was attempted by two rebel sloops under the command of a pair of Bermudian brothers who had settled in South Carolina, but were familiar with Bermuda's reefs and channels.[10] The Wreck Hill Fort atop the eponymous hill that stands on the Peninsula of Flemish Wreck (which partly encloses the western side of Ely's Harbour) succeeded in halting their progress, but these small batteries were only fortified against fire from offshore vessels and were vulnerable at the rear to landing parties. The rebel sloops landed men to act as infantry who attacked the fort from behind, forcing the gunners to abandon it, then spiked its guns before retreating themselves.
As the advent of the torpedo boat meant a fast attacking force of small vessels capable of wreaking havoc on the naval squadron anchored at Grassy Bay could enter the Great Sound by this way, fixed batteries were maintained in the West End forts, though generally with smaller guns than at the East End suitable for use against small, unarmoured, but fast-moving, vessels at close range.
Another threat to the naval base came from any military force that might succeed on crossing over the reefline and landing on the South Shore, which might then advance over land to the West End.
For this reason, a defensible dry moat was cut across Somerset Island, through Scaur Hill, from Ely's Harbour to the Great Sound. This line would be defended with small arms by infantry behind the ramparts, but artillery support was provided by two 64 Pounder Rifled Muzzle-Loader (RML) gun on Moncrieff disappearing mounts. One of these was placed in a small keep at the salient, facing south-eastward, the mount gave it 360-degrees of traverse. The other was in an emplacement to the west of this, facing south-westward. The guns had a range of 4,000 yards, capable of firing not only on infantry advancing from the Main Island, but also on vessels navigating the western channel or the Great Sound. The keep containing the eastern gun emplacement is polygonal, of the Prussian style, with a defensive wall and dry moat to the rear defended by a block house. The western emplacement is open to the rear. As with most of the forts and batteries built in Bermuda with earthwork to obscure and protect them, it is nearly invisible from the water. A water catchment and tanks were built to the north of the polygonal fort. With the new fort on Scaur Hill, the Wreck Hill Fort, which it overlooks, was excess to need and abandoned.[11]
With its muzzle loading guns obsolete, the fort was used during the First World War only as a site to which field guns or howitzers could be deployed when required, and as a training area for infantry. As part of the extensive cutbacks made to the British Army in the period of Government austerity that followed the First World War, the Bermuda Garrison was run down in stages. The regular infantry, which had numbered between one and three battalions since the start of the Nineteenth Century, was reduced to a single battalion, then a wing, then a company, and finally a detachment. The companies of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers were removed in 1928, leaving only a handful of regulars assigned to the Command Staff or the Permanent Staff of the part-time units. Responsibility for maintaining the defences in a ready-for-war condition was placed fully upon the part-time units, requiring their re-organisation (the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps re-organised from a volunteer to a territorial unit in 1921.[12] The Bermuda Militia Artillery (one of the last remaining British militia artillery units at the time) was too small to man all of the batteries still in use at that point, and consequently only the two 6 inch guns at St. David's Battery were kept ready-for-war.[13] Although the District Establishment of the Royal Artillery maintained guns in a handful of other batteries, and the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Bermuda (who was also the civil Governor)[14] at the start of the Second World War requested the addition of more 9.2 guns to the defences (together with re-activating the three already in place at St. David's Battery and Fort Victoria), the British Government could not spare funds on improving the colony's defences, or on building an airfield sorely need for tans-Atlantic flight (there being two air stations at Bermuda at the start of the war, RAF Darrell's Island and Royal Naval Air Station Bermuda on Boaz Island, but both only for use by flying boats).[15] Instead, free ninety-nine year base rights were granted to the United States, which began building both the United States Naval Operating Base, Bermuda (in the Great Sound, immediately southward of Scaur Hill Fort) and the United States Army's Kindley Field on Castle Harbour while the United States still neutral. These base leases were appended to the Destroyers-for-bases deal but Britain received no war material in exchange. Kindley Field, however, was to be used jointly by Britain, with both the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force moving some of their operations there, utilising landplanes, when the airfield became operable in 1943.[16] The United States forces also took responsibility for anti-submarine air patrols around Bermuda, and the United States Army's Bermuda Base Command and the United States Marine Corps units deployed to protect the American naval base made increasing the British Army's garrison unnecessary. The only new coastal artillery battery built during the war was the Warwick Camp Battery of two 6 inch guns, built in 1939 on a hilltop on the Southampton side of the Warwick-Southampton parish boundary (replacing a handful of older coastal batteries within the boundaries of Warwick Camp).
The United States Army Coast Artillery Corps emplaced a large number of railway and fixed coastal artillery guns about Bermuda, most on or beside the locations of older British or British colonial batteries, such as at Coopers's Island, Fort Victoria, and Fort Langton. The US Army placed two 8 inch railway guns at Scaur Hill, immediately to the north of the fort's water catchment. The United States Army also built a network of Base End Observation Posts (roughly a dozen identical towers on hilltops about Bermuda) to co-ordinate the fire of all of the British as well as American guns.[17]
The United States Army Coast Artillery Corps and all of the American army or marine infantry not required for the sole defence of the American bases was withdrawn from Bermuda. The British Army would maintain St. David's Battery until 1953, a few years before the British Army de-activated all of its remaining coastal artillery.
During the Second World War, the Allies had divided control of the Atlantic between the Royal Navy in the east and the United States Navy in the west, subordinating the Royal Navy's America and West Indies Station to the United States Naval command. Although the Royal Navy restored the Commander-in-Chief of the station after the war, with the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, the control of the western Atlantic remained with the United States Navy. With the British Government also keen to reduce its expenditure in light of its war deb and the British Empire rapidly shrinking, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda was reduced to a base in 1951 (which finally closed in 1995), with the ships based there required to cross the Atlantic to Britain for refit or repair. The Commander-in-Chief America and West Indies was abolished in 1956. With the run-down of the naval establishment in Bermuda, the last regular army units in Bermuda (including the staff of the Command Headquarters, a company of infantry detached from the battalion at Jamaica, and various detachments and attachments from supporting corps) were withdrawn in 1953, though a detachment of infantry was returned to Prospect Camp within weeks due to the pending Three-Powers Conference hosted in Bermuda by Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, (the other participants being US PresidentDwight David Eisenhower and French Prime MinisterJoseph Laniel), which was delayed for months before taking place in December, 1953.[18] During the conference, Churchill was convinced to permanently restore the Bermuda Garrison, but the impending end of National Service and substantial reductions to the regular army resulted in the closure of the garrison in 1957, with all regular units withdrawn. All remaining Admiralty and War Department land in Bermuda was transferred to the colonial government in 1958.
Today
The local Government of Bermuda maintains the fortifications and surrounding natural space at Scaur Hill as a public park. Parts of the disappearing gunmounts remained at the fort, though the guns had been removed. Numerous guns of various types and vintages littered Bermuda, however, and the eastern emplacement is now occupied by a reproduction mount containing the original counterweight, fitted with an original gun, and parts for a second await assembly (in 2019) at the western emplacement.
Related Research Articles
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.
Kindley Air Force Base was a United States Air Force base in Bermuda from 1948–1970, having been operated from 1943 to 1948 by the United States Army Air Forces as Kindley Field.
Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications.
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.
'Warwick Camp' was originally the rifle ranges and a training area used by units of the Bermuda Garrison based elsewhere in the colony. Today, the Camp is the home of the Royal Bermuda Regiment.
The BL 6-inch gun Mark VII was a British naval gun dating from 1899, which was mounted on a heavy travelling carriage in 1915 for British Army service to become one of the main heavy field guns in the First World War, and also served as one of the main coast defence guns throughout the British Empire until the 1950s.
Coastal defenceand coastal fortification are measures taken to provide protection against military attack at or near a coastline, for example, fortifications and coastal artillery. Because an invading enemy normally requires a port or harbour to sustain operations, such defences are usually concentrated around such facilities, or places where such facilities could be constructed. Coastal artillery fortifications generally followed the development of land fortifications, usually incorporating land defences; sometimes separate land defence forts were built to protect coastal forts. Through the middle 19th century, coastal forts could be bastion forts, star forts, polygonal forts, or sea forts, the first three types often with detached gun batteries called "water batteries". Coastal defence weapons throughout history were heavy naval guns or weapons based on them, often supplemented by lighter weapons. In the late 19th century separate batteries of coastal artillery replaced forts in some countries; in some areas these became widely separated geographically through the mid-20th century as weapon ranges increased. The amount of landward defence provided began to vary by country from the late 19th century; by 1900 new US forts almost totally neglected these defences. Booms were also usually part of a protected harbor's defences. In the middle 19th century underwater minefields and later controlled mines were often used, or stored in peacetime to be available in wartime. With the rise of the submarine threat at the beginning of the 20th century, anti-submarine nets were used extensively, usually added to boom defences, with major warships often being equipped with them through early World War I. In World War I railway artillery emerged and soon became part of coastal artillery in some countries; with railway artillery in coast defence some type of revolving mount had to be provided to allow tracking of fast-moving targets.
The Bermuda Garrison was the military establishment maintained on the British Overseas Territory and Imperial fortress of Bermuda by the regular British Army and its local militia and voluntary reserves from 1701 to 1957. The garrison evolved from an independent company, to a company of Royal Garrison Battalion during the American War of Independence, and a steadily growing and diversifying force of artillery and infantry with various supporting corps from the French Revolution onwards. During the American War of Independence, the garrison in Bermuda fell under the military Commander-in-Chief of America. Subsequently, it was part of the Nova Scotia Command until 1868, and was an independent Bermuda Command from then until its closure in 1957.
Prospect Camp, also referred to as Prospect Garrison, was the main infantry camp of the Bermuda Garrison, the military force stationed in the Imperial fortress of Bermuda. It also contained Fort Prospect, Fort Langton, and Fort Hamilton, as well as being the base for mobile artillery batteries, manned by the Royal Artillery. Outlying parts of the camp were disposed of in the early decades of the Twentieth Century as the garrison in Bermuda was reduced. The core area, including the barracks, passed to the local government when the garrison was withdrawn in 1957.
The Historic Town of St George and Related Fortifications is the name used by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee to identify collectively as a World Heritage Site St. George's Town, founded in 1612, and a range of fortifications, batteries, and magazines built between 1612 and 1939, the last of which was removed from use in 1953.
St. David's Battery is a disused fixed battery on St. David's Island, Bermuda maintained until 1953 by the Bermuda Garrison of the British Army. It was built and manned by the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Royal Engineers, and their part-time reserves, the Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers. Its rifled breech-loader (RBL) artillery guns guarded the eastern approach to St. George's Harbour. In wartime it served as an examination battery.
The Western Redoubt, or Fort William, is a square fort built on a crest on the eastern side of Government Hill, and within the boundaries of the original main British Army camp in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, St. George's Garrison.
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.
The Bermuda Base Command was a command of the United States Army, established to defend the British Colony of Bermuda, located 640 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It was created in April 1941 when United States Army troops were sent to the island.
Fort Victoria is a disused British Army fort, built to house coastal artillery atop Retreat Hill, within St. George's Garrison, at the North-East of St. George's Island, in the British colony of Bermuda.
The Bermuda Militia Infantry was raised in 1939 as a part-time reserve of the British Army's Bermuda Garrison.
St. George's Garrison was the first permanent military camp of the Bermuda Garrison established in the British colony and Imperial fortress of Bermuda, with construction of Old Military Road and the original Royal Barracks commencing during the war between Britain and France that followed the French Revolution. It would remain in use until 1957, when it was transferred to the civil (colonial) government with most of the other Admiralty and War Office properties in Bermuda.
Lord Salisbury described Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and Halifax as Imperial fortresses at the 1887 Colonial Conference, though by that point they had been so designated for decades. Later historians have also given the title "imperial fortress" to St. Helena and Mauritius.
Fort George is a square fort built on the crest of Mount Hill to the west of St. George's Town, near to, but outside of the boundaries of the original main British Army camp in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, St. George's Garrison.
References
↑ Stranack, Royal Navy, Lieutenant-Commander B. Ian D (1977). The Andrew and The Onions: The Story of The Royal Navy in Bermuda, 1795–1975. Bermuda: Island Press Ltd., Bermuda, 1977 (1st Edition); Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, Royal Naval Dockyard Bermuda, Ireland Island, Sandys, Bermuda, 1990 (2nd Edition). ISBN9780921560036.
↑ Grove, Tim (22 January 2021). "Fighting The Power". Chesapeake Bay Magazine. Annapolis: Chesapeake Bay Media, LLC. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
↑ METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AT THE FOREIGN AND COLONIAL STATIONS OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS AND THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT 1852—1886. London: Published by the authority of the Meteorological Council. PRINTED FOR HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE BY EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, East Harding Street, Fleet Street, London E.C. 1890.
↑ Willock USMC, Lieutenant-Colonel Roger (1988). Bulwark Of Empire: Bermuda's Fortified Naval Base 1860–1920. Bermuda: The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press. ISBN9780921560005.
↑ Ingham-Hind, Jennifer M. (1992). Defence, Not Defiance: A History Of The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps. Bermuda: The Island Press. ISBN0969651716.
↑ Kennedy, R.N., Captain W. R. (1 July 1885). "An Unknown Colony: Sport, Travel and Adventure in Newfoundland and the West Indies". Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, Scotland, and 37 Paternoster Row, London, England. p.111. As a fortress, Bermuda is of the first importance. It is situated almost exactly half-way between the northern and the southern naval stations; while nature has made it practically impregnable. The only approach lies through that labyrinth of reefs and narrow channels which Captain Kennedy has described. The local pilots are sworn to secrecy; and, what is more reassuring, by lifting buoys and laying down torpedoes, hostile vessels trying to thread the passage must come to inevitable grief, So far Bermuda may be considered safe, whatever may be the condition of the fortifications and the cannon in the batteries. Yet the universal neglect of our colonial defences is apparent in the fact that no telegraphic communication has hitherto been established with the West Indies on the one side, or with the Dominion of Canada on the other.
↑ VERAX, (anonymous) (1 May 1889). "The Defense of Canada. (From Colburn's United Service Magazine)". The United Service: A Quarterly Review of Military and Naval Affairs. LR Hamersly & Co., 1510 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; subsequently LR Hamersly, 49 Wall Street, New York City, New York, USA; BF Stevens & Brown, 4 Trafalgar Square, London, England. p.552. The objectives for America are clearly marked,—Halifax, Quebec, Montreal, Prescott, Kingston, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. Halifax and Vancouver are certain to be most energetically attacked, for they will be the naval bases, besides Bermuda, from which England would carry on her naval attack on the American coasts and commerce.
↑ Ingham-Hind, Jennifer M. (1992). Defence, Not Defiance: A History Of The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps. Bermuda: The Island Press. ISBN0969651716.
↑ Maurice-Jones, DSO, RA, Colonel KW (1959). History of The Coast Artillery in the British Army. UK: Royal Artillery Institution.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Dawson, George M.; Sutherland, Alexander (1898). MacMillan's Geographical Series: Elementary Geography of the British Colonies. London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, London, England, UK; The MacMillan Company, New York City, New York, USA. p.184. There is a strongly fortified dockyard, and the defensive works, together with the intricate character of the approaches to the harbour, render the islands an almost impregnable fortress. Bermuda is governed as a Crown colony by a Governor who is also Commander-in-Chief, assisted by an appointed Executive Council and a representative House of Assembly.
↑ Pomeroy, Squadron Leader Colin A. (2000). The Flying Boats Of Bermuda. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda: Printlink Ltd. ISBN9780969833246.
↑ Rovere, Richard H. (19 December 1953). "LETTER FROM BERMUDA". The New Yorker. New York City, New York, USA: Condé Nast. Retrieved 21 August 2021. The results of the Bermuda Conference between Prime Minister Churchill, President Eisenhower and Premier Laniel, are secret. It was an important meeting, however, and history may not reckon it as a disaster because it appears to have been innocuous. Right after the meeting Pres. Eisenhower made a speech before the UN General Assembly in N.Y. on atomic energy. Everyone wonders if the speech was merely endorsed by or actually inspired by Churchill. At the conference the Western Allies were supposed to decide on a common stand for future dealings with Russia.
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