Duke of Windsor visits the Bermuda Flying School

The Bermuda Flying School operated on Darrell's Island from 1940 to 1942. It trained Bermudian volunteers as pilots for the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

and the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, roughly twenty Bermudians had entered the Royal Flying Corps and its successor, the

(RAF), as aviators and many others as groundcrew. Other than aircraft on visiting ships, there were no aircraft based in Bermuda 'til after the war, when returning military aviators, Majors Hal Kitchener (son of the late governor, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick

Walter Kitchener Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Walter Kitchener (26 May 1858 – 6 March 1912), also known as Walter Kitchener, was a British soldier and colonial administrator. Military career Kitchener was the youngest son of Henry Horatio Kitchener (1805� ...

, and nephew of Field Marshal

Earl Kitchener Earl Kitchener, of Khartoum and of Broome in the County of Kent, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1914 for the famous soldier Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener, 1st Viscount Kitchener of Khartoum. He had alread ...

) and Hemming, created a small company offering local flights in sea planes operating from Hinson's Island. In 1936,

Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passengers ...

built an air station on Darrell's Island. This operated as a staging point on scheduled trans-Atlantic flights by flying boats of Imperial Airways and

Pan American Pan-American, Pan American, Panamerican, Pan-America, Pan America or Panamerica may refer to: * Collectively, the Americas: North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean * Something of, from, or related to the Americas * Pan-Amer ...

. At the time, no land planes could operate from Bermuda, there being no airfields. With the start of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the RAF in Bermuda took over Darrell's Island for use by RAF Transport Command and

RAF Ferry Command RAF Ferry Command was the secretive Royal Air Force command formed on 20 July 1941 to ferry urgently needed aircraft from their place of manufacture in the United States and Canada, to the front line operational units in Britain, Europe, North Af ...

. Although the Royal Navy had a

dockyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance ...

in Bermuda (which included an air station, RNAS Boaz Island (HMS Malabar) for flying boats), and Canadian and American naval and airbases would be established during the war, the only local units were the part-time army units, the

Bermuda Militia Artillery The Bermuda Militia Artillery was a unit of part-time soldiers organised in 1895 as a reserve for the Royal Garrison Artillery detachment of the Regular Army garrison in Bermuda. Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies were in ...

(BMA), Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC),

Bermuda Volunteer Engineers The Bermuda Volunteer Engineers was a part-time unit created between the two world wars to replace the Regular Royal Engineers detachment, which was withdrawn from the Bermuda Garrison in 1928. History The Military Garrison in Bermuda From 189 ...

(BVE), the

Bermuda Militia Infantry The Bermuda Militia Infantry was raised in 1939 as a part-time reserve of the British Army's Bermuda Garrison. History The Bermuda Garrison The Parliament of Bermuda had authorised three part-time reserve units in 1892 to re-inforce the regu ...

(BMI), and

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting w ...

. These, along with a regular army detachment of infantry at Prospect Camp, formed the

Bermuda Garrison 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 f ...

, tasked with defending the various facilities of importance to the war effort. Although a contingent from the BVRC, with attachments from the other units, was sent to join the

Lincolnshire Regiment The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army regiments ...

in England in 1940, no further drafts were allowed to be sent for fear of weakening the defences. By 1943, this was no longer a concern and the moratorium was lifted. It was decided to create a flying school on Darrell's Island to train local pilots for the

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...

in Britain, which would assign them to the RAF or the

. The school was in operation by the summer of 1940. It operated a pair of Luscombe sea planes, paid for by an American resident of Bermuda, Mr Bertram Work, and a Canadian, Mr Duncan MacMartin. The school was under the command of Major

Cecil Montgomery-Moore Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore DFC (1 July 1899 – 8 December 1970) was an American-born Bermudian First World War fighter pilot, and commander of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers and the Bermuda Flying School during the Second World War. Early l ...

, DFC, who had served as a fighter pilot during the First World War. Between the wars, he had returned to Bermuda and became the Commanding Officer of the BVE, a position he would maintain throughout the Second World War. The chief flying instructor was an American, Captain Ed Stafford. The first class, of eighteen students, was in training by May 1940. On 4 June, Fenton Trimmingham became the first student to solo. Ten Bermudian companies agreed in June 1940, to defray the expenses of ten of the students. Those companies were the

Bank of Bermuda The original logo of The Bank of Bermuda before it joined the HSBC Group HSBC Bank Bermuda Limited, previously the Bank of Bermuda Limited, is a financial services company in Bermuda providing retail and corporate banking, investment, custody an ...

, the Bank of N.T. Butterfield, Trimmingham Bros., H.A. & E. Smith, Gosling Bros., Pearman Watlington & Company, the Bermuda Electric Light Company (BELCO), Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company, the Bermuda Telephone Company (TELCO), and Edmund Gibbons. RAF Darell's Island

The BFS only accepted applicants who were already serving in one of the part-time units, which had been mobilised for the duration of the war. Successful students were released from their units and allowed to proceed overseas. With the moratorium against sending drafts overseas, this meant local soldiers came to see the BFS as the easiest way of reaching sharper ends of the war. Although the local units were allowed to send drafts overseas in 1943, the preceding state of affairs meant that a disproportionately high number of aviators appears on the list of Bermuda's war dead (ten out of thirty-five). In fact, the first Bermudian killed in the war was Flying Officer Grant Ede, DFC, a fighter pilot killed in the Battle of Norway in 1940 (although Ede had joined the RAF in England before the war). By 1942, the Air Ministry had a glut of trained pilots. This had resulted from the fear created by the Blitz, and the Battle of Britain, when the RAF had assumed pre-eminence in Britain's defence against a feared Axis invasion. Desperate for pilots, too many had been allowed to train, or had been placed on backlists to await slots for induction and training. This would continue to be a problem as late as 1944, when the British Army was forced to disband a division after Operation Overlord due to a shortage of manpower. At the same time, the Air Ministry had the equivalent of a division of civilians waiting aircrew training slots, and already had more aircrew than it had aircraft available for them to man. This would lead to pilots being transferred to the Army's

Glider Pilot Regiment The Glider Pilot Regiment was a British airborne forces unit of the Second World War, which was responsible for crewing the British Army's military gliders and saw action in the European theatre in support of Allied airborne operations. Establis ...

, and to the lists of civilians reserved for aircrew training being cleared of men who were then able to be conscripted by the Army. In Bermuda, the excess of pilots meant that the BFS was advised in 1942 that no further pilots were required. By then, eighty pilots had been sent to the RAF and Fleet Air Arm. THE BFS was included in the

Empire Air Training Scheme The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), or Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) often referred to as simply "The Plan", was a massive, joint military aircrew training program created by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zea ...

. Its graduates included eight Americans, who had volunteered for the RAF in the US, and had then been sent to the BFS for training. Although the school was closed, Bertram Work and Major Montgomery-Moore oversaw the conversion of its administration into a recruiting arm, the Bermuda Flying Committee, for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), sending sixty aircrew candidates to that service before the War's end. Sixteen Bermudian women were also sent to the RCAF to perform roles including Air Traffic Controller. Flying instructor Captain Stafford moved to RAF Transport Command, and was later shot down, becoming a prisoner-of-war in Germany. He was piloting a Catalina on a flight from Darrell's Island to Largs in Scotland, on 7 April 1943. Nearing Britain, the crew were advised by radio to divert to RAF Mountbatten, near Plymouth, due to bad weather. Evidently due to a navigational error, they found themselves over occupied France and were shot down near Landéda, Brittany, by anti-aircraft artillery and two Luftwaffe fighters. The first officer was killed outright, and the navigator wounded. Stafford succeeded in landing the aeroplane two miles offshore, still under fire. Three, including Stafford, were pulled from the water by French fisherman. The bodies of two other crewmen washed up two days later, and the third three weeks later. As a POW, Captain Stafford headed a team of Allied orderlies in a wing of the Hohemark hospital, in Hesse, which was dedicated to the care of Prisoners of War from the Dulag Luft POW Camp in Oberursel (Taunus), Oberusel (which was to become Camp King of the United States Army after the war).Marshall Independent: Prisoner of War in Germany during WWII
The two Luscombe aircraft remained at Darrell's Island, being used by the RAF as station hacks. After the war they were used by the short-lived Bermuda Flying Club, created by returning pilots.

References

Bibliography

* ''Defence, Not Defiance: A History Of The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps'', Jennifer M. Ingham (now Jennifer M. Hind), The Island Press Ltd., Pembroke, Bermuda, * ''The Andrew And The Onions: The Story Of The Royal Navy In Bermuda, 1795–1975'', Lt. Commander Ian Strannack, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum, P.O. Box MA 133, Mangrove Bay, Bermuda MA BX. * ''Bermuda Forts 1612–1957'', Dr. Edward C. Harris, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum, * ''Bulwark Of Empire: Bermuda's Fortified Naval Base 1860–1920'', Lt.-Col. Roger Willock, United States Marine Corps, USMC, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum, * ''Flying Boats Of Bermuda'', Sqn.-Ldr. Colin A. Pomeroy, Printlink, PO Box 937, Hamilton, Bermuda HM DX, * ''Bermuda From Sail To Steam: The History Of The Island From 1784 to 1901'', Dr. Henry Wilkinson, Oxford University Press, * ''That's My Bloody Plane'', by Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore, DFC, and Peter Kilduff. 1975. The Pequot Press, Chester, Connecticut. . {{Coord, 32.2751, -64.8203, region:BM, format=dms, display=title Aviation in Bermuda Training establishments of the Royal Air Force Military units and formations established in 1940 Military units and formations of the Royal Air Force in World War II Warwick Parish Royal Air Force stations of World War II in Bermuda Military history of Bermuda during World War II Military units and formations of Canada in World War II

See also

References

Bibliography