This is the first part of an excerpt from "Four Centuries of Friendship: American Bermuda Relations 1609-2009", a new book conceived and edited by Marina Slayton, wife of US Consul General Gregory Slayton. This excerpt is the first half of Dr. Edward Harris' chapter on the decision to establish US bases in Bermuda in the Second World War.

Tomorrow: The construction of the bases

Captain (later Rear Admiral) Jules James was on duty at the Navy Department, Washington, DC, when he received orders to proceed immediately to Bermuda as the Commandant, Naval Operating Base.

Several conferences, including one with the President, stressed the "delicate situation at Bermuda, as this Naval Operating Base was the first ever to be established on British territory." James arrived in Bermuda on April 7, 1941.

"There was no one present from the Bermuda Government, or even the office of the US Consul General," he later wrote in his war diary. "The reception was distinctly cold."

Alone in an official sense, he took the train to Southampton upon misinformation about boating conditions. At 7 p.m. on the mainland, he read his orders and commissioned the

Naval Operating Base by raising the pennant of the Senior Officer Present. Meanwhile, local reporters coming by boat waited in vain for the ceremony to take place on the nearby Tucker's Island.

Admitting his troubles were many, James found a sympathetic ear in the British Vice Admiral Kennedy-Purvis and "discussed all questions with him with the same frankness I would have used with an American Admiral."

Despite the rocky start, James "was equally successful in the establishment of a complete understanding between the Allied local armed forces and in his unique ability in gaining and maintaining the goodwill of the Colonial authorities."

He would later write that his tenure on the Island, completed in 1943, was "one of the toughest ever assigned in modern times, (but I) will leave Bermuda with real regret."

The newly-built American base in Bermuda was tangible proof of the Island's strategic importance.

From earliest settlement, Bermuda was considered vital in the advancement of colonisation in the Americas and, as a result, the Island was heavily defended in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The independence of some of the continental American colonies and the cessation of war with America in 1783 underscored Bermuda's value in a changing sea world.

As peace was concluded on the American continent, Royal Engineers were assessing the defences of Bermuda in anticipation of future hostilities with the new American nation.

This fear of America's threat to British dominion of the Western Atlantic gave rise in 1809 to the British construction of a large naval dockyard on the Island's West End.

It also led to successive rearmaments and works in the defence of Bermuda in the 1790s, 1820s and the 1870s, with a final round of armament begun in the last days of Queen Victoria's reign.

By early 1939, the once-numerous guns at Bermuda had been reduced to two 6-inch guns at St. David's Battery.

Attitudes changed more slowly, but in a defence report for 1935, it could finally be declared that an "attack by the United States of America need not be considered".

James still met with considerable resistance from some of the British military at Bermuda, however, when he took up command of the new American base in April 1941.

Before the die was cast in Europe on September 3, 1939, the value of Bermuda to a British and American war effort had been recognised, as was the inability of the Crown, overextended in the defence of its empire, to assure protection of Bermuda, and thus the mantle passed to the US Forces.

The value of Bermuda in American military policy lay in the fact the Island was "the only base far enough off the central part of the Atlantic coastline of the United States to extend long-range patrolling by seaplanes into the Atlantic Ocean and to tie in coastal patrolling, both aerial and surface, with similar operations from Halifax and the West Indies.

Under US control, it provides a valuable location for a Naval Operating Base and for air operations against hostile air or surface forces in the Western Atlantic."

At the same time, Bermuda's fall to the enemy would turn these advantages around by using Bermuda as a forward station for an attack on the US East Coast and its shipping. Because of the strength of the British and American Navies in the Western Atlantic, the "local defensive forces in Bermuda need be only strong enough to protect against hostile raids by sea and air".

In these statements of late 1941 lay the commencement of three aspects of American works at Bermuda: the establishment of a Naval Operating Base, a land airbase, and the building of coastal defence works for the protection of both. An agreement for a seaplane base on Morgan's Island in the Great Sound was signed on September 1, 1939 — two days before Britain declared war on Germany.

This was apparently a result of work by the Hepburn Board, appointed in 1938 to consider American defence requirements in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean.

It also included some fast legwork by the Dills of Bermuda, who were given less than a week, prior to September 3, 1939, to go to the United States and obtain a lease for Morgan's Island, then owned by a member of the family.

Bayard (later, Sir) Dill managed to return to Bermuda on the evening of September 2 with the lease for Morgan's Island in hand.

The United States thus avoided an infringement of its neutrality when Britain went to war with Germany the next day.

In early August 1940, Britain proposed a continuation of the lease as a part of the Destroyers-for-Bases proposal and plans for the establishment of major naval and airbases at Bermuda got underway.

The British insisted the location of the bases be made by common agreement, which, in the case of Bermuda, was fortunate, for the original wording referred to a Warwick Parish site on "the Great Bay," which would have cut the main Island in two.

The airfield the Americans wanted to build at that site would have required a "wide corridor from coast to coast, dividing the Colony into two parts, and cutting railway and main road communications".

In addition, about 1,500 people would be displaced and their resettlement would be an enormous problem.

Recreational use of the Great Sound would have been greatly interrupted and the increase in shipping and storage of munitions could have been extremely detrimental to the people of Bermuda.

Strenuous objection was made by the Bermuda Government, and after a meeting on October 24, an alternative site for an airfield was chosen at the East End on Long Bird, St. David's and Cooper's Islands.

Matters moved rapidly. On November 3, 1940, an American team under Major D.G.

White arrived on the Island to survey, make land valuations on properties to be purchased, and amass engineering and construction data.

The following month, the US Survey Ship Bowditch began a hydrographic survey of the waters adjacent to the new bases. Representatives of the Surgeon General, the Office of the Chief of Engineers, the Army Signal Corps and others came and went with their recommendations.

In the final plan, Morgan's and Tucker's Islands and a part of the main Island in Southampton were to become the Naval Air Station (NAS) and Naval Operating Base (NOB).

Long Bird Island ultimately became 'Kindley Field,' and St. David's and Cooper's Island, the army base, 'Fort Bell.'

Additional parcels of land needed for base end stations and other facilities were added to the lease.

The Stars and Stripes was officially raised at NOB on March 1, 1941.

In an historical monograph compiled in 1945 by the US Corps of Engineers, there are several important sections on Bermudian reaction to the new bases. In 1939, the Island had a population of 1,600 per square mile, or about 32,000 inhabitants for a land mass of 20 square miles, making it the most densely populated country in the world.

It was largely self-governing, with a Parliament second only in age to Westminster and third-oldest worldwide after London and Iceland.

Voting was not universal, but based upon land holdings.

A high standard of living was generally shared by the whole community, the monograph added, and wages for unskilled labour ran at four times the Caribbean rate.

The final proposal for a Bermuda base far exceeded the original estimates and accounted for about eight percent of the Island.

The arrival of some 5,000 Americans, and latterly their families, would increase the population by 20 percent.

"It cannot be doubted that the establishment of a land airbase of the magnitude visualised must destroy many of the attractions and amenities which have brought Canadian and American visitors to Bermuda," the monograph surmised.

Because of the disruption of communications between the western end of Bermuda and the rest of the Island, and the resettlement problem, Bermudians recommended the use of islands on the northern side of Castle Harbour for the land airbase, some 150 souls being ultimately displaced from St. David's, Cooper's and Long Bird Islands.

An appendix to the monograph gave further insights into the fears held locally, noting the "government has always pursued policies which have tended to preserve the peace, charm and amenities of the Island, not only for the purpose of attracting visitors, but because the preservation of such amenities is essential to the Bermuda way of life".

One item then banned as a bane of modern life was the car and "no responsible opinion would sponsor an attempt to reintroduce mechanical road transport," after a short fling with automobiles in the 1930s.

The government had refrained from introducing a land tax, as the "subdivision of large tracts of land would be detrimental and would impair the beauty of the Island."

Prior to 1920, the local economy was based on agriculture and the expenditures of the British garrison and dockyard.

American protectionism destroyed the former trade in the first decades of the 1900s; the sector was slowly filled by the tourist trade which had previously contributed little, but by 1939 yielded 85,000 visitors a year. Most local wealth was founded in real estate, and it was thought the coming of the American bases would destroy its value, largely funded by the tourist and foreign-resident trade.

The collapse of land values would affect the franchise, which, in the eyes of property-holders, would result in serious political problems, since ordinary people of all races and classes might end up as voters.

The appendix concludes by saying it was difficult to overestimate the importance of closer ties between America and Bermuda and that such cooperation was desirable and inevitable: "Our people are intensely loyal to the Crown, have been happy and contented under British rule, and despite our admiration for the United States and its people, we dislike the prospect of any change in our present status.

"It is obvious that if the defence administration of Bermuda is to rest largely in American hands, for a period beyond the lifespan of any present Bermudian, succeeding generations will more and more come under American influence, and our British ties may similarly become imperceptibly weakened.

"We hesitate to appear to indicate that we do not welcome American cooperation in the defence of these Islands… nevertheless, it is the duty of the Bermuda Government to protect its people from economic chaos and financial bankruptcy. The war will end, but the lease continues in perpetuity and it is essential that succeeding generations of Bermudians be given a fair opportunity to achieve a reasonable and decent standard of living, which might prove impossible if the present proposals become operative."

Dr. Edward Harris is Executive Director of Bermuda Maritime Museum and author of Bermuda Forts 1612-1957, the definitive military history of the Island.