Bermuda, thanks to its geographical position, played a vital part in the development of transatlantic passenger services, which, in the 1930s and 1940s were almost always flown by flying boat. Bermuda and the Azores were regular stops for these magnificent aircraft, especially during the winter, when the north Atlantic storms forced them to take a southerly route.

¿ Tom Singfield, History of Bermuda Aviation

The real estate agent's maxim of "location, location, location" could have been invented to describe the reason for some of the most important developments in the history of Bermuda. When the island was settled in an organized way from July of 1612, one of the reasons for its occupation was its convenient location as an outstation for the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, which was having a rough start.

After the 13 mainland American settlements went Independent in 1776, the central location of Bermuda between Canada and the West Indies brought the island to global prominence as the main station in this hemisphere for the British navy.

Previously, all the British military expenditure had been used in the fortification and protection of the West Indies and its sugar resources, the calories that fueled the Industrial Revolution, if you will. One of the reasons why Britain lost the war in what became the United States was that the famous Admiral Rodney was busy taking St. Eustatius, instead of dealing with the interfering French navy at Yorktown.

Dear old Rodney also destroyed a number of Bermudian businesses at the Statia entrepot, which was a place, like Bermuda is now, where there was a permanent holiday from taxation and interference for the "international business" of the day, which was then shipping and trading.

The war ended in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris, bringing Bermuda a monetary windfall. Bereft of its harbours at Boston, New York, Charleston and the Chesapeake, the British military realised the location of Bermuda was perfect for a new imperial strategy to contain the United States and its navy.

Money poured into the island and a 50-year building boom began, from Fort St. Catherine in the east to the immense fortifications of Dockyard in the west. Later, in reference to its strength, the island was called "Gibraltar of the West", though its task was somewhat larger than defending the 20-mile mouth of the Mediterranean Sea.

The "Strait of Gibraltar" for Bermuda was the 700-mile gap between the island and the east coast of America, and from Nova Scotia to the north, to the Bahamas and West Indies to the south. The rock of Gibraltar was somewhat of a molehill compared to the mountain of territory under the Bermuda command.

That central Atlantic location proved valuable real estate once again, when the Americans, as Allies, took over the coastal defence of Bermuda and established two bases here, occupied from 1941 to 1995. The 700-mile strait became friendly territory and the United States through Bermuda extended its imaginary coastline by that distance, plus air-cover mileage, into the western North Atlantic.

In that similar period, the location of Bermuda became of value for transatlantic travel by aeroplane, or more exactly, boats that flew. Most islands in the 1930s did not have terrestrial landing fields for the new method of travel, so the flying boat was invented, which could "land" on the sea or in river estuaries.

Because of the limited range of those new "vessels", the marine terminals at Bermuda and the Azores became critical way stations for flying boats transiting the Atlantic. At first, these flights were mainly for cargo, but soon there was a demand for a passenger service from Bermuda to the United States and beyond.

Herein flew Imperial Airways, well not exactly flew, for Imperial's first flying boat arrived at Bermuda in boxes, as it was unable to fly the oceanic distance direct from Short's Seaplane Works at Rochester in Kent. In the Bermuda tradition of reusing cargo boxes, "the workmanship and strength of the packing crates was obviously appreciated by the locals because the largest one was also taken to Darrell's Island, where it became a workshop and late the headquarters for the Bermuda Flying School".

Unboxed and assembled here, Cavalier took its inaugural flight to the US on June 12, 1937 and thereafter made a number of flights before, like many boats, it was lost at sea, though most of the passengers were rescued.

The Imperial Airways flights to Bermuda had cut the journey to the US from 40 to five hours. In 1939, Imperial merged with British Airways Limited to become the British Overseas Airways Corporation, otherwise BOAC, or as was later said here "Bring Over American Cash".

Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Bermuda in June 1942 and publicly thanked the islanders for giving up land to make the two American bases, one of which would eventually be used for passengers' service by land planes.

Anxious to get home to war-torn Britain, he persuaded BOAC to run him back directly in the Berwick, a Boeing 314 flying boat. It was the only time that such a non-stop flight across the Atlantic was made by a Boeing 314 and it took a mere 18 hours, as opposed to seven days at sea.

As the last BOAC flying boat left Bermuda on January 17, 1948, a new land plane, a Lockheed Constellation, Baltimore, flew passengers to the island, to land at Kindley Field, ushering in the heady days of aeroplane tourism of the 1950s. Technological changes replaced such prop planes with jets in 1964 and design improvements brought the jumbo jet, the Boeing 747 in 1971, and a visit by Concorde in 1983.

British Airways was formed from BOAC in 1974 and privatised in 1987. Excepting the unfortunate loss of the Cavalier, through British Airways and its predecessors, Bermuda has enjoyed sterling service with London and other destinations for seven decades. Congratulations to British Airways on its 70th birthday at Bermuda, an occasion that will be marked with an exhibit at the Commissioner's House at the Maritime Museum, sponsored by BA.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 799-5480.