This is the latest in a series of occasional articles on the shared histories of Bermuda and the United States, which celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence this year. The articles, by Heritage Matters author Edward Harris, will run throughout the year.

A formal title of this essay would be something like “The Establishment of the US Naval Operating Base (NOB), Southampton, Bermuda in April 1941”, but for now the mysterious Yankee, “Mr Cook”, can stir this historical brew!

In other words, how did the American takeover (fortunately not hostile) of Bermuda come about, as the hurricane clouds of war hovered over Europe as a front of epic proportions, promising to rain cats and dogs, fat bombs and genocide on the denizens of France, Britain and the Low Countries. A couple of oblique statements from the War History (1939-1945) in the Bermuda Archives introduces the subject and the new chef de partie.

“On the 26th August [1939] a telegram was received from the British Ambassador in regard to certain matters under discussion between the United States Government and the British Government. This telegram arrived in the afternoon and a meeting was held at Woodcroft, Pembroke, the residence of the Acting Governor (Major Eric Dutton, CBE) and a reply sent.

“On the following day, urgent representations were received from British Ambassador in Washington that these matters should be satisfactorily concluded before the outbreak of war, should that come about [in nine days!].

“An American Naval Officer arrived in Bermuda on the 28th and stayed at the Belmont Manor Hotel under the name of Mr Cook. Negotiations took place and, as one of the parties to them was in United States, it was necessary for Mr. Bayard Dill, as the local legal representative, to make a visit to that country.

“It was impossible for him to get back in Bermuda in time, and an Agreement was signed by the Acting Governor and ‘Mr. Cook’ on the 2nd September. It was confirmed a few days later.”

Later in a booklet, Sir Bayard Dill related the family facts alluded to above, as he went, post haste, to New Jersey to the home of his sister, Ruth, the wife of Seward Johnson (of baby powder fame) for her signature.

She owned the two islands in the Little Sound that it seemed were the subject of the secret “certain matters” mentioned by the British Ambassador, presumably he at Washington DC. Mrs Johnson, I believe, signed over her Southampton properties freely, as the two allies arranged a lease for them for a US naval facility. Acreage on mainland Southampton was later commandeered from the Little Sound inland sea to the shining open sea below Tudor Hill.

The point of the exercise appears to be that as the United States had a lease before war broke out between Germany and Britain, the country could not be declared a belligerent by Germany if they, the Americans, started a base in Bermuda when not at war with Germany.

Thus it was that the US Naval Operating Base was established in April 1941, eight months before Germany and the United States were at war, following “the Day of Infamy” when on 7 December that year the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands.

Ruth Dill Johnson’s Tucker’s and Morgan’s Islands were soon flattened, and landfill created a causeway connecting the new peninsula with the mainland of Southampton. Several historical Bermuda homes were saved, only to vanish in recent developments. One had been lovingly restored by the Crane Family of US plumbing fame in the 1930s and became the “Officer’s Mess”, fully decked out in Bermuda cedar panelling and timberwork.

More land was needed in Southampton for the base and thus a number of Bermudian homeowners were displaced for the apparent common good and defence costs: a “land grab” some might insist!

The NOB provided the complimentary ocean elements to the land operations of Fort Bell and Kindley Field at the other end of Bermuda, operations that continued into the Cold War. At that time, “Argus Island” was erected on a seamount some 15 miles southwest of NOB to monitor Russian submarines passing to Cuba in a deep trench in the ocean to the west.

The propeller signatures, the DNA of each boat if you will, was transmitted to buildings at Tudor Hill at NOB and from there to the major US naval headquarters at Norfolk, Virginia.

One nuke from those Russian bears would have obliterated Bermuda, but in perhaps our usual laissez-faire attitudes, many were taken up with the new airplane tourist trade, thanks to the US taxpayers and Kindley Field, to register any concern.

As the US Army had taken over the coastal defence of Bermuda in the War, excepting four British 6-inch guns at St David’s Battery and Warwick Camp, two American guns were erected at Tudor Hill, overlooking the sea on the southern end of the Naval Operating Base, the gun pits and magazine surviving in a dense jungle of casuarinas and Mexican peppers.

Mr Cook left town, perhaps having laid the foundations for the friendly American “invasion” of Bermuda, which, with the airfield and other infrastructure additions, led to the considerable prosperity of the 1950-60s.

Not learning much about home defence from that military intrusion, it could appear that we economically shot ourselves in both feet in the early 1980s. By sheer luck, devastating hurricanes and a few bright sparks in the engines of law and insurance saved our bacon in the following years with the so-called “international business”.

Of course, from 1945 onwards, the biggest international business was and perhaps still is the American military. As with the British Army and the Royal Navy, our debt to the forces and personnel of the US forces can never be paid, but the occasional “thank you” might help.

In addition, my mother arrived from Boston with the Seabees to build Kindley and never went home, landing you lot with me and my rantings these 80 years past, hahaha!

• Dr Edward Harris is the founding executive director emeritus of the National Museum of Bermuda