SEVERAL weeks ago, you were presented with a story about “strange craft in local waters” in 1919, which led to a merry research chase after a new type of American man-of-war, the submarine chaser. A long vessel, narrow in the beam, the sub chaser was the surface reaction to the new underwater threat of the submarine, the devastating effect of which the German Navy had demonstrated early in the First World War. From the air, the passing cahow or longtail might easily mistake this surface predator for its prey of the deep.

So it was that we considered that the strange craft seen at anchor in an early aerial, or bird’s eye, view of the harbour and city of Hamilton might be a group of sub chasers that passed through Bermuda on their way home to the United States in the autumn of 1919.

This theory was blown out of the water by two facts, one of chronology and the other lodged in another aerial photograph, probably taken minutes after the one presented a few weeks ago in this paper.

Chronologically speaking, it has turned out that there were no operational planes in Bermuda at the time the sub chasers ran through. According to Keith Forbes on his great public service web site, Bermuda ine<$>, the first plane ever to fly over the island took flight on May 22, 1919BK>Its<$> passenger was the Governor, Sir James Willcocks, who apparently dropped from the plane the first “air letter” ever “posted” here. The next plane to compete with the longtails for hegemony of Bermuda’s skies was one from the newly formed “Bermuda & West Atlantic Aviation Company Limited”, a mouthful of a business that eventually got off the ground, or rather the water, for the first time on December 11, 1919. Like the torpedo boats later converted for tourist cruises, the BWAACL purchased two surplus Royal Air Force “Avro” floatplanes. Their intention was to make the company a going concern by offering aerial joyrides over The Free Air Heaven<$>, as author Tom Singfield relates in his article of that name on the history of aviation at Bermuda.

The first joyride was on December 18; so it may be concluded that no one was capable of taking aerial pictures of the sub chasers at Bermuda between May 22 and mid-December 1919, because there were no planes flying here in that period.

Mrs. A.C.H. Hallett brought to light the second photograph, shown on the right in illustration No. 1, and her son, Maritime Museum trustee James Hallett, kindly “photoshopped” it into a usable image. For reasons given later, these two photographs are probably part of a set of the first bird’s eye views ever taken of Hamilton and its harbour, which we may date to the first week of June 1920.

Once Mrs. Hallett’s photograph was examined, it clearly showed the strange craft to be submarines, for it was taken at a slightly different angle and the shape of the hulls of the boats is unmistake.Two<$> stories emerge from this discussion; one concerns the identity of the submarines and the other that of the photographer who took the aerial views of Hamilton Harbour in which nine of them appear.A research cruise through the Bermuda Commercial and General Advertiser Recorder<$> (another mouthful) by LeYoni Junos revealed these islands of information.

On Friday, May 28, 1920, an American “O” class submarine (O-2) arrived as the first of seven vessels of the Eighth Division, out of New London. This news was published the following day, the reporter noting that “a flock of R-boats will be here next week probably”.

On Saturday, May 29, the O-7 and O-9 came in, the former “little war-boat” going aground on “Sugar-loaf Rock” in the harbour and interested groups gathered along Pitts Bay road and many watched the salving operations from Point Pleasant.

The newspaper noted that it had often been suggested that that reef should removed: a few charges of TNT properly applied would shatter it<$>. The proper application may have been that which took place in the building of new marinas a few years ago.

The following Thursday, June 3, four “R” class submarines of the Second Division steamed in, bound for Honolulu, and accompanied by the tenders,S Beaver<$> and “Eagle Boat” 14, bringing a total of 11 submarines at Bermuda.

On Monday, June 7, all seven of the “O” class submarines left on the return run to New London, after a week of manoeuvres in Bermuda waters. Given that there are nine submarines in the aerial photograph and if they were these, the picture had to be taken on the 4, 5 or 6 of June 1920, as the R-boats arrived in the evening and the O-boats left before noon, on the 3 and 7 respectively. A neat bit of dating for two photographs only stamped “P. Dowle” on the backf true.A private<$> eyewitness, the late Vernon Jackson, in his book e Jackson Clan<$> (a reference kindly provided by Keith Dubois), supplies the identity of the photographer. About 1919 I met a Frenchman, Monsieur Pierre Louis Dowle . . . known to everybody as er Dowle . . . <$>[he] marrie Bermudian; they had twin daughters named Josephine and Jeane. Mr. Jackson went on to relate that Dowle set up a photographic studio, where he, Vernon, worked into the 1940s.He then writes of the setting up of the Bermuda & West Atlantic flying operation on Hinson’s Island by Majors Kitchener and Hemming: I mention them because they made it possible for Mr. Dowle to fly in their plane and take pictures from the air for the Trade Development Board, the forerunner of the Depment of Tourism. I begged him to let me fly with him, but he explained that the plane was too small, so I never went up in that plane<$>, but surely that is its wing on the right of the aerial photo published here.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views are his opinion, not those of the Trustees or Staff of the Museum. Comments cae sent to drharris<$>@logic.bm or by telephone 799-5480.