Royal Naval Air Station Bermuda

Walrus and Seafox seaplanes at RNAS Bermuda, at the original Royal Air Force-operated location in the North Yard of HM Dockyard Bermuda, in 1938

Supermarine Walrus at Royal Naval Air Station Bermuda at Boaz Island

Between World War I and World War II, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had assumed responsibility for operating the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA). From 1933, an RAF Coastal Command detachment at the HM Dockyard, on Ireland Island, was responsible for the maintenance of the aeroplanes carried by the cruisers based at Bermuda, which belonged to the Fleet Air Arm's No. 443 Fleet Spotter-Reconnaissance Flight (which was administered by RAF Coastal Command), starting with HMS Norfolk. Flight Lieutenant Thomas H. Moon was appointed for duty with R.A.F. Detachment Bermuda with effect from 23rd of January, 1934.[6]

This detachment, which originally operated on the dockside within the Dockyard, also held aeroplanes in store, crated in parts. When an aeroplane could not be repaired, another was assembled as a replacement.[7][8]

In 1936 it was decided to move the FAA operation outside of the yard, and to build a dedicated air station. The under-used Boaz Island, to the south of Ireland Island, was selected. The Island was covered with tarmac areas, two hangars, workshops and living quarters. As no landplanes were handled, there was no need for a runway. Seaplanes and flying-boats were brought ashore via two slips and in July 1936 718 (Catapult) Flight was formed equipped with Fairey 111 and Osprey aircraft. The Royal Naval Air Station was completed in 1939 and commissioned as HMS Malabar II, the year the Second World War began. The decision had by then been made that the Royal Navy would resume responsibility for its own air-arm. Although RAF personnel would continue to make up the shortfalls in the FAA's naval manpower, Boaz Island would be operated as a completely naval facility. The responsibility of the station remained the maintenance and storage of aeroplanes. The transfer took place on 24 May 1939 and 718 Flight became 718 Squadron now equipped with Supermarine Walrus amphibians and Fairey Seafox seaplanes in support of the six ships of the 8th Cruiser Squadron. On 21 January 1940, all the catapult units worldwide were combined into 700 Squadron and soon afterwards Malabar II was decommissioned and now operated as part of the main base HMS MALABAR (a stone frigate to which the Royal Naval shore establishment in Bermuda (but not the crews of ships on the station) belonged to administratively). As the waters around Bermuda became a working-up area for US Navy and Royal Canadian Navy, as well as lend-lease ex-US Navy vessels of the Royal Navy, vessels preparing to join the Battle of the Atlantic, Fleet Air Arm target tugs were based at Boaz Island to assist in training anti-aircraft gunners afloat or ashore. 773 Fleet Requirements Unit was formed at Bermuda on the 3 June 1940, equipped with Blackburn Roc target tugs. These were normally meant to operate from carrier decks, and had retractable undercarriage. To operate from RNAS Bermuda, they were fitted with floats. They towed targets for anti-aircraft gunnery practice by Allied vessels working-up at Bermuda (this included US Navy and lend-lease ex-US Navy vessels commissioned into the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy), as well as by a United States Navy anti-aircraft gunnery training centre operating on shore at Warwick Parish for the duration of the war. When the United States Army's Kindley Field became operational in 1943, the floats were removed from the Rocs, which thenceforth operated from the British end of the airfield as landplanes, being the first aircraft based there. 773 Fleet Requirements Unit disbanded on 25 April 1944.[9][10]

Although the Royal Air Force handed off RNAS Bermuda to the Royal Navy in 1939, the civil flying boat station at Darrell's Island, was taken over by RAF establishment in Bermuda for use by the Royal Air Force's own flying boats operated by Transport Command and Ferry Command during the War. The pre-war civil operator, Imperial Airways/BOAC, as a government airline, was put to war-service. The Bermuda Flying School, also operating from Darrell's, was created to train pilots for the RAF in 1940. The United States Navy would also begin its air operations from Bermuda with Vought Kingfishers based at Darrell's Island pending completion of the United States Naval Operating Base Bermuda.

Despite the presence of these two air stations, during the first years of the War there was no unit in Bermuda tasked with flying air patrols. Air cover became an immediate requirement as the Colony resumed its Great War role as a staging area for the formation of trans-Atlantic convoys. Air patrols were vital to combating the threat of German U-boats, and the FAA station at Boaz Island, making use of the large store of aeroplanes and munitions on hand, began operating its own air patrols, using whatever aircrew it had on hand. These included Naval pilots from ships in port, and RAF and Bermuda Flying School pilots from Darrell's Island.

Once the USA entered the war, the US Navy began operating anti-submarine air patrols from RAF Darrell's Island, then from its own base, USNOB Bermuda, in the West End (the United States Army built Kindley Field at the same time, at the East End), and the FAA station ceased its own air patrol. Its normal operations ceased, too, when it was placed on a 'care and maintenance' footing in 1944. By now catapult aircraft had in the main been retired.