The Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom, September 2, 1940, transferred fifty destroyers from the United States Navy in exchange for land rights on British possessions. The destroyers became the Town class.
Background
The Second World War started in September 1939. After the brief interlude of the Phony War, France and the Low Countries were quickly overrun by the Nazi German Blitzkrieg in the Battle of France in May 1940. This left the United Kingdom and Empire fighting alone (or almost alone after the Italian attack on Greece that autumn) against Germany.
Although the United States government was sympathetic to Britain's plight, American public opinion at the time overwhelmingly supported isolationism to avoid U.S. involvement in "another European war". Reflecting this sentiment, Congress had passed the Neutrality Acts three years previously, which banned the shipment of arms from the U.S. to any combatant nation, unless paid for in cash. Additionally, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was further constrained by the upcoming 1940 Presidential election, as his critics sought to portray him as being pro-war.
By late May, following the evacuation of British forces from Dunkirk, France, in Operation Dynamo, the Royal Navy was in immediate need of ships, especially as they were now facing the Battle of the Atlantic in which German U-boats threatened Britain's supplies of food and other resources essential to the war effort.
With German troops advancing rapidly into France and many in the U.S. Government convinced that the defeat of France and Britain was imminent, the United States sent a proposal to the United Kingdom through the British Ambassador, the Marquess of Lothian, for an American lease of airfields on Trinidad, Bermuda, and Newfoundland.[1] British Prime Minister Winston Churchill initially rejected the offer on May 27 unless Britain received something immediate in return. On June 1, as the defeat of France loomed, President Roosevelt bypassed the Neutrality Act by declaring as "surplus" many millions of rounds of American ammunition and guns, and authorizing their shipment to the United Kingdom. But Roosevelt rejected Churchill's pleas for destroyers for the Royal Navy.
By August, while Britain and the Commonwealth stood alone against Germany, the American Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy reported from London that a British surrender was "inevitable". Seeking to persuade Roosevelt to send the destroyers, Churchill warned Roosevelt ominously that if Britain were vanquished, its colonial islands close to American shores could become a direct threat to America if they fell into German hands.
The deal
Finally on September 2, 1940, as the Battle of Britain intensified and the Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force fought in the skies over England, United States Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, signaled agreement to the transfer of the destroyers to the Royal Navy.
In exchange, the US was granted land in various British possessions for the establishment of naval or air bases, on ninety-nine-year rent-free leases, on:
The agreement also stipulated Britain's acceptance of the US proposal for air and naval bases rights in:
The US accepted the "generous action… to enhance the national security of the United States" and immediately transferred in return fifty U.S. Navy destroyers "generally referred to as the twelve hundred-ton type" (also known in references as the "flush-deck" destroyers, or the "four-pipers" after their four funnels). Forty-three destroyers initially went to the British Royal Navy and seven to the Royal Canadian Navy. In the Commonwealth navies the ships were re-named after towns, and were therefore known as the Town class, although they had originally belonged to three ship classes (the Caldwell-class, the Wickes-class, and Clemson-class). Before the end of the war, nine others also served with the Royal Canadian Navy.
Five of the Town class destroyers were manned by crews of the Royal Norwegian Navy, with the survivors later returned to the British Royal Navy. HMS Campbeltown was manned by Royal Netherlands Navy sailors before her assignment to ram the drydock gates and sacrifice herself in the St. Nazaire Raid. Nine other destroyers were eventually transferred to the Soviet Navy.
Six of the 50 destroyers were lost when torpedoed by U-boats, and three others, including the Campbeltown, were destroyed in other circumstances.
The bases
- A Naval Air Station at Crabbs Peninsula [2]
- An Army Air Force airfield (Coolidge Army Airfield (later AFB) (closed 1949)
- An Army Air Force airfield (Atkinson Aerodrome (later AFB)) (closed 1949)
- A Naval seaplane base near Suddie.
- An Army Air Force airfield (Vernam Army Airfield (later AFB)) (closed 1949)
- A Naval Air Station (Little Goat Island) and a Naval facility at Port Royal
- An Army Air Force airfield (Beane Army Airfield (later AFB)) (closed 1949)
- A Naval Air Station (Gros Islet Bay)
- An Army Air Force airfield (Fort Bell Army Airfield (later Kindley AFB)) (transferred to U.S. Navy 1970, then closed 1995)
- Several Army Air Force airfields
- Pepperrell Airfield (later AFB) (closed August 1961)
- Goose Bay Army Airfield (later AFB) (turned over to Canadian Forces, July 1976)
- Stephenville Army Airfield (later AFB) (closed December 1966)
- McAndrew Airfield (later AFB) (transferred to U.S. Navy, 1955)
- A Naval Air Station
- Naval Station Argentia (closed 1994)
- Multiple Marine and Army Bases and detachments in support of the above.
- Two Army Air Force airfields
- Waller Army Airfield (later AFB) (closed 1949)
- Carlsen Army Airfield (later AFB) (closed 1949)
- A Naval Operating Base, a Naval Air Station, blimp base, and a radio station
The ships
See also
References
- ^ Martin Gilbert, Churchill and America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
- ^ Wikipedia s.v. Transport in Antigua and Barbuda --- Other ports and harbours include Jolly Harbour, Deepwater Harbour, High Point Crabbs Peninsula .... Merchant … 15 Jan. 2009
External links
