Bermuda Flying School
Encyclopedia
The 'Bermuda Flying School' operated on Darrell's Island
from 1940 to 1942. It trained Bermudian
volunteers as pilots for the Royal Air Force
and the Fleet Air Arm
.
During the First World War, roughly twenty Bermudians had entered the Royal Flying Corps
and its successor, the Royal Air Force
(RAF). Other than aircraft on visiting ships, there were no aircraft based in Bermuda 'til after the war, when returning military aviators created a small company offering local flights in sea planes operating from Hinson's Island
. In 1936, Imperial Airways
built an air station on Darrell's Island. This operated as a staging point on scheduled trans-Atlantic flights by flying boat
s of Imperial Airways and Pan American
. At the time, no land planes could operate from Bermuda, there being on airfields.
With the start of the Second World War, the RAF took over Darrell's Island for use by RAF Transport Command
and RAF Ferry Command
.
Although the Royal Navy had a dockyard
in Bermuda (which included an air station, RNAS Boaz Island (HMS Malabar) for flying boats), and Canadian and American naval and airbases would be established during the war, the only local units were the part-time army units, the Bermuda Militia Artillery
(BMA), Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps
(BVRC), Bermuda Volunteer Engineers
(BVE), the Bermuda Militia Infantry (BMI), and Home Guard. These formed a major part of the Bermuda Garrison
, tasked with defending the various facilities of importance to the war effort. Although a contingent from the BVRC, with attachments from the other units, was sent to join the Lincolnshire Regiment in England in 1940, no further drafts were allowed to be sent for fear of weakening the defences. By 1943, this was no longer a concern and the mratorium was lifted.
It was decided to create a flying school on Darrell's Island to train local pilots for the Air Ministry
in Britain, which would assign them to the RAF or the Fleet Air Arm
. The school was in operation by the summer of 1940. It operated a pair of Luscombe
sea planes, paid for by an American resident of Bermuda, Mr Bertram Work, and a Canadian, Mr Duncan MacMartin. The school was under the command of Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore
, DFC, who had served as a fighter pilot during the First World War. Between the wars, he had returned to Bermuda and became the Commanding Officer of the BVE, a position he would maintain throughout the Second World War. The chief flying instructor was an American, Captain Ed Stafford. The first class, of eighteen students, was in training by May, 1940. On the 4th June, Fenton Trimmingham became the first student to solo. Ten Bermudian companies agreed in June, 1940, to defray the expenses of ten of the students. Those companies were the Bank of Bermuda, the Bank of N.T. Butterfield, Trimmingham Bros., H.A. & E. Smith, Gosling Bros., Pearman Watlington & Company, the Bermuda Electric Light Company (BELCO), Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company, the Bermuda Telephone Company (TELCO), and Edmund Gibbons.
The BFS only accepted applicants who were already serving in one of the part-time units, which had been mobilised for the duration of the war. Successful students were released from their units and allowed to proceed overseas. With the moratorium against sending drafts overseas, this meant local soldiers came to see the BFS as the easiest way of reaching sharper ends of the war. Although the local units were allowed to send drafts overseas in 1943, the preceding state of affairs meant that a disproportionately high number of aviators appears on the list of Bermuda's war dead (ten out of thirty-five). In fact, the first Bermudian killed in the war was Flying Officer Grant Ede, DFC, a fighter pilot killed in the Battle of Norway in 1940 (although Ede had joined the RAF in England before the war).
By 1942, the Air Ministry had a glut of trained pilots. This had resulted from the fear created by the Blitz, and the Battle of Britain, when the RAF had assumed pre-eminence in Britain's defence against a feared Axis invasion. Desperate for pilots, too many had been allowed to train, or had been placed on backlists to await slots for induction and training. This would continue to be a problem as late as 1944, when the British Army was forced to disband a division after Operation Overlord
due to a shortage of manpower. At the same time, the Air Ministry had the equivalent of a division of civilians waiting aircrew training slots, and already had more aircrew than it had aircraft available for them to man. This would lead to pilots being transferred to the Army's Glider Pilot Regiment
, and to the lists of civilians reserved for aircrew training being cleared of men who were then able to be conscripted by the Army.
In Bermuda, the excess of pilots meant that the BFS was advised in 1942 that no further pilots were required. By then, eighty pilots had been sent to the RAF and Fleet Air Arm. THE BFS was included in the Empire Air Training Scheme
. Its graduates included eight Americans, who had volunteered for the RAF in the USA, and then sent to the BFS for training.
Although the school was closed, Bertram Work and Major Montgomery-Moore oversaw the conversion of its administration into a recruiting arm, the Bermuda Flying Committee, for the Royal Canadian Air Force
(RCAF), sending sixty aircrew candidates to that service before the War's end. Sixteen Bermudan women were also sent to the RCAF to perform roles including Air Traffic Controller.
Flying instructor Captain Stafford moved to RAF Transport Command, and was later shot down, becoming a prisoner-of-war in Germany.
After the war, the two Luscombe aircraft were used by the short-lived Bermuda Flying Club, created by returning pilots.
Darrell's Island, Bermuda
Darrell's Island is a small island within the Great Sound of Bermuda. It lies in the southeast of the sound, and is in the north of Warwick Parish. it is owned by the Bermuda Government....
from 1940 to 1942. It trained Bermudian
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
volunteers as pilots for the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
and the Fleet Air Arm
Fleet Air Arm
The Fleet Air Arm is the branch of the British Royal Navy responsible for the operation of naval aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm currently operates the AgustaWestland Merlin, Westland Sea King and Westland Lynx helicopters...
.
During the First World War, roughly twenty Bermudians had entered the Royal Flying Corps
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
and its successor, the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
(RAF). Other than aircraft on visiting ships, there were no aircraft based in Bermuda 'til after the war, when returning military aviators created a small company offering local flights in sea planes operating from Hinson's Island
Hinson's Island, Bermuda
Hinson's Island is a small island within the Great Sound, Bermuda of Bermuda. It lies in the southeast of the sound, and is part of Paget parish, although it was formerly part of Warwick Parish and is still within the Warwick North constituency....
. In 1936, Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long range air transport company, operating from 1924 to 1939 and serving parts of Europe but especially the Empire routes to South Africa, India and the Far East...
built an air station on Darrell's Island. This operated as a staging point on scheduled trans-Atlantic flights by flying boat
Flying boat
A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a float plane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by under-wing floats or by wing-like projections from the fuselage...
s of Imperial Airways and Pan American
Pan American World Airways
Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991...
. At the time, no land planes could operate from Bermuda, there being on airfields.
With the start of the Second World War, the RAF took over Darrell's Island for use by RAF Transport Command
RAF Transport Command
RAF Transport Command was a Royal Air Force command that controlled all transport aircraft of the RAF. It was established on 25 March 1943 by the renaming of the RAF Ferry Command, and was subsequently renamed RAF Air Support Command in 1967.-History:...
and RAF Ferry Command
RAF Ferry Command
The RAF Ferry Command had a short life, but it spawned, in part, an organisation that lasted well beyond the war years during which it was formed.-History:...
.
Although the Royal Navy had a dockyard
Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda
HMD Bermuda was the principal base of the Royal Navy in the Western Atlantic between American independence and the Cold War. Bermuda had occupied a useful position astride the homeward leg taken by many European vessels from the New World since before its settlement by England in 1609...
in Bermuda (which included an air station, RNAS Boaz Island (HMS Malabar) for flying boats), and Canadian and American naval and airbases would be established during the war, the only local units were the part-time army units, the Bermuda Militia Artillery
Bermuda Militia Artillery
The Bermuda Militia Artillery was a unit of part-time soldiers organised in 1895 as a reserve for the Royal Garrison Artillery detachment of the Regular Army garrison in Bermuda.-Foundation:...
(BMA), Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps
Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps
The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps was created in 1894 as an all-white racially segregated reserve for the British Regular Army infantry component of the Bermuda Garrison...
(BVRC), Bermuda Volunteer Engineers
Bermuda Volunteer Engineers
The Bermuda Volunteer Engineers was a part-time unit created between the two world wars to replace the Regular Royal Engineers detachment, which was withdrawn from the Bermuda Garrison in 1928.-The Military Garrison in Bermuda:...
(BVE), the Bermuda Militia Infantry (BMI), and Home Guard. These formed a major part of the Bermuda Garrison
Bermuda Garrison
The Bermuda Garrison was the military establishment maintained on the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda by the regular British Army, and its local militia and voluntary reserves from 1701 to 1957. The Garrison existed primarily to defend the Royal Naval Dockyard and other facilities in Bermuda...
, tasked with defending the various facilities of importance to the war effort. Although a contingent from the BVRC, with attachments from the other units, was sent to join the Lincolnshire Regiment in England in 1940, no further drafts were allowed to be sent for fear of weakening the defences. By 1943, this was no longer a concern and the mratorium was lifted.
It was decided to create a flying school on Darrell's Island to train local pilots for the Air Ministry
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964...
in Britain, which would assign them to the RAF or the Fleet Air Arm
Fleet Air Arm
The Fleet Air Arm is the branch of the British Royal Navy responsible for the operation of naval aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm currently operates the AgustaWestland Merlin, Westland Sea King and Westland Lynx helicopters...
. The school was in operation by the summer of 1940. It operated a pair of Luscombe
Luscombe
Luscombe aircraft was a United States aircraft manufacturer from 1933 to 1950.Donald A. Luscombe founded the Luscombe aircraft company in 1933, in Kansas City, Missouri. Luscombe had already made his reputation as a winged-aircraft designer with the Monocoupe series of light aircraft, but he felt...
sea planes, paid for by an American resident of Bermuda, Mr Bertram Work, and a Canadian, Mr Duncan MacMartin. The school was under the command of Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore
Cecil Montgomery-Moore
Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore, DFC, was a Bermudian First World War fighter pilot, and commander of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers and the Bermuda Flying School during the Second World War.-First World War:...
, DFC, who had served as a fighter pilot during the First World War. Between the wars, he had returned to Bermuda and became the Commanding Officer of the BVE, a position he would maintain throughout the Second World War. The chief flying instructor was an American, Captain Ed Stafford. The first class, of eighteen students, was in training by May, 1940. On the 4th June, Fenton Trimmingham became the first student to solo. Ten Bermudian companies agreed in June, 1940, to defray the expenses of ten of the students. Those companies were the Bank of Bermuda, the Bank of N.T. Butterfield, Trimmingham Bros., H.A. & E. Smith, Gosling Bros., Pearman Watlington & Company, the Bermuda Electric Light Company (BELCO), Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company, the Bermuda Telephone Company (TELCO), and Edmund Gibbons.
The BFS only accepted applicants who were already serving in one of the part-time units, which had been mobilised for the duration of the war. Successful students were released from their units and allowed to proceed overseas. With the moratorium against sending drafts overseas, this meant local soldiers came to see the BFS as the easiest way of reaching sharper ends of the war. Although the local units were allowed to send drafts overseas in 1943, the preceding state of affairs meant that a disproportionately high number of aviators appears on the list of Bermuda's war dead (ten out of thirty-five). In fact, the first Bermudian killed in the war was Flying Officer Grant Ede, DFC, a fighter pilot killed in the Battle of Norway in 1940 (although Ede had joined the RAF in England before the war).
By 1942, the Air Ministry had a glut of trained pilots. This had resulted from the fear created by the Blitz, and the Battle of Britain, when the RAF had assumed pre-eminence in Britain's defence against a feared Axis invasion. Desperate for pilots, too many had been allowed to train, or had been placed on backlists to await slots for induction and training. This would continue to be a problem as late as 1944, when the British Army was forced to disband a division after Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings...
due to a shortage of manpower. At the same time, the Air Ministry had the equivalent of a division of civilians waiting aircrew training slots, and already had more aircrew than it had aircraft available for them to man. This would lead to pilots being transferred to the Army's Glider Pilot Regiment
Glider Pilot Regiment
The Glider Pilot Regiment was a British airborne forces unit of the Second World War which was responsible for crewing the British Army's military gliders and saw action in the European Theatre of World War II in support of Allied airborne operations...
, and to the lists of civilians reserved for aircrew training being cleared of men who were then able to be conscripted by the Army.
In Bermuda, the excess of pilots meant that the BFS was advised in 1942 that no further pilots were required. By then, eighty pilots had been sent to the RAF and Fleet Air Arm. THE BFS was included in the Empire Air Training Scheme
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan , known in some countries as the Empire Air Training Scheme , was a massive, joint military aircrew training program created by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, during the Second World War...
. Its graduates included eight Americans, who had volunteered for the RAF in the USA, and then sent to the BFS for training.
Although the school was closed, Bertram Work and Major Montgomery-Moore oversaw the conversion of its administration into a recruiting arm, the Bermuda Flying Committee, for the Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
The history of the Royal Canadian Air Force begins in 1920, when the air force was created as the Canadian Air Force . In 1924 the CAF was renamed the Royal Canadian Air Force and granted royal sanction by King George V. The RCAF existed as an independent service until 1968...
(RCAF), sending sixty aircrew candidates to that service before the War's end. Sixteen Bermudan women were also sent to the RCAF to perform roles including Air Traffic Controller.
Flying instructor Captain Stafford moved to RAF Transport Command, and was later shot down, becoming a prisoner-of-war in Germany.
After the war, the two Luscombe aircraft were used by the short-lived Bermuda Flying Club, created by returning pilots.