Destroyers for Bases agreement

Foghladh

Does anybody know if any of the original bases signed over on 99 year leases to the US are still 'on the books' if you like?

I know that most of them were closed in the decades after the war and I think one of the airfields in the Carribean was active right upto the 90's.

I was just wondering if the US still holds the lease on these and can still reactivate them or indeed if there are any that have remained in use

Delancey

Good question , to my knowledge almost all the bases are long closed bar a facility in Bermuda that is used for tracking submarine movements.

Foghladh

I have seen reference to some base rights being relinquished, Gander being one of those, and I guess it makes sense having a friendly ally to the north and no immediate threat from that direction. Other bases, namely the Caribbean ones, I've noted seem to be closed. That's not to say that they haven't been relinquished either of course. After the Cuban crisis it was probably less important to maintain them but given the fact that they were leased rent-free would the US have handed back the usage rights as well I wonder?

I'd imagine it might be handy to have a few locations to build upon should things in the south take a nasty turn for some reason

Cardinal Richelieu

Foghladh wrote: »

Does anybody know if any of the original bases signed over on 99 year leases to the US are still 'on the books' if you like?

I know that most of them were closed in the decades after the war and I think one of the airfields in the Carribean was active right upto the 90's.

I was just wondering if the US still holds the lease on these and can still reactivate them or indeed if there are any that have remained in use

Kindley Air Force Base Bermuda which is now Bermuda International Airport. The Wiki entry dealing with the agreement maintains that the US received the rights for Bermuda for free as it allowed the RAF to free up resources much needed in Europe.

Wiki

The previous NAS Bermuda was renamed the NAS Annex and served primarily as a dock area for visiting U.S. naval vessels and as support facility for the nearby Naval Facility (NAVFAC) Bermuda that supported the Sound Underwater Surveillance System (SOSUS) activity. Both bases closed in 1995 and the former Kindley Field became the present Bermuda International Airport.
Since 1962 several sounding rockets were launched from Kindley and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has operated a tracking and telemetry station on the eastern edge of the former Naval Air Station since the 1960s in support of manned space flight operations.

Full Article here

Bermuda-online.org

he Bermuda US military bases built from scratch in 1941-2 and financed solely by taxpayers in the USA - not by Bermuda - flourished until 1995. At one point, there were four US bases in Bermuda. When the USNAS and US Naval Annex left in 1995, The Bermuda Government immediately took over, relocated many civilian organizations there and destroyed some buildings deemed unsafe. In March 2002, Bermuda's legislators enacted the United States Bases (Termination of Agreement) Act 2002. It formally terminated the US leases. The US Government has made a one-off payment of US$ 11 million to replace Longbird Bridge which was included in the lease. but will not pay financial compensation for what the Bermuda Government claims is environmental damage including heavy metals, asbestos, 500,000 gallons of jet fuel and raw sewage in Bassett's Cave at the old US Naval Annex.

Update: Virtually nothing is left of the USA military occupation now at what used to be Fort Bell of the US Army, then USAAF, then Kindley Air Force Base of the USAF from 1948 to 1970 and a US Naval Air Station from 1970 to 1995

Full Entry