The airbase, which was under construction by the 38th Combat Engineer Battalion of the Army Corp of Engineers, was unexpectedly visited by two RAF Swordfish torpedo planes on 15 June 1942. According to one of the pilots, Peter Jinks, the planes were fired upon before being recognized as allies. The Swordfish proceeded to land on the unfinished airstrip, thus becoming the first aircraft to land on Ascension Island. The event was later commemorated with a postage stamp 15 June 1982.
I have for a number of years being assembling a database on the Southern Oceans during the Great War and WWII. My latest acquisition being :
CANT J.A., editor. Ascension at War: Ascension Island South Atlantic Ocean. The Historical Society, Ascension Island, 1993, totally revised from 1982 edition. SC, 34p., photos.
Its content covers the unknown in the US (the official histories only give single paragraphs at best) of the involvement of the USAAF and USN in this tiny British possession in the South Atlantic. For those interested in this historical period the item is a must, apart from the photos the text gives a excellent (abet short) description of USAAF anti-submarine operations, as well as the islands main role as a link in the US – India air transport route.
The last few copies of the text are available from a specialist British bookshop, Ian Mathieson, look on www.sthelena.se then click on the Miles Apart box and you will get his list. Specialising in the islands of the South Atlantic!
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During World War II, the United States built an airbase on Ascension Island, known as “Wideawake”, after a nearby colony of Sooty Terns (locally called ‘Wideawake’ birds because of their loud, distinctive call, which would wake people early in the morning). The airbase, which was under construction by the 38th Combat Engineer Battalion of the Army Corp of Engineers, was unexpectedly visited by two RAF Swordfish torpedo planes on 15 June 1942. According to one of the pilots, Peter Jinks, the planes were fired upon before being recognized as allies. The Swordfish proceeded to land on the unfinished airstrip, thus becoming the first aircraft to land on Ascension Island. The event was later commemorated with a postage stamp 15 June 1982.
The Airfield was used by the US military as a stopping point for American aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the way to theatres of operation in Europe and Africa. After the end of World War II, and American departure, the airbase fell into disuse.
The only action during World War II occurred on 9 December 1941. At around mid-day, the U-boat U-124 approached Georgetown on the surface with the intention of sinking any ships at anchor or shelling the cable station. The submarine was fired on by a two-gun shore battery at Cross Hill, above Georgetown. No hits were scored but the U-boat submerged and retreated. The battery remains largely intact to this day. The guns are 5.5-inch guns removed from HMS Hood.
Moving aircraft to the Middle East and Persian Gulf
One purpose of establishing a South Atlantic air route was to move aircraft from Florida to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf by way of Puerto Rico, Trinidad, British Guiana, Brazil, Ascension Island, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and French West Africa to North Africa and Ascension Island to the Gold Coast enroute to the Persian Gulf. Many of these bases also played a role in the Caribbean and Atlantic sectors of the North American antisubmarine defense system. American-supplied warplanes played an important role in the pivotal Egyptian battle of El-Alamein in October, 1942.
The Wide-Awake News
Prior to World War II there was no airfield on Ascension Island. In 1939 Ascension suddenly became very important as a HD/DF radio station covering all the important trade routes. Once America joined the war, an air strip was very soon on the cards, and was built using a US task force.
The following are extracts from “The Wide-Awake News” (the newspaper that was printed at the time for the troops) kindly provided by Clarence Douglass, (cfdouglass@snet.net) who was stationed there from August 1942 to April 1943 and who would welcome emails from anyone else who was stationed there during the war.
The original Wide-Awake News was turned out on mimeograph by an ordinary typewriter.
Unfortunately as the work being down on the island was top secret Clarence and none of the other US army rank and file staff were allowed cameras, hence the lack of pictures on this page
On the 29th, March, 1942, a United States Task force, consisting of approximately 1,300 officers and men (with a medical contingent of 77 officers and men) under the command of Colonel Robert E Coughlin, U.S. Corps of engineers, landed with large quantities of road making machinery and equipment. The stars and stripes was hoisted at building No.55, the old Naval H.Q. in Georgetown and now the administrative office of the St. Helena government in Ascension. The British Colony Flag and the Union Jack (at Magistrates residence were flown as usual). The first U.S. camp to be established was the service detachment H.Q. the tents being pitched on the headland overlooking Georgetown. A signboard, marking this historic spot, has been placed on the mountain road, immediately north of the site.
For 14 days the main American force bivouacked on Long Beach and adjacent areas, but then moved to South West Plains, between Horseshoe Crater and South West Bay, where “Camp Casey” was established, adjacent to the site selected for the airport.
Immediately decision regarding the establishment of a U.S. Base in Ascension had been reached in London, Washington and London, the secretary of state for the Colonies appointed a St, Helena Government representative to the Ascension dependency. Colonel J. N. Tomlinson, Royal Engineers was therefore released from the British War Office, and charged with the drawing up of an Anglo-American draft agreement in collaboration with the local U.S. Commander. Colonel Tomlinson arrived in Ascension on the 10th of May 1942. The American construction program proceeded rapidly and on the 12th of June, the runway of the airport was sufficiently advanced for aeroplanes to land. Washington was informed.
On the 15th of June however, a British sea-plane made history as the first aeroplane to land on the Island. It was a swordfish plane,v.4653, piloted by Lieut. E. Dixon Child, R.N., accompanied by Sub. Lieut. P. Shaw, R.N. and P.O.W. Townson R.N. The plane from H.M.S. Archer was searching for survivors from the torpedoed S.S. Lyle Park, the pilot unaware of the American occupation, was endeavouring to drop a message for transmission to the Admiralty, but being unidentified, his plane was fired on by U.S. Coastal Machine guns. Landing on the runway was, however effected without casualty, and the plane returned to H.M.S. Archer three hours later. The first American plane from Accra, carrying a staff of ten inspecting officers arrived on the 10th of July, and left the next day for Natal. The first 14 American reinforcement planes reached the airport from Natal Brazil during the morning of the 20th of July, special arrangements having been made with the Admiral to provide a “Homing-Beam” to assist landing. This service was continued by the British wireless station in Ascension until the local U.S. Authorities had brought their own electrical radiation station into work.
Constructional work on improving and enlarging the Airport and its ramifications, and the opening of hitherto inaccessible parts of the Island by strategic roads occupied the task force until the 14th of August, when U.S. Transports brought the main occupying force, commanded by Colonel Ross O Baldwin, composite force 8012 U.S. Army. Colonel Baldwin assumed supreme command of all American forces in Ascension on the 17th of August, with Colonel James A. Ronis as commander of the Airport proper. On the 19th of August the original task force embarked for the Congo, having been detailed by the U.S. War department to construct an Airport at Leopoldville.
Ascension is a small, nine-square-mile island in the Atlantic under British administration. During the war it became very important as a refueling station for those aircraft making this southern journey. The United States built a landing strip there called Wide Awake Field; 25,000 planes landed during the war. We navigated via radio beacon set up on the island, and if you were to mis-navigate you would eventually run out of fuel and ditch into the Atlantic. Apparently, a German duplicated the signal, only more powerfully, and drew some of our planes off course, never to be seen again. I think we had discovered that trick before my trip, but I did have one scare. I had been pleasantly surprised when our crew chief brought me a fresh coffee several hours into the flight. That surprise became terror when I stepped to the rear of the aircraft to discover him brewing another pot over an open-flame Coleman burner. Obviously, he had forgotten that those two rubber containers filling the cargo compartment were the highly flammable aviation fuel needed for the extended range! We had no more coffee, but it makes you wonder about some planes that just vanished, doesn’t it?
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Whilst of no US military history interest, but of general, I purchased also:
CRAWFORD Allan B. MBE. Tristan de Cunha : Wartime Invasion. George Mann Publications, Winchester, England, 2004. SC, 160p., photos, maps, drawings, index.
This dealing with the establishment of a weather station and radio relay post on the world’s second most remote inhabited island, Tristan de Cunha in the South Atlantic, by Royal Navy and South African Air Force personnel. Subsequently commissioned as a RN ‘stone frigate’ HMS Atlantic Isle, this little book whilst giving a description of the military activities also gives a description of the island and its population. To this day the tiny population of the island is of medical interest, with the small population base there is no history of intellectual impairment nor hereditary disease. With the most remote inhabited island, Pitcairn, the only two places in the world in 1918-19 to not be affected by the ‘Spanish influenza’.
G.A.MACKINLAY
