Destroyers for Bases Agreement In the Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom on September 2 , 1940 , fifty mothballed destroyer s were transferred to the United Kingdom from the United States Navy in exchange for land rights on British possessions . The destroyers became the " Town " - class , and were named after British towns if there was a United States town of the same name , as the agreement contained rigid clauses regarding naming . Background . The Second World War started in September 1939 . After the eight month 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 British Empire fighting alone ( or almost alone after the Italian attack on Greece that autumn ) , against Germany . The Chiefs of Staff Committee concluded in May that if France collapsed , " we do not think we could continue the war with any chance of success " without " full economic and financial support " from the United States . Although its government was sympathetic to Britain ' s plight , American public opinion at the time overwhelmingly supported isolationism to avoid US involvement in " another European war " . Reflecting this sentiment , Congress had passed the Neutrality Acts three years previously , which banned the shipment or sale of arms from the US to any combatant nation . 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 fighting 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 US 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 . 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 obsolescent small arms , and authorizing their shipment to the United Kingdom . But Roosevelt rejected Churchill ' s pleas for destroyer s for the Royal Navy . By August , while Britain and her Empire 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 . On September 2 , 1940 , as the Battle of Britain intensified , United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull signaled agreement to the transfer of the warships 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 granted the US air and naval base rights in : No destroyers were received in exchange for the bases in Bermuda and Newfoundland . Both territories were vital to trans - Atlantic shipping , aviation , and to the Battle of the Atlantic . Although enemy attack on either was unlikely , it could not be discounted , and Britain had been forced to wastefully maintain defensive forces , including the Bermuda Garrison . The deal allowed Britain to hand much of the defence of Bermuda over to the still - neutral US , freeing British forces for redeployment to more active theatres . It also enabled the development of strategic facilities at US expense which British forces would also utilise . The Royal Air Force ( RAF ) and the Fleet Air Arm ( FAA ) each maintained air stations in Bermuda at the start of the war , but these only served flying boats . The RAF station on Darrell ' s Island served as a staging point for trans - Atlantic flights by RAF Transport Command and RAF Ferry Command , BOAC , and Pan - Am , as well as hosting the Bermuda Flying School , but did not operate maritime patrols . The FAA station on Boaz Island , existed to service aircraft based on vessels operating from or through the Royal Naval Dockyard , but attempted to maintain maritime patrols using pilots from naval ships , RAF Darrell ' s Island , and the Bermuda Flying School . The agreement for bases in Bermuda stipulated that the US would , at its own expense , build an airfield , capable of handling large landplanes , which would be operated jointly by the US Army Air Force and the Royal Air Force . The airfield was named Kindley Field ( after Field Kindley , an American aviator who fought for Britain during the First World War ) . RAF Transport Command relocated its operations to the airfield when it was completed in 1943 , although RAF Ferry Command remained at Darrell ' s Island . Prior to this , the US Navy had established the Naval Operating Base at Bermuda ' s West End . This was a flying boat station , from which maritime patrols were operated for the remainder of the war ( the US Navy had actually begun operating such patrols from RAF Darrell ' s Island , using floatplanes , while waiting for their own base to become operational ) . The RAF and FAA facilities were closed after the war , leaving only the US air bases in Bermuda . The Naval Operating Base ceased to be an air station in 1965 , when its flying boats were replaced by Neptune landplanes , operating from the Kindley Air Force Base ( as the former US Army airfield had become ) . These US air bases were in fact only two of several US military facilities that operated in Bermuda during the Twentieth Century . The United States abandoned many of these bases in 1949 and the remaining few were closed in 1995 . The US does retain the right to base military forces in Bermuda and Newfoundland . The US accepted the " generous action … to enhance the national security of the United States " and immediately transferred in return 50 US Navy destroyers " generally referred to as the twelve hundred - ton type " ( also known in references as " flush - deck " destroyers , or " four - pipers " after their four funnels ) . Forty - three ships initially went to the British Royal Navy and seven to the Royal Canadian Navy . In the Commonwealth navies the ships were renamed after towns , and were therefore known as the " Town " class , although they had originally belonged to three ship class es : ( " Caldwell " , " Wickes " , and " Clemson " ) . Before the end of the war , nine others also served with the Royal Canadian Navy . Five Towns were manned by crews of the Royal Norwegian Navy , with the survivors later returned to the Royal Navy . 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 to U - boat s , and three others , including the " Campbeltown " , were destroyed in other circumstances . Britain had no choice but to accept the deal , but it was so much more advantageous to America than Britain that Churchill ' s aide John Colville compared it to the USSR ' s relationship with Finland . The destroyers were in reserve from the massive US World War I shipbuilding program , and many of the vessels required extensive overhaul due to the fact that many were not preserved properly when inactivated ; one British admiral called them the " worst destroyers I had ever seen " , and only 30 were in service by May 1941 . Churchill also disliked the deal , but his advisers persuaded the prime minister to merely tell Roosevelt that : Roosevelt responded by transferring ten " Lake " - class coast guard cutters to the Royal Navy in 1941 . These United States Coast Guard vessels were ten years newer than the destroyers , and had greater range , making them more useful as anti - submarine convoy escorts . The agreement was much more important for being the start of the wartime Anglo - American partnership . Churchill said in Parliament that " these two great organisations of the English - speaking democracies , the British Empire and the United States , will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for mutual and general advantage " . According to the Hague Convention of 1907 the agreement was not compatible with USA " Neutrality " , and could therefore have been used as a " casus belli " for a Declaration of War on the United States by the Axis Powers .