Royal Air Force , Bermuda ( 1939 – 45 ) The Royal Air Force ( RAF ) operated from two locations in Bermuda during the Second World War . Bermuda ' s location had made it an important naval station since US independence , and , with the advent of the aeroplane , had made it as important to trans - Atlantic aviation in the decades before the Jet Age . The limited , hilly land mass had prevented the construction of an airfield , but , with most large airliners in the 1930s being flying boat s , this was not initially a limitation . The government - owned Imperial Airways built a flying - boat station on Darrell ' s Island that served as an airport for passengers flying to and from Bermuda , as well as on trans - Atlantic flights staging through the Island . With the commencement of hostilities in 1939 , Darrell ' s Island was taken over as a Royal Air Force station , with two commands operating on it . RAF Transport Command operated large , multi - engined flying boats , carrying freight and passengers between Europe and the Americas . RAF Ferry Command was responsible for delivering aircraft from manufacturers to operational units . As the requirements of the RAF and Fleet Air Arm could not be filled by the output of British factories , the Air Ministry placed orders with manufacturers in the neutral USA for all manner of aircraft . These included flying boats , like the PBY Catalina , which , designed for long - range maritime patrols , were capable of being flown across the Atlantic , albeit in stages . Imperial Airways , which had become the British Overseas Airways Corporation ( BOAC ) , continued to operate in Bermuda throughout the War , as well , though in a war - role , with its new Boeing flying boats painted in camouflage . Its flying boats landed trans - Atlantic mail at Darrell ' s to be cleared by the British counter - intelligence censors at the Princess Hotel . In January , 1942 , Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Bermuda on his return to Britain , following December 1941 meetings in Washington D . C . with US President Franklin Roosevelt , in the weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour . Churchill flew into Darrell ' s Island on a BOAC Boeing 314 . Although it had been planned to continue the journey by ship , he made an impulsive decision to complete it by a direct flight from Bermuda to England , marking the first trans - Atlantic air crossing by a national leader . The first Bermudian killed in the Second World War was Flying Officer Grant Ede , an RAF Gladiator pilot who took part in the 1940 Battle of Norway , before dying along with almost everyone else aboard HMS Glorious when it was sunk during the evacuation from Norway . In 1940 , the Bermuda Flying School was established on Darrell ' s Island with the goal of training pilots for the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy ( RN ) . The school trained volunteers from the local territorial units using Luscombe seaplanes . Those who passed their training were sent to the Air Ministry to be assigned to the RAF or the Royal Navy ' s Fleet Air Arm ( FAA ) . The Commanding Officer of the school was Major Cecil Montgomery - Moore , DFC , who was also the commander of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers ( BVE ) . He had left the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps ( BVRC ) to become one of at least eighteen Bermudian aviators of the Great War . The school trained eighty pilots before an excess of trained pilots led to its closure in 1942 . The body administrating it was adapted to become a recruiting organisation ( the Bermuda Flying Committee ) for the Royal Canadian Air Force ( RCAF ) , sending sixty aircrew candidates , and twenty - two female candidates for ground - based roles , to that service before the War ' s end . With so many Bermudians entering the air services , the Air Training Corps was established in Bermuda during the war to train school - aged cadets ( although , today there are only army and naval cadet corps in Bermuda ) . In addition to the BFS graduates and BFC candidates , other Bermudians entered the air services during the war . These included at least two other Great War aviators who returned to service , Squadron Leaders Rowe Spurling and Bernard Logier Wilkinson , who served with RAF Transport Command and the RCAF , respectively . An officer of the BVE , Richard Gorham , transferred to the Royal Artillery , attaching to the RAF as an Air Observation Post ( AOP ) pilot , directing artillery fire from the air . He played a decisive role in the Battle of Monte Cassino . In 1941 , the USA was given 99 - year free base rights in Bermuda , and began construction of a Naval Air Station , the Naval Operating Base ( NOB ) , for flying boats , and an airfield for landplanes . The terms of the agreement were that the US - built airfield , on British territory , would be a joint US Army / Royal Air Force base . When the airfield ( named Kindley Field after an American aviator who had fought for Britain during World War I ) became operational in 1943 , RAF Transport Command relocated to it , taking over the West end of the base in Castle Harbour . With the entry of the USA into the War , at the end of 1941 , the US Navy began operating air - patrols from the Island . Bermuda was a forming - up point , during the War , for convoys numbering hundreds of ships . Despite the importance of guarding against Axis submarines and surface raiders operating in the area , the RAF had not posted a Coastal Command detachment to maintain air cover . The Fleet Air Arm operated " ad hoc " patrols from its base RNAS Boaz Island ( HMS " Malabar " ) on Boaz Island . This was a repair facility which had several aeroplanes on hand , but no aircrew . It operated its patrols using pilots from ships at the Dockyard on Ireland Island , and RAF and Bermuda Flying School pilots from Darrell ' s Island . These patrols ceased in 1941 with the arrival of a US Navy patrol squadron , which operated from Darrell ' s Island until the US NAS became operable . The RAF operated from its two facilities in Bermuda until the end of the War , when both Commands withdrew their detachments . Darrell ' s Island reverted to its pre - War role as a civil airport , until the replacement of flying boats as trans - Atlantic airliners by land - planes , like the Lancastrian , the Tudor , and DC4 , led to its closure in 1948 . The senior RAF officer in Bermuda , during the War , Wing Commander Mo Ware , was loaned to the civil government to oversee the conversion of the RAF ' s end of the military airfield into a Civil Air Terminal . Pre - fabricated buildings were relocated from Darrell ' s Island to assemble the first terminal . Mo Ware remained with the local government after leaving the RAF , becoming the Director of Civil Aviation for many years . Although no longer maintaining any detachment in Bermuda , the RAF has continued to use the Island as a trans - Atlantic staging post since the War . Whereas most foreign military aircraft passing through the Island had used the US military end of the airfield , the RAF had continued to disperse its aeroplanes at the former RAF end of the field . Large detachments of tactical aircraft , accompanied by larger refuelling , transport , and maritime patrol aeroplanes , regularly staged at the island on transits between the UK and the garrison at Belize , or bombing ranges on US bases .