As the world commemorates the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, Bermuda honours the courage, sacrifice, and service of its people during the Second World War. 

The island played a decisive role in the Battle of the Atlantic and code-breaking, which Churchill recognised as perhaps two of the most vital elements in the Allied victory.

As Winston Churchill said to the House of Assembly during his visit to Bermuda in 1942, “You have cause to be proud that it has fallen to your lot to make this important contribution to a better world”. 

Bermudian Forces and Service

Over 3,000 Bermudians served in the First and Second World Wars, with approximately 600 volunteering for overseas service. During WWII alone, 544 Bermudians served, including 29 women—a great contribution considering Bermuda’s small population. Bermuda suffered 90 deaths in the First World War and 35 deaths in the Second World War.

Bermudian forces included the Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA), Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC), Bermuda Militia Infantry (BMI), and Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (BVE). Bermuda’s forces were segregated. Members of the BMA, the first Black unit to serve in WWI, trained in North Carolina and were deployed in Italy and Egypt as part of the 1st Caribbean Regiment in World War II. The BVRC, the first Colonial Force to serve in the trenches of the Western Front in WWI, continued service in the Second World War, serving alongside the British Army’s Lincolnshire Regiment in North West Europe and Burma. Bermudians also served overseas in the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Marines, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force, U.S. Air Force, and Merchant Navy. Bermudian women served overseas in the Women’s Division of many of the formerly mentioned as well as the Auxiliary Territorial Service and the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.  

Locally, BMI and BVE units, as well as those who remained of the BMA and BVRC, protected the island as part of the Home Guard. The BMA manned coastal defense guns at St David’s Battery and Warwick Camp. Additionally, on island women worked as part of Home Guard, or part of wartime charities including the Bermuda Women’s Auxiliary Force, St John’s Ambulance Brigade, and the Bermuda Services Overseas Association.

Bermuda’s Strategic Importance

Bermuda’s strategic location made it a critical base for Allied operations. The Royal Naval Dockyard played a vital role in anti-submarine training and ship repairs, servicing nearly 600 vessels. Dockyard also helped maintain vital supply lines across the Atlantic, ensuring American, British and Canadian forces received supplies. This was especially important as Churchill feared losing the war in the Atlantic due to German sinking of Allied supply ships and the risk of starvation to the UK population.

Darrell’s Island and Castle Harbour were used by the Royal Air Force, with the Bermuda Flying School on Darrell’s Island training 80 pilots, some of whom served overseas with the RAF and RCAF. Boaz Island was used as an air station for the Royal Navy.

In 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a deal allowing the U.S. to build a military base in St. David’s, displacing many Bermudians but also offering new skills and economic opportunity. 

Other U.S. operations in Bermuda included the U.S. Naval Operating Base in Southampton, a small U.S. Navy Submarine Station at Ordnance Island in St. George’s, and a U.S. Naval Mobile Base Hospital.

Bermuda became a key hub for censorship and espionage monitoring due to the large amounts of transatlantic mail passing through the island. 

Life on the island was defined by regular blackouts and sirens, and rationing, with deep impacts on the economy from the absence of tourism.

Remarkable Stories

The Imperial Censorship Station, located in the basement of the Hamilton Princess Hotel, was operated by over 1,000 personnel, including British intelligence officers, codebreakers, and academics. Many of the censors were young women, who were known as the “Censorettes”.Their aim was to intercept and examine letters and parcels for valuable intelligence that could aid the Allied war effort. This station’s efforts led to the capture of over 40 German spies, and its most significant achievement was helping dismantle the largest German spy ring in the United States during the war. Led by Kurt Frederick Ludwig, the ring had been transmitting critical information about U.S. shipping routes and military operations to Germany between 1940 and 1941—intelligence that contributed to the sinking of Allied vessels. Due to the work of Bermuda’s censors, the network was exposed, and several staff members even testified at the subsequent trials. The head of the British Security Coordination (BSC), Sir William Stephenson who later retired in Bermuda was rumoured to have inspired Ian Fleming’s iconic character James Bond.

In 1941, Bermuda launched a public fundraising campaign that successfully financed the purchase of four new Spitfires for the Royal Air Force. The appeal raised £21,891—equivalent to approximately £1.4 million today. The first of these aircraft, named “Bermuda I” (serial number P8507), was deployed into service but was tragically shot down by a German aircraft over Hazebrouck, France, on August 29, 1941.

On January 15, 1942, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a secret 24-hour visit to Bermuda, following high-level talks in Washington after the attack on Pearl Harbor. During his stopover, Churchill addressed Bermuda’s House of Assembly, expressing his “profound gratitude” to the island and its people for their crucial support—particularly the decision to grant land in St. David’s for the construction of a U.S. military base. This historic visit was also notable as Churchill became the first world leader to make a trans-Atlantic journey by air aboard the British Overseas Airways Corporation’s Boeing 314 flying boat, “Berwick.”

In 1944, the U.S. Navy secretly towed the captured German submarine U-505, along with its 57 prisoners, from the coast of West Africa to their Naval Operations Base at Morgan’s Point, Bermuda, where they used its codebooks to intercept enemy messages—an operation that contributed significantly to the Allied intelligence effort. 

Commemoration and Legacy

On VE Day, sirens and church bells rang across Bermuda, with island-wide services and a Victory parade through the City of Hamilton took place on May 13, 1945.

Lobelia Curtis was notably the only enlisted Bermudian woman to march in the Second World War victory parade in London.  

The War Memorial located on Front Street, on the grounds of the Cabinet Office, lists the names of the 3000 Bermudians who served. Annual Remembrance Day parades are held in front of the Cenotaph, where wreaths in memory of those who served and sacrificed are laid and Bermuda’s veterans are paraded along Front Street. Remembrance Day is also observed with a public holiday in Bermuda. There are additional Remembrance Day Services in the Town of St George’s and at the HMS Jervis Bay memorial at Albuoy’s Point -where the British liner used as a convoy escort departed from during its final mission on November 5, 1941. A time capsule buried at the War Memorial in 2013 will preserve this history for future generations. 

The UK Representative for the Government of Bermuda and Director of the London Office, Ms. Kimberley Durrant, lays a wreath at the Cenotaph of Whitehall in London annually on Remembrance Sunday on behalf of the people and Government of Bermuda alongside counterparts in other British Overseas Territories and in the presence of His Majesty the King and the Prime Minister.  

On this 80th anniversary of VE Day, Bermuda remembers not only victory, but the sacrifice and unity that made it possible. As Winston Churchill said to the House of Assembly during his visit to Bermuda in 1942, “You have cause to be proud that it has fallen to your lot to make this important contribution to a better world”.

We honour the 35 Bermudians that made the ultimate sacrifice: William C. Baxter, Herman Francis Grant Ede, Edward Brennan, James Hugh Arnold Linton, Walter Hewson Perinchief, William Cardy Hollis Hallett, Noel Lumley Meyer, John Edward Darrell Carlyle Brewer, Geoffrey Welch, James Outerbridge, Alfred John Thomas, James Standley Whitecross, Frank Scott, Frederick Gerald Daniel Hughes, Harold Edwin Hutchings, Elgar Frederick Harris, Stanley Arthur Shelton, Allison William Bluck Fowle, Warren James Harris, John DeSilva, Richard Martin White, Anthony Frith Smith, Willard Patterson, Jay Cicott Stephenson, Edward Eugene Hennessay, Francis Walter Monkman, Harry Reginald Frost, George Wendell West, Granville Burton Williams, Cecil John Greenway Wright, Frank Charles Corbett, Howard Sinclair Burgess, Douglas William Howard Hutchings, Alfred David Drewsbury Drew, and Daisy Louise Vallis – the only Bermudian woman killed in service.