CARRYING out historical research is often akin to being sent on a wild goose chase, with little or nothing to show for days of diligent work. Research is defined as a ‘systematic process of inquiry aimed at discovering, interpreting and revising facts’.

A key ingredient of the armchair explorer or researcher is tenacity, like a dog with a good lamb bone. That doggedness of a terrier, if combined with an ability to ‘follow your nose’, often leads to new discoveries and the amplification of existing facts.

It is not for everyone, or the faint-hearted, to be a researcher, for one is as often alone on the journey, as could be an explorer in the deepest Sahara. Like that desert traveller, the good researcher is usually thirsty, but for knowledge of the past, which slakes the mind like water the throat.

We are all researchers of one type or another, be it looking for ancestors or reconciling a bank account. Some are more attuned to such archival archaeology and this article owes much to the tenacity of LeYoni Junos, a researcher for the Bermuda Maritime Museum.

At the Reference Library to scan old newspapers for war veterans’ data, she took a turn in a microfilm landscape that led to the open sea, as she unearthed a reference to ‘strange craft in Bermuda waters’.K>This led to an examination of a recently acquired aerial photograph that might be show those oddities. Off on that tangent the research went, leaving the trenches to chase sub chasers, early aeroplanes and submarines.There were two sets of facts that required interpretation and explanation and out of these came the story of American sub chasers and submarines at Bermuda.

The first group was contained in the newspaper article on the strange vessels about the place and the second was the facts contained in what is likely the first aerial photograph of the harbour and City of Hamilton.

The newspaper reported the fact that submarine chasers and minesweepers had stopped in Bermuda on their way home to the United States.

The sub chasers had come from as far away as Archangel in Russia and the sweepers had been engaged in taking up mine barrages they had previously laid out in the North Sea. The repair ships, USS Panther USS Black Hawk<$> accompanied these strange craft.

The aerial photograph records many facts; those relevant to this story were the two clutches of unusual vessels rafted up in Hamilton Harbour.

Beyond these are the facts of the state of the City of Hamilton and the undeveloped landscape to the north, matters of interpretative interest to many Bermudians.

Peter Dowle, engaged by the Government to take aerial views of Bermuda for tourism purposes, took the photograph, which was donated to the Maritime Museum by Molly Godet and Alan Thomas of PagFurther research by Junos suggested that the strange craft were US Navy submarines. If they prove to be a group reported in the local press, their presence may date this image to the first week of June 1920, making it possibly the earliest known aerial photograph of Hamilton.We can make that assertion based upon the fact that there had been only one aeroplane flight in Bermuda on May 22, 1919, prior to the establishment of the first ‘airport’ on Hinson’s Island late that year.

From that base, the Bermuda and West Atlantic Aviation made the second flight over the island on December 11, 1919. The sub chasers had come and gone between those dates, so they could not have been photographed.

Junos also noted that the Cenotaph at the Cabinet Office had not been built, so the photo definitely has to be before May 1925 and likely before October 1920, when the cornerstone of the monument was laid.

The only submarines known to be at Bermuda at the time were two groups from the US, whose arrival and departure dates may date the photograph to the first week of June 1920.

Returning to our chase of the sub chasers, research revealed that a squadron came through Bermuda on the way to the war in Europe in March 1918. On station here from December 1917 to April 1918 as their repair ship was the USS Alert.

Some of the sub chasers docked at Agar’s Island, where there was a US ammunition dump in the 1870s magazine, later Bermuda’s first aquam. On leaving Agar’s, sub chaser SC126 sank after striking a reef and a photo from www.subchaser.org shows only the ‘fighting top’ with a sailor therein above water. (I thank Todd Woofenden, editor of Subchaser Archives, for his assistance and for the photos from that site.) SC126 was refloated, but remained in Bermuda some six months for repairs.The sub chasers had a short war and returned to the United States via Bermuda in late summer 1919. From here, they organised a race and a number of the boats chased each other to New York.

On August 20, 1919, SC131 claimed the honours, setting a new record for that transit of 58 hours and 32 minutes. Thus the chase to identify the strange craft in an early aerial photograph of Hamilton Harbour led to the discovery of another group of unusual boats that for a short time were residents in these islands.

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Dr. Edward Harris, mbe, jp, fsa, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion, not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can sent to harris@logic.bm, to PO Box MA 133, Sandys MABX, or by telephone at 799-5480.