confirmed yesterday.

Ens. Anne Say said $20 million worth of weapons were removed from the East End base on September 5.

The 100 tons of weapons, which included Mark 46 torpedoes, were ferried by helicopter to the combat support ship USS Seattle , she said.

They were then returned to the United States.

"It is part of our continual re-alignment process,'' Ens. Say told The Royal Gazette . "The missions of the Base are changing, and so is what we need to have on the Base.'' The St. David's Island base is in the midst of a major downsizing and the US Congress is soon expected to debate its closure. Because US Navy personnel operate the Civil Air Ter minal, a closure could prove costly to Bermuda.

Ens. Say would not say whether the removal of weapons left the Base disarmed.

Nor would she confirm or deny a report that weapons removed included B-57 nuclear depth charges, which were at one time stationed at several American anti-submarine bases.

However, military analysts in Washington DC said it was unlikely that nuclear weapons were removed from Bermuda as recently as September. And it was not known whether such weapons were ever deployed on the Island.

On July 2, 1992, former US president Mr. George Bush announced that a major withdrawal from forward bases of US nuclear weapons, including anti-submarine nuclear depth charges, had been completed a month earlier.

In his 1985 book Nuclear Battlefields, Mr. William Arkin said there were to be no nuclear weapons located in Bermuda during peacetime, but there was a contingency for 32 nuclear depth charges to be stored on the Island in the event of a crisis.

"I'm quite certain that we have operated under the belief that the way things were in 1984-85 is the way things would be today,'' said Dr. Stan Norris, an analyst with the Natural Resources Defence Council in Washington DC who co-authored the book Taking Stock with Mr. Arkin.

"There were no nuclear weapons in Bermuda in recent years.'' A row erupted on the Island after Mr. Arkin released his information in 1985, based on leaked details of the classified US Nuclear Weapons Deployment Plan.

In response, the US State Department said it could neither confirm nor deny that there were contingency plans to place nuclear weapons in Bermuda.

At the time, a survey showed more than 85 percent of Bermuda residents believed Government should be advised if nuclear weapons were to be deployed.

Any US plan to place nuclear weapons in Bermuda would require the approval of Great Britain.

P-3 aircraft like those stationed in Bermuda were equipped to carry and discharge the nuclear depth charges. While a conventional depth charge is intended to force a submarine to surface, a nuclear depth charge "would wipe it out,'' said Mr. Hans Kristensen, a research associate with Greenpeace in Washington DC.

But B-57s were on a list of US weapons that were to be scrapped, he said.

Leaving aside the question of whether they ever were, "if they are still in Bermuda, that would surprise me,'' he said.