Historic 'Finger' site is poised for take-off again

FRIDAY, SEPT. 21: The old ammunition bunkers that line the western edge of The Finger bare the marks of bygone conflicts.

Even today rusting barbed wire fences and faded  ‘Explosives’ signs still guard the structures that many experts believe once housed nuclear weapons while the old airport runway was being used by US Forces.

This week The Finger is back in the headlines as private firms grapple to win the right to transform it into the island’s first solar-powered plant.

The runway that runs north to south has been left largely derelict for the past three decades, occasionally used by firefighters to practice their drills.

But now the Government-owned land is at the centre of a development struggle and could become one of the most valuable and potentially-powerful plots of earth on the island.

The Finger, known because it sticks into Castle Harbour like a finger, was built in the early 1940s as part of the US Air Force Base on Kindley Field in St David’s.

Mike Osborn, LF Wade’s current Terminal Manger, told the Bermuda Sun: “The runway was designed in the days when land aircraft were not as heavy as they are today.

“The more modern commercial aircraft needed a longer take-off run.

“It was designed as an alternative landing strip in case there was a very strong crosswind going from north to south or south to north.

“In the 1940s it was just about long enough for planes to land on it but it soon became redundant as planes became heavier and required a longer take-off distance.”

Thereafter the reserve runway became an ammunition storage area for the US Navy during the Cold War. The bunkers were protected by armed Marines who had the right to use deadly force to defend them.

It was these high-security measures that prompted some military experts like William Arkin to speculate that nuclear weapons were being stored in the underground compound, although the claims have never been confirmed by the US.

In his book USS Bermuda Don Grearson says: “US Marines guarded the compound and its razor-wired fencing carried warning signs that “Use of Deadly Force [was] Authorized”.

“When questioned about Arkin’s assertion, the Navy issued its standard response that it would ‘neither confirm nor deny the presence’ of nuclear weapons on the base.

“This remains its answer today, even among retired officers and enlisted men questioned for this book.

“The only crack in the wall of non-comment was from a senior officer, who when questioned about the logic of nuclear weapons in Bermuda given the Island’s frontline role in defence of the United States, said, leadingly: “Draw your own conclusions”.”

Today The Finger is largely overgrown with thick vegetation and littered with abandoned cars and buses.

The old ammunition bunkers and watchtowers are still standing.

But they are crumbling under the weight of time and neglect.

Mounds of old runway tarmac have been piled up at the southern end and dark black smoke stains on some structures show how they have been used by firefighters for training.

But that is the only action this site has seen for the past few decades.

If developers get their way, the old strip and the ammunition bunkers could very soon be replaced by 83,000 solar panels to help provide power to the island.