Post by connieguy on Dec 20, 2023 6:30:36 GMT -5
Oakes Field Nassau, MYX6 1955-1957
Although born in the USA Sir Harry Oakes made a fortune out of gold mining in Canada, moved to the Bahamas for tax reasons in the 1930s and became a British citizen, being granted a hereditary baronetcy by King George VI in 1939. He was murdered in July 1943. (see Wikipedia here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Oakes).
Pan Am was offering a daily service between Miami and Nassau at least as early as 1932, but by 1943 that service, daily except for Wednesday and Sunday, was being flown by DC-3s to Oakes Field. The commercial and philanthropic activites of Oakes in the Bahamas had a very beneficial effect on its struggling economy, and included the development of the airport. The fact that the first terminal building had a Pan Am flag flying alongside the Union Jack and after enlargement was festooned with Pan Am badges suggests that they played at least some sort of role in its building, perhaps in part financial. The British government was important in the airfield's development too. What proved to be the final years of Oakes's life coincided with the governorship (1940-1945) of George VI's brother the duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII, accompanied by his wife, the former Wallis Simpson. In August 1942 No. 111 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit of the RAF was formed at Oakes Field and Windsor Field (now MYNN Lynden Pindling International Airport) with the purpose of training aircrew for reconnaissance on US aircraft types, principally the B-24 Liberator and the B-25 Mitchell. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._111_(Coastal)_Operational_Training_Unit_RAF. However, a number of other types were present too, including the British Handley Page Halifax III heavy bomber. It also carried out operational sorties in the western Atlantic, including anti-submarine patrols, many of the aircrew involved being Australians who later served in the Far East and some of whom are commemorated by the Australian war memorial in Nassau. Clearly these operations were of considerable use to the British and US war effort, but they also involved the building of a substantial airfield with three runways which was to be of considerable use to the Bahamas, and one might wonder whether the duke of Windsor and Harry Oakes played any role in arranging this. The name of Windsor Field might also suggest that. There is a photograph of the first terminal apparently dated 1940 which shows a Pan Am DC-3 but not whatever runways existed at the time. However, both the Coastal Command airfields as built (Windsor Field had three runways too) are shown in an aerial shot of 1943, and thanks to the researches of John Hewson we now know that the Pan Am terminal lay just off the taxiway which ran to the end of R21 and near to the memorial which commemorates Harry Oakes on the modern day Thompson Boulevard. The positioning of that memorial so near to the terminal may not be accidental. The important RAF buildings, of course, were elsewhere.
From the same period is the Pan Am promotional film 'Overnight to Nassau', made during the war as it features the duke of Windsor, who resigned his governorship in March 1945,(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXz6BIC7pVs) I am grateful to Bill Douglas for drawing my attention to this film. The flight from Miami to Nassau is said to have taken 70 minutes, but half of the US is also said to be within reach of it 'overnight'. The duke is seen welcoming a guest at what is described as the Pan American airport at Oakes Field, where he was allegedly a frequent visitor. There is no mention of the war or of the deprivation and social tensions which were a legacy of slavery and which led to serious riots in 1942, but instead we see 'contented carefree negroes' because nothing must spoil the paradise which Pan Am is making available. In the real world Oakes was shared between Pan Am and the RAF, which among other things built at least three very large sheds of a type similar to those constructed at Kindley Field, Bermuda. These presumably allowed aircraft, and especially engines, to be maintained as the ground crews were sheltered from the sun and rain, while not requiring as much effort to construct as a hangar. Nevertheless, quite a large hangar was built too. Photographs show the apron which hosted B-25s and Liberators to have been an extensive one and it was probably an apron which consisted of Bahamian limestone. Limestone lies very near the surface of Bahamian vegetation and when it is exposed can look a brillant white. The Google Earth satellite image from 2000, for example, shows the creation of new streets of housing over the end of Runway 09, and the white effect is strikingly similar to that of the newly built aerodrome in the photograph of 1943. Moreover, this limestone was apparently capable of supporting heavy aircraft without the need for concrete taxiways. At Burtonwood in Lancashire (UK) the many hundreds of B-17s and B-24s which passed through needed either pierced steel planking beneath them or hard core, or they sank into the mud in wet weather. It looks as though this was not necessary at Oakes and therefore gave it a significant advantage as a site, though it should be noted that the limestone will re-vegetate fairly quickly if left to its own devices, and there are signs of this in some of the photographs. On Bahamian limestone see bahamianology.com/limestone-rock-bahamas/ I am again grateful to Bill Douglas for drawing my attention to the historical images feature of Google Earth.
Although born in the USA Sir Harry Oakes made a fortune out of gold mining in Canada, moved to the Bahamas for tax reasons in the 1930s and became a British citizen, being granted a hereditary baronetcy by King George VI in 1939. He was murdered in July 1943. (see Wikipedia here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Oakes).
Pan Am was offering a daily service between Miami and Nassau at least as early as 1932, but by 1943 that service, daily except for Wednesday and Sunday, was being flown by DC-3s to Oakes Field. The commercial and philanthropic activites of Oakes in the Bahamas had a very beneficial effect on its struggling economy, and included the development of the airport. The fact that the first terminal building had a Pan Am flag flying alongside the Union Jack and after enlargement was festooned with Pan Am badges suggests that they played at least some sort of role in its building, perhaps in part financial. The British government was important in the airfield's development too. What proved to be the final years of Oakes's life coincided with the governorship (1940-1945) of George VI's brother the duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII, accompanied by his wife, the former Wallis Simpson. In August 1942 No. 111 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit of the RAF was formed at Oakes Field and Windsor Field (now MYNN Lynden Pindling International Airport) with the purpose of training aircrew for reconnaissance on US aircraft types, principally the B-24 Liberator and the B-25 Mitchell. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._111_(Coastal)_Operational_Training_Unit_RAF. However, a number of other types were present too, including the British Handley Page Halifax III heavy bomber. It also carried out operational sorties in the western Atlantic, including anti-submarine patrols, many of the aircrew involved being Australians who later served in the Far East and some of whom are commemorated by the Australian war memorial in Nassau. Clearly these operations were of considerable use to the British and US war effort, but they also involved the building of a substantial airfield with three runways which was to be of considerable use to the Bahamas, and one might wonder whether the duke of Windsor and Harry Oakes played any role in arranging this. The name of Windsor Field might also suggest that. There is a photograph of the first terminal apparently dated 1940 which shows a Pan Am DC-3 but not whatever runways existed at the time. However, both the Coastal Command airfields as built (Windsor Field had three runways too) are shown in an aerial shot of 1943, and thanks to the researches of John Hewson we now know that the Pan Am terminal lay just off the taxiway which ran to the end of R21 and near to the memorial which commemorates Harry Oakes on the modern day Thompson Boulevard. The positioning of that memorial so near to the terminal may not be accidental. The important RAF buildings, of course, were elsewhere.
From the same period is the Pan Am promotional film 'Overnight to Nassau', made during the war as it features the duke of Windsor, who resigned his governorship in March 1945,(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXz6BIC7pVs) I am grateful to Bill Douglas for drawing my attention to this film. The flight from Miami to Nassau is said to have taken 70 minutes, but half of the US is also said to be within reach of it 'overnight'. The duke is seen welcoming a guest at what is described as the Pan American airport at Oakes Field, where he was allegedly a frequent visitor. There is no mention of the war or of the deprivation and social tensions which were a legacy of slavery and which led to serious riots in 1942, but instead we see 'contented carefree negroes' because nothing must spoil the paradise which Pan Am is making available. In the real world Oakes was shared between Pan Am and the RAF, which among other things built at least three very large sheds of a type similar to those constructed at Kindley Field, Bermuda. These presumably allowed aircraft, and especially engines, to be maintained as the ground crews were sheltered from the sun and rain, while not requiring as much effort to construct as a hangar. Nevertheless, quite a large hangar was built too. Photographs show the apron which hosted B-25s and Liberators to have been an extensive one and it was probably an apron which consisted of Bahamian limestone. Limestone lies very near the surface of Bahamian vegetation and when it is exposed can look a brillant white. The Google Earth satellite image from 2000, for example, shows the creation of new streets of housing over the end of Runway 09, and the white effect is strikingly similar to that of the newly built aerodrome in the photograph of 1943. Moreover, this limestone was apparently capable of supporting heavy aircraft without the need for concrete taxiways. At Burtonwood in Lancashire (UK) the many hundreds of B-17s and B-24s which passed through needed either pierced steel planking beneath them or hard core, or they sank into the mud in wet weather. It looks as though this was not necessary at Oakes and therefore gave it a significant advantage as a site, though it should be noted that the limestone will re-vegetate fairly quickly if left to its own devices, and there are signs of this in some of the photographs. On Bahamian limestone see bahamianology.com/limestone-rock-bahamas/ I am again grateful to Bill Douglas for drawing my attention to the historical images feature of Google Earth.
No 111 OTU left at the end of the war and the entire airfield then became available for civilian use. A second civilian terminal was necessary, perhaps because Pan Am was unwilling to make its facilities available to rival airlines, but also because a volume of traffic developed too great for the Pan Am area alone to handle. Hence, the buildings of a second terminal appeared on what had been the RAF apron. There was also one occupied by Bahamas Airways Ltd, whose fairly busy schedule using the Grumman Goose and eventually also the De Havilland Heron can be seen in BOAC timetables of the period. Yet by the mid 1950s Oakes's days as an airport were numbered.Its runways would have needed lengthening to take jets and its proximity to the centre of Nassau might well have rendered their appearance unpopular. At some point the decision was taken to close it and move to the former Windsor Field, which opened as Nassau International Airport (now Lynden Pindling International Airport) on 1st November 1957. Presumably the required building work had occupied a certain amount of time prior to that. Oakes spent a period of some years subsequently as a motor racing circuit, and photographs which survive from that period have valuable evidence to offer. Historical satellite images show that there have been significant changes, including the construction of the Thomas Robinson Stadium, in recent years.
Here is the link to John Hewson's vital Flickr album, which has just been updated with the motor racing photos:
Work on this scenery is in progress and Tom has kindly provided a 1955 Traffic file which routes aircraft to it.
A Pan Am DC-7B about to land on Runway 27 on a murky day in December. Although some of the airport is obscured by the structure of the windscreen the appearance of the rest is close to that of the aerial photograph of 1943.
