![]() Construction began in April 1942, by the US 38th Engineer Regiment (Combat).Ĭonstruction was a daunting challenge, completed in 91 days.Īlthough there had been a few test flights, the first official flight took place on the 10th of July 19, 1942. The best location was found to be at Waterloo Plain and in December 1941, another survey was conducted by members of the US Army Air Corps. In 1941, as part of the ongoing discussion with the USA about ‘lend-lease,’ a survey was conducted with a view to establishing an airfield on the island. From 1922, the military force was withdrawn and the island administered by the Eastern Telegraph Company until the ETC merged with other similar organisations to become Cable and Wireless.ĭuring WWII, the island was reinforced and also used for signals intelligence. In 1899, the first undersea telegraph cable was landed at Ascension Island, from then, it would serve as a communications relay station, the first wireless equipment being installed in 1915. The garrison town was called Georgetown 1829, after King George IV, and continued to grow. After the death of Bonaparte, Ascension became a sanatorium and staging post for Royal Navy ships. ![]() Construction of a jetty, drainage, semaphore system, accommodation and fortifications followed. Tristan de Cunha was also garrisoned in a similar manner the year after. In 1815, Ascension Island was occupied by British forces in order to prevent the island from being used to mount a rescue mission for Bonaparte, imprisoned on St Helena. Captain James Cook landed on the island in 1775 and an American ship was shipwrecked there in 1799 until the crew were rescued a few months later by HMS Endymion. For the next few hundred years, the island would see occasional visitors, usually looking for turtle meat. This time, it was named Ascension Island. It was thought the navigator failed to properly record the discovery and the island was discovered again, in 1503, also by a Portuguese sailor, on Ascension Day. It was first discovered in 1501 by the Portuguese navigator Juan de Nova and names Ilha de Nossa Señora de Conceiçao (The Island of Our Lady of the Conception”), or Conception Island (de Nova also discovered St Helena). Situated in the Atlantic Ocean at 7° 57’ south latitude and 14° 22’ west longitude the volcanic peak island is only 97km2. ![]() Ascension Island, in the Mid-Atlantic, would play a decisive role in the 1982 Falkland conflict and arguably, the operation to retake the islands would have been impossible without it.
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