Chapter Thirteen - Ascension Island September 2009

Ascension Island is an isolated island of volcanic origin in the South Atlantic Ocean, around 1000 miles from the coast of Africa, and 1400 miles from the coast of South America & is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. The Portuguese explorer João da Nova is believed to be the first to discover the island (in 1501), but he did not report it. When in 1503 Afonso de Albuquerque, a Portuguese navigator sighted the island on Ascension Day in the Roman Catholic Church calendar, he named it for that day.

Dry and barren, it had little appeal for passing ships except for collecting fresh meat. Mariners could hunt for the numerous seabirds and the enormous female green turtles who laid their eggs on the sandy beaches. The Portuguese also introduced goats, as a source of meat for future mariners. In February 1701, HMS Roebuck, commanded by William Dampier, went down in the common anchoring spot in Clarence Bay to the northwest of the island. Some sixty men survived for two months until they were rescued. Almost certainly, after a few days they found the strong water spring in the high interior of the island, in what is now called Breakneck Valley.

It is possible that the island was sometimes used as an open prison for criminal mariners, although there is only one documented case of such an exile, a Dutch ship's officer, Leendert Hasenbosch, who was set ashore at Clarence Bay as a punishment for sodomy in May 1725. The Dutchman's tent, belongings and diary were found by British mariners in January 1726; the man had probably died of thirst.

Ascension Island was first inhabited in 1815, when the British garrisoned it as a precaution after imprisoning Napoleon I on St Helena to the southeast. The Royal Navy officially designated the island as a stone frigate, "HMS Ascension", with the classification of "Sloop of War of the smaller class". The location of the island made it a useful stopping point for ships and communications. The Royal Navy used the island as a victualling station for ships, particularly those of the West Africa Squadron working against the slave trade. A garrison of Royal Marines were based at Ascension from 1923. In 1898, the Eastern Telegraph Company (now part of Cable and Wireless) installed the first underwater cable from the island, connecting the UK with its colonies in South Africa. In 1922, Letters Patent made Ascension a dependency of Saint Helena. The island was managed by the head of the Eastern Telegraph Company on the island until 1964 when the British Government appointed an Administrator to represent the Governor of Saint Helena on Ascension.

During World War II, the United States built an airbase on Ascension Island, known as "Wideawake", after a nearby colony of Sooty Terns (locally called 'Wideawake' birds because of their loud, distinctive call, which would wake people early in the morning). The airbase, which was under construction by the 38th Combat Engineer Battalion of the Army Corp of Engineers, was unexpectedly visited by two British Fairey Swordfish torpedo planes on 15 June 1942. According to one of the pilots, Peter Jinks, the planes were fired upon before being recognized as allies. The Swordfish had to land on the unfinished airstrip, thus becoming the first aircraft to land on Ascension Island. The event was later commemorated with a postage stamp 15 June 1982.

The Airfield was used by the US military as a stopping point for American aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the way to theatres of operation in Europe and Africa. American bombers engaged in the Laconia incident used Wideawake as base. After the end of World War II, and American departure, the airbase fell into disuse. The only action during World War II occurred on 9 December 1941. At around mid-day, the U-boat U-124 approached Georgetown on the surface with the intention of sinking any ships at anchor or shelling the cable station. The submarine was fired on by a two-gun shore battery at Cross Hill, above Georgetown. No hits were scored but the U-boat submerged and retreated. The battery remains largely intact to this day. The guns are BL 5.5 inch Mark I naval guns removed from HMS Hood during a refit in Malta in 1938. With the space race and the Cold War, Americans returned in 1956. Wideawake Airfield was expanded in the mid 1960s. The runway, with its strange hump, was extended, widened, and improved to allow its use by large aircraft, and also acts as an emergency runway for the Space Shuttle. The US Air Force use the island as part of their Eastern Test Range.

Ascension Island continues to serve as an important link in American space projects. NASA established a tracking station on the island in 1967, but has since abandoned it. The BBC Atlantic Relay Station was installed in 1966 for short-wave broadcasts to Africa and South America, the island remains an important out post for the BBC World Service & Cable & Wireless as well as GCHQ.

In 1982, Ascension Island was used as a staging post for the British Task Force during the Falklands War. The Royal Air Force deployed a fleet of Vulcan bombers and Victor tankers at the airfield. The opening shots of the British offensive were launched from Ascension by Vulcans in Operation Black Buck. The RAF also used the base to supply the Task Force. Because of the increase in air traffic during the war, Wideawake was the busiest airfield in the world for a short period. The Royal Navy's fleet stopped at Ascension for refuelling on the way. Following the war, the British retained an increased presence on the island, establishing RAF Ascension Island, and providing a refuelling stop for the regular airlink between RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, and RAF Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands. As of 2007, NASA continues to list Ascension Island as a "downrange site" used for range safety instrumentation.

OK, thats the boring crap out of the way, well actually its not, following a brief visit to ASSI in September I drew the short straw & headed South curtesy of the RAF airbridge in November 2009, its now June 2010 & I'm back in the UK, I'm not meant to be home, well I am meant to be home, the job's meant to be all done & dusted, but guess what, it's not, dummy spat out, bags packed, arse's & elbows, yeah shit happens, what follows is the bit's that weren't crap.

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