in Castle Harbour. With the entry of the USA into the War, at the end of 1941, the US Navy began operating air-patrols from the Island. Bermuda was a forming-up point, during the War, for convoys numbering hundreds of ships. Despite the importance of guarding against Axis submarines and surface raiders operating in the area, the RAF had not posted a Coastal Command detachment to maintain air cover. The Fleet Air Arm operated ad hoc patrols from its base RNAS Boaz Island (HMS Malabar) on Boaz Island. This was a repair facility which had several aeroplanes on hand, but no aircrew. It operated its patrols using pilots from ships at the Dockyard on Ireland Island, and RAF and Bermuda Flying School pilots from Darrell's Island. These patrols ceased in 1941 with the arrival of a US Navy patrol squadron, which operated from Darrell's Island until the US NAS became operable. The RAF operated from its two facilities in Bermuda until the end of the War, when both Commands withdrew their detachments. Darrell's Island reverted to its pre-War role as a civil airport, until the replacement of flying boats as trans-Atlantic airliners by land-planes, like the Lancastrian, the Tudor, and DC4, led to its closure in 1948. Post War activities The senior RAF officer in Bermuda, during the War, Wing Commander E.M. Mo Ware, was loaned to the civil government to oversee the conversion of the RAF's end of the military airfield into a Civil Air Terminal. Pre-fabricated buildings were relocated from Darrell's Island to assemble the first terminal. Ware remained with the local government after leaving the RAF, becoming the Director of Civil Aviation for many years. Although no longer maintaining any detachment in Bermuda, the RAF has continued to use the Island as a trans-Atlantic staging post since the War. Whereas most foreign military aircraft passing through the Island had used the US military end of the airfield, the RAF had continued to disperse its aeroplanes at the former RAF end of the field. Large detachments of tactical aircraft, accompanied by larger refuelling, transport, and maritime patrol aeroplanes, regularly staged at the island on transits between the UK and the garrison at Belize, or bombing ranges on US bases. See also Military of Bermuda Royal Naval Air Station Bermuda at Boaz Island USAAF, Kindley Field 1941-1948/USAF Kindley AFB, 1948-1970 United States Naval Air Station Bermuda (formerly Kindley AFB), 1970-1995