St. John's Nfld. as major naval base

Could St. John's Newfoundland be a major naval base into the 1900s?

Access to the port is tight, 91 meters wide, 11.8 meters deep. This would allow the largest of the RN's battleships to access, though HMS Vanguard would have only 80cm of water underneath!

http://www.sjpa.com/pages.aspx?id=61

bf0ecbf39ab2e6da73ba6f1afa171b8b.jpg


Once inside the port, there is space for large warships, as shown by these large cruise ships.

2013-11-04-11-08-35-D1-two-cruise-ships-2.jpg
 
Last edited:
No.

Here are a few random reasons why:

1. Wasn't it a naval base during the World Wars, at least for anti-submarine warfare?

2. Why is the British (or American) fleets concentrated at St. John's, when the enemy is Germany/ Japan/ Russia, and the UK and US are allies? What is the fleet protecting over there.

3. If you change everything so that the United States and British Empire are enemies, meaning the British are keeping a large fleet in North America, why aren't they using Halifax?

You need some situation where its important to keep a large fleet in northwestern Atlantic waters, but for some reason Halifax is unavailable.

You could have a situation where the British side with the Confederacy during the American Civil War. This winds up securing the independence of the Confederate states. The US, or whatever successor state holds onto the Mid-Atlantic and New England, however succeeds in conquering Canada either during the war itself, or in a war of revenge fought against the British empire later. The British hold onto Newfoundland. They are allied with the Confederate States and hostile to the United States or its successor, and base a fleet in Newfoundland to keep an eye on the Americans. Halifax is where the American Atlantic fleet is based and so is unavailable. Note this POD is before 1900.
 
No.

Here are a few random reasons why:

1. Wasn't it a naval base during the World Wars, at least for anti-submarine warfare?

2. Why is the British (or American) fleets concentrated at St. John's, when the enemy is Germany/ Japan/ Russia, and the UK and US are allies? What is the fleet protecting over there.

3. If you change everything so that the United States and British Empire are enemies, meaning the British are keeping a large fleet in North America, why aren't they using Halifax?
I'm lost; none of these are reasons why not, nor is there any apparent randomness, but instead appear to queries on what we need to consider in order to make it work.
 
I suppose, in theory, Halifax might be viewed as too 'Canadian' for an RN base, while Newfoundland (either before '48, or with NFLD staying independent) might be small enough that granting extra-territoriality for the base would be politically doable. It could even be an underhanded way to subsidized Nfld independence. (OTL, if Nfld stayed out of Canada, Britain made it clear the subsidies would stop, as they couldn't afford them. ITTL, that's the official line, but things like a major naval base get around that, some.)

Of course, you'd still need a reason for Britain to want/need/be able to afford a naval base in the western North Atlantic.
 
Of course, you'd still need a reason for Britain to want/need/be able to afford a naval base in the western North Atlantic.
With the transfer of the Halifax base to Canada, the RN has only Bermuda and St. John's in the western Atlantic. Perhaps we need a POD where Canada disagrees with Britain on some larger matter. Perhaps Halifax is partially demilitarized after the 1917 explosion.
 
Last edited:
Could St. John's Newfoundland be a major naval base into the 1900s?

Access to the port is tight, 91 meters wide, 11.8 meters deep. This would allow the largest of the RN's battleships to access, though HMS Vanguard would have only 80cm of water underneath!

Once inside the port, there is space for large warships, as shown by these large cruise ships.

Aside from the speculative POD's on why the Britain maintained NL and / or was at odds with Canada and the U.S., there are a few points which diminish St. John's viability.

1) The opening was widened (I believe after WW2) to allow cruise ships to navigate the channel into the protected harbor. Prior to this widening, the limitation on the width of the vessel was more restrictive.
2) Having been to St. John's, the harbor is "cute", but far from expansive. I was looking for comparative numbers; surface area of St. John's versus Pearl Harbor, but could not find information about St. John's.
3) Reorienting a vessel once in the harbor would make it difficult to maintain a large naval surface presence of Cruisers and Battleships.
4) During WW2 it was used as a staging point for the North Atlantic Convoys, but it was not the only staging point.
5) Until the discovery of oil offshore, I am not aware of any local coalfields or onshore oil field either on St. John's or part of the larger political area of Newfoundland and Labrador. Therefore, all resupply would have to cross the North Atlantic.
 
During both WW1and WW2, RN, RCN and USN used Saint John's to refuel and resupply the hundreds of corvettes and destroyers protecting Trans-Atlantic convoys against U-boats.

The Halifax Explosion was a good excuse to transfer even more escort vessels to Saint John's.

A disadvantage (compared to Halifax) is that Saint John's lacked a large inner harbour (like Bedford Basin) to organize large convoys.
 
No way. Short version is it's too small. And it's essentially an island where everything has to be brought in by convoy vs. Halifax which has rail links to everything that might be needed. Don't forget how traditional a barter-driven resource economy hey had until 1960 or so. No local industry to support your fleet.

Newfyjohn had an even smaller entrance back then, and just because a ship could get in at standard draft, with no sea running, and no list, and no flooding, does not a port make.

If you wanted an anchorage in Newfy you would go to Mary'stown or Argentina or one of various other places and build it. Huge anchorage, loads of room for yards, room for magazines and etc., like shooting ranges and so on. You could build a cruiser base in St.J's but not much more. Where would you put a drydock in 1900 or 1920.
 
Top