Fort George History
Background
There is no such place as Fort George, at least not according to official Ministry of Defence documents. It is thought the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, who came to Derry in 1971, coined the informal name after the fort in Scotland.
But the site played an important part in the military and industrial history of the town centuries before the army arrived at the start of the troubles.
Captain Francis Neville¹s map at the time of the siege of Derry in 1688 marks Penny Burn Mill on the River Foyle, facing two small roads, one of which is now known as the Buncrana Road. The other curved round south west through Creggan, past most of the forces besieging the walled town, as far as Lord Galway¹s Horse, near what would now be the road to Newtowncunningham.
The mill is referred to in the Ordnance Survey of 1835, using the modern form of the townland name, Pennyburn.
Around that time there was some criticism of the Corporation and the Irish Society for failing to develop the docks. Messrs Pitt Skipton and Co began building a ŒPatent Slip Dock¹ in 1930 and used it for repairing wooden boats. Sails were also made there and it appears some boats were built as well, including one made of Irish oak designed for a load of 259 tons.
More advanced technology arrived in 1882 when Charles Bigger set up the Foyle Shipyard in Pennyburn to build large steel-hulled sailing ships. Before this could be done the Harbour Commissioners had to resolve a conflict with the Lough Swilly Railway Company over part of the land needed for the shipyards. This included not only what is known as Fort George but also the area now occupied by the Sainsbury supermarket. In the summer of 1887, two steamers, the Foyle and the Victoria, left the Bigger yard. The Borough Directory in 1891 reported on "a splendid equipped yard at Pennyburn, where employment is given to upwards of 500 hands". A year later it closed down, having built 26 sailing ships, including five for local merchant, William Mitchell, and seven steamers.
Shipbuilding resumed from 1899 to 1904 and in 1912 the yard was re-equipped and four new berths were constructed. As the First World War loomed, this proved to be an important investment. During the war, from 1914 to 1918, the yard was working flat out, 24 hours a day, to replace allied shipping losses and the workforce totalled 2,000 men. The yard continued to expand after the war, and employed 2,600 people in the early 1920s. Although Derry¹s future as a major shipbuilding centre seemed secure, the yard was closed for the last time in 1924, owing to a deepening world depression. (Mitchell pp73-74)
The Second World War marked the zenith of the Pennyburn site, as Derry became the main base for warships protecting Allied shipping from the attacks of German U-boats in the Atlantic. The Royal Navy took over the Fort George site in 1940 from its owners, the Port and Harbour Commission.
Beginning as a repair and refuelling centre, it later became part of HMS Ferret (following the Navy¹s tradition of naming land bases as though they were ships), which took in the entire city and Lisahally. At that time Derry was a very cosmopolitan place, serving as an official base for the Royal Navy, the US Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Free French Navy and the Royal Indian Navy. In addition, there were Belgian, Norwegian, Dutch, Russian and other sailors, estimated to total between 20,000 and 30,000. They were serving on a huge number of destroyers and frigates moored on both sides of the river from Craigavon Bridge past the shipyard at Pennyburn to Lough Foyle. It is thought that 1,600 ships used the port during the war. A photograph from the period shows warships moored five abreast along the quays at Derry.
It is part of folklore that the United States entered the war because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, but we know from the experience of Derry that it had been making preparations for quite some time. A secret agreement early in 1941 provided for the establishment of a US naval base in the city. The first group of nearly 400 Œcivilian technicians¹ arrived on 30 June 1941, and another 600 later in the year. By December, when the USA entered the war, they had constructed a vast array of facilities, including a radio station, ammunition and storage depots, personnel camps and one thousand feet of new quayside at Lisahally.
Included in these facilities was a modern ship repair base on the Fort George and Sainsbury sites. The dry dock was extended by 45 feet to take some of the 50 Destroyers which the USA gave Britain in exchange for the right to build four bases in the UK, including the Derry one. The Fort George facility played its part in the Allied victory, since more than 400 ships were repaired there during the war. US facilities also included a headquarters building, mostly below ground, on the Magee College campus. Its plotting room duplicated the 30 feet high maps at Derby House, Liverpool, from which Admiral Sir Max Horton directed the Battle of the Atlantic, in case the latter were destroyed by German bombs. As well as being the UK¹s most westerly harbour, Derry was at the outside limits of the range of German bombers. Only one bomb fell there, in April 1941, though that killed 13 people.
The ŒUS Naval Operating Base, Londonderry¹ was officially commissioned in February 194, replacing Reykjavik in Iceland as the terminal for US convoys bound for Britain. The American base continued in operation in Derry until July 1944, when the facilities were returned to the British, retaining only a US radio station in the city, which remained until September 1997.
The contribution of HMS Ferret to the war effort was recognised when Derry was chosen as the venue for the surrender of about 70 German U-boats after the war; they steamed into the port to join the array of American and European warships. There was no more tangible recognition of the city¹s role. Although Fort George remained a Royal Navy Maintenance Yard after the war, and the Ministry of Defence renewed its lease on the property in 1960, the Admiralty declined to make Derry a permanent naval port and the dockyards were effectively closed again.
It was not the navy that used the base next, but the army, which came into Northern Ireland in 1969. In 1971, it took over the site to accommodate soldiers and named it unofficially as Fort George. It also housed the RUC, but both soldiers and police vacated the base in 2000. The observation mast was dismantled in September of that year and, after some controversy over the proposed sale of the remaining 12 years of the lease by the army, the Port and Harbour Commissioners sought agreement on securing full control of the Fort George a month later.
It will soon be handed back to the Port and Harbour perhaps by June 2001.
PAUL McGILL
With thanks to Richard Doherty, a military historian, Carolyn Farrar for additional research and all who provided information and documentation.
References
Gerald Hasson: Thunder & Clatter: The History of
Shipbuilding in Derry
Brian Lacy: Siege City: The Story of Derry and
Londonderry
Brian Mitchell: Derry: A City Invincible