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The military history of Key West encompasses a broad span of history of military involvement in the United States' southernmost city of Key West, the most prelevant of which being a substantial increase of naval operations and U.S. military installations during the American Civil War and Soviet-United States tensions of the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Cold War. As of 2024, U.S. Navy aircrafts operating within the Naval Air Station Key West (NAS) conduct air-to-air combat training and routine Joint task force missions with the U.S. Coast Gaurd in the Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean sea.

In 1766, British governor of East Florida recommended the establishment of a military post in Key West for the British Armed Forces to have increased control of its surrounding areas. The post was never installed. In 1821, John W. Simonton lobbied Washington for the installment of a naval base on Key West upon purchasing the island from Juan Pablo Salas of St. Augustine. In 1822, U.S Naval officer, Matthew C. Perry, sailed into the Key West harbor and claimed the island on behalf of the U.S. government. While Florida had succeeded and joined the Confederate States of America in 1861, Key West remained a member of the U.S. Union due to control of its naval base. Fort Zachary Taylor, constructed in 1845, had been a major military outpost in Key West during the Civil War. Key West served as an important point for military fortifications and coastal defense installments, with the most notable of these including Fort Jefferson and the East and West Martello Towers. Key West later became a major center of refuge for migrant Cubans during the Ten Years' War from 1868 to 1878. An influx of more than 14,000 ships carrying soldiers, sailors, laborers, and tourists came through the island's harbor during World War II.

With the beginning of the Cuban Missle Crisis in 1962, Key West became a significant location for the installation of missle defense systems and military personnel in the event of a sudden attack from Cuba. In his speeches regarding Fidel Castro, President John F. Kennedy often used the phrase "90 miles from Cuba" in reference to Key West's close proximity to Cuba.

Key West currently holds a variety of utilities used by the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard fighter and rescue squadrons for exercises and unit level training within its NAS. The island is also a major control point and operations center for the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Air National Guard and Army National Guard units, along with other federal agencies, and allied military forces. Key West also includes numerous tenant commands, naval facilities, and auxiliary annexes.

Pre-Colonial and colonial era (1763-1826)[edit]
With the British taking control over Florida from Spain in 1763, Key West remained mostly uninhabited. Smugglers and pirateers often used the island to conceal valuables; Bahamians and Cubans often visited for fishing and other various forms of resource manufacture.

In 1766, British Major General and East Florida governor, James Grant, proposed the idea of establishing a military base on Key West in order to further regulate any activity in its surrounding areas. Grant often urged that a post or settlement on Key West would be ideally situated for trade with Havana and have a strategic advantage point in the case of a war, however, nothing came of his plea. After observing fleets of about 30 Cuban and 14 Bahamian fishing vessels in the Florida Keys, Grant became insistent on preventing the intrusion of foreign vessels, as he feared their presence could threaten British control of Florida. Grant consisted of no means to prevent the situation. The island saw an increase in inhabitance following the War of 1812, with fishermen from New England possibly settling in the areas surrounding Key West, including a brief settlement on the island of Key Vaca.

On January 19, 1822, American businessman John W. Simonton of Alabama purchased Cayo Hueso (Key West) from Royal Spanish Navy Artillery officer, Juan Pablo Salas (who had acquired the island from a Spanish Land Grant in 1815) for $2,000. Simonton and his friend, John Whitehead, had been interested in the island's strategic location within wide shipping lanes through the Straits of Florida and its deep water ports. Upon acquiring the island, Simonton began lobbying for the construction of a military base in order to prevent piracy.

On March 25, 1822, Lt. Mathew C. Perry commandeered the USS Shark, a schooner armed with 12 guns, sailed into Key West, and formally claimed the island as de facto property of the United States. Upon claiming the island, Perry renamed Key West to Thompson's Island and its harbor Port Rodgers in honor of Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson and War of 1812 hero and President of the Navy Supervisors Board John Rodgers. In 1823, Commodore David Porter of the USS Firefly, the flagship of a five-ship squadron tasked with the disruption of British trade in the West Indies, was granted control over Key West. With a large portion of wealthy merchant fleets operating through the island's ports, the waters of Key West became a significant point of interest for pirates to prey on shipping lanes. Key West's Naval base was established in 1823 (in what is now known as Mallory Square) in order to avert the theft of the island's merchant vessels. Porter, who ruled Key West under martial law as a military dictator, was delegated the assignment of counter-piracy and control over the island's surrounding slave trade.

Following the signing of the Adam-Onis Treaty by Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, and Foreign Minister of Spain, Luis de Onis, in 1819, thousands of tracts of coral and Atlantic shallows offshore of the Florida Keys (what now makes up the Florida Reef), was made an extension of U.S. soil. "An Act to Protect the Commerce of the United States, and Crimes of Piracy" was signed into law and authorized by President James Monroe to create a special unit of the Navy, that would be known as the West Indies Squadron, to combat piracy and the slave trade in the waters surrounding Key West and the Florida Keys. Commodore James Biddle was named the squadron's first commander and was assigned a fleet of 14 ships. Biddle employed mostly heavy-drafted ships that proved to be ineffective in the pursuit of pirates who favored shallow-drafted vessels for agile navigation in the shoals and reefs of the West Indies.

On April 2, 1822, the HMS Macedonian left Boston to join Commodore Biddle's West Indies Squadron to guard U.S. merchant shipping and suppress piracy. During its deployment, seventy-six of the Macedonian officers and men died, seventy-four of which were attributed to yellow fever.

Secretary Smith Thompson replaced Biddle with Commodore Porter on December 22, 1822, and was formally appointed “to command the vessels-of-war of the United States on the West India station… for the suppression of piracy.” Porter organized his command of 10 Chesapeake Bay schooners and 5 swift shallow-drafted vessels referred to as the “Mosquito Fleet”. Porter established his military depot and squadron's headquarters in Key West on April 6, 1823, and referred to it as Allenton in honor of Lieutenant Allen of the Schooner Alligator. In 1831, Porter noted the strategic value of Key West's military outpost by stating: "The advantages of Key West's location as a military and naval station has no equal except Gibralter. ... It commands the outlets of all trade from Jamaica, the Caribbean Sea, the Bay of Honduras, and the Gulf of Mexico, and is a check to the naval forces of whatever nation may hold Cuba."

—C ommodore David Porter, Florida's past: People and Events That Shaped the State, Volume 2, chapter 30, page 121 Porter was court-martialed after invading the town of Fajardo, Puerto Rico and resigned from the U.S. Navy on August 18, 1826.

Civil War[edit]
Florida succeeded from the United States Union on January 10, 1861. While Florida had officially withdrawn from the Union and joined the Confederacy on February 28, 1861, Key West remained in the hands of the Union due to control of its naval base for the duration of the war. Construction of the Fort Zachary Taylor, began in 1845 and was built at the southwest tip of Key West after the War of 1812 as part of the "Third Tier System of Defense Fortifications plan" to defend the southeast coast of the United States. Designed by U.S. Army Col. Joseph Gilmore Totten and Col. Simon Bernard, the fort was built with a large gunpowder magazine at either end of the barracks and was supported by two artillery batteries, Martello Towers, which now exist today as the Martello Gallery-Key West Art and Historical Museum. Prior to the Civil War, increasing concerns of a conflict with the South prompted government officials to organize a seizure of Fort Taylor from Florida's possesion.

On December 11, 1860, Lieutenant Colonel Lorenzo Thomas of the U.S. Army, disturbed by the Union's vulnerable position in Key West, reported in the Official Record of the Union and Confederate Armies that: "The present condition of affairs in this State indicates very clearly that Florida, by the act of her people, will succeed from the Federal Government. I have reliable information that as soon as the act is committed an attempt will be made to seize upon Fort Taylor. I therefore request instructions on what I am to do- endeavor at all hazards to prevent Fort Taylor being taken or allow State authorities to have possession".

— Lieut. Col. L. Thomas, The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, chapter 4, page 342 At midnight on Sunday, January 13, 1861, three days after Florida's succession, Captian James M. Brennan of the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment transported 44 of his men from the Key West Barracks to Fort Taylor to secure their position from the Confederates. Brennan later sent a message to Washington requesting reinforcements and the presence of at least one or two warships in the harbor. Key West later became an important outpost for supressing blockade runners, with the Union Navy utilizing their srategic position as an operations headquarters for their East Gulf Blockading Squadron. For the duration of the war, Key West stood as a stronghold for the Union's prevention of resource transport to the Confederacy through South Florida. 199 ships were captured by the blockade. Key West's salt production industry was temporarily shut down by the Union after in increase in Confederate sympathizers smuggling the product to the south.

Construction of the U.S. military coastal fortress, Fort Jefferson on Garden Key (70 miles west of Key West), began in 1845 after a survey conducted by Commodore John Rodgers in 1829 stated that a military outpost in the Dry Tortugas would provide a strong naval advantage within the Gulf Coast. With the beginning of the Civil War, 62 men of Major Lewis Golding Arnold's Second U.S. Artillery Regiment were transferred to the fort to prevent it from falling into rebel hands. A drill on January 26, 1861, was performed by the fort's Superintending Engineer, Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, to test the integrity of the post's artillery. The weapon's capabilities proved disappointing, as it took twelve primers to fire two rounds. The vessel, Brooklyn, anchored briefly on Garden Key on February 2 to unload twelve mountain howitzers before traveling to Pensacola. 160 soldiers of Col. Bill Wilson's 6th New York Infantry Regiment was transferred to Fort Jefferson on July 4, 1861. New York soldiers were relieved in March of 1862 when the 7th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry arrived under the command of Col. Haldimand S. Putnam. New Hampshire soldiers were relieved in June of 1862 with the arrival of the 90th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment under the command of Lt. Col. Louis W. Tinelli. New York soldiers were replaced with the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in December of 1862. Two years later, the 110th New York Volunteer Infantry arrived in March of 1864.

10 Years' War[edit]
See also: San Carlos Institute

On October 10, 1868, an uprising led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes for Cuban independence from Spain ignited the 10 Years' War, wherein a mass exodus of Cuban migrants fled north to Key West to escape growing disruptions. With a majority of these exiles being Cuban cigar manufacturers who brought their operations with them, Key West's cigar industry saw extensive growth from the 1860s to the late 1880s. On November 11, 1871, a Cuban heritage center and museum, the San Carlos Institute, was founded by members of Key West's exile community on 516 Duval Street in Key West. The institute soon became a major conspiratorial center for the Cuban independence movement, with numerous meetings taking place with notable Cuban revolutionaries, including José Martí. Key West became an important location for Martí to raise funds, support, and unity in the Cuban resistance movement against Spanish colonial rule.

Spanish-American War[edit]
See also: USS Maine Mast Memorial

On January 24, 1889, the USS Maine left Key West for Havana to protect American interests in Cuba and conduct winter naval exercises in the Gulf of Mexico during the Cuban War of Independence. Prior to its voyage to Havana, the Maine loaded coal to Fort Jefferson. Three weeks later on the night of February 15, 1889, while anchored at the Havana Harbour, an explosion occurred on the Maine's bow after more than 5 tons of gunpowder charges for the vessel's forward batteries had detonated. 251 enlisted sailors of the ship's crew of 355 men were killed. The incident led to an increase in tensions between the United States and Spain. A U.S. Naval inquiry led by Captain William T. Sampson was conducted in the Key West Customs House to investigate the cause of the blast. Upon ruling that the explosion had occurred from an external torpedo detonation, the United States declared war on Spain on April 25, 1898, marking the onset of the Spanish-American War. Shortly after the incident in Havana, the U.S. Navy began increased efforts to prepare Key West for military base use. Large stocks of ammunition and coal were sent to Key West to strengthen fortifications; Fort Zachary Taylor was supplied with two 12-inch M1895 guns for south Battery Osceola and Four 3-inch M1898 15-pounder rapid-fire rifles to Battery Adair.

On May 7, 1898, the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet was moved to Key West by Commodore George C. Remey of the USS Lancaster for the remainder of the war. With the arrival of the Navy on Key West during the height of the conflict, the following affairs were made to prepare the island for base use:


 * Coal bunkers large enough to hold 15,000 tons of coal were dug throughout Key West. Coal was temporarily stored in sail barges in the harbor while coal bunkers were undergoing construction.
 * Intensive dredging of the island's harbor had been conducted by the Army in order to extend military fortification off Key West's shore.
 * Private owners of docks, warehouses, and wharves, leased their properties to the military to help with war efforts.
 * High explosives and ammunition were stored in a number of newly built ordnance depots throughout the island.
 * The United States Army had lent the Navy usage of gunpowder and ammunition magazines in Fort Taylor.

Following the tragedy of the Maine, roughly 24 bodies were buried at the Key West's City Cemetary on March 1. A funeral was performed by Captain Bowman H. McCalla of the USS Marblehead and a statue memorial was erected in 1898 by the Encampment Union Veterans Legion, Washington D.C.

Early 20th century conflicts (1917-1945)[edit]
With the beggining of the 1900s, Key West's Naval station became the headquarters for Florida's Seventh Naval District. A mass amount of military supplies and personnel were allowed to be easily transported to Key West following the completion of Henry Falger's Florida East Coast Railway (F.E.C.), connecting Key West by railway for the first time in the island's history.

World War I[edit]
Key West's Naval stations saw extensive expansion with the onset of the First World War. A year after the outbreak of WW I in 1915, the Naval Station on Boca Chica Key included 101 acres, 55 buildings, coal sheds with a 50,000-ton capacity, a machine shop, a marine railway with a 750-ton capacity, a small hospital, and 100 to 300 personnel of civilian workforce. A landfill was used for the construction of Key West's Flemming Key to hold a number of the island's military installations. On July 13, 1917, 3 months after the United State's entry into WW I, land rented from the F.E.C Railway, what is now known as Trumbo Point, was used for the construction of a new coastal air patrol station. The land consisted of a dredging contract with 134 acres of landfill pumped up from the water's bottom. On September 22, a Curtis N-9 seaplane was piloted by U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Stanley Parker and was logged as the first naval flight from Key West. Numerous U.S. Naval destroyers, submarines, submarine chasers, and patrol vessels conducted training and patrol operations off the coast of Key West from the Naval Station and from a Section Base in downtown near Duval street.

On December 18, 1917, the establishment of Key West's Naval Air Station was commissioned with Lt. Parker as commanding officer. The base soon became a major center for U.S. Naval aviation training and was equipped with a fleet of seaplanes and blimps. The station also trained about 500 naval aviators during the war. Trumbo Point was later constructed with numerous station buildings, seven seaplane hangars, one large blimp hanger, three seaplane ramps, a hydrogenerator plant (to make hydrogen gas for the blimps), and barracks. An early submarine base on Key West was established in the Fort Taylor Annex (what is now known as the Truman Annex). Thomas Edison resided in a home on the base for 6 months while perfecting 41 weapons for the US war effort and developing underwater ordnance for the Navy. The base was assigned the task of supplying U.S. fleets with oil and blocking German Naval vessels from reaching Mexican oil supplies.

Interbellum period[edit]
With WW I coming to an end in 1918, Key West's submarine and air station were decommissioned with multiple buildings at the Trumbo Annex being dismantled. Military activity in Key West greatly decreased following the end of the war, with the island's facilities mainly being used for minor seaplane training. A radio wireless station was established in the Truman Annex and was used by the Navy throughout the 1920-30s. A project initiated in 1917 to construct a submarine basin on the island's harbor was finished in 1920 and saw frequent use with the beginning of the 1940s. Military activity in Key West slowly re-emerged with an increase in sightings of German U-boat presence off the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Keys.

In 1939, the United States Lighthouse Service merged with the Coast Gaurd, establishing the island's Captain of the Port Key West.

World War II[edit]
With the onset of the Second World War in 1939, roughly 3,000 allied merchant vessels and supply convoys were intercepted by German U-boats throughout the Gulf Stream within the mid-Atlantic, wherein a large gap in air power threatened the safety of numerous vessels traveling off the coast of Florida. A large majority of German submarine operations occurred so close to Key West that locals often reported witnessing the burning wreckage of allied cargo and military freighters from the island's shore. In 1942, a total of 47 ships were torpedoed by German U-boats off the coast of Key West. On October 14, 1939, American Navy headquarters at Washington ordered for the reopening of operations at the Naval Base Key West. The base became a significant station for destroyers, submarines, surface patrol craft, patrol seaplanes, PBYs, and patrol blimps to conduct numerous anti-submarine operations offshore. In December of 1940, the Naval station recieved three submarines to aid patrols over critical oceanic junctures. The island's harbor was under frequent patrol by various warships, tugboats, minesweepers, and minelayers to improve defense fortifications. Roughly 3,460 Mark VI mines were planted in the waters north and west of Key West.

Meachum Field (located in what is now known as Key West International Airport) was constructed as an additional satellite facility in 1940 to support blimps running anti-submarine patrols. In the same year, personnel from the Atlantic Fleet Sound School in New London, Connecticut, were transferred to the Naval Station, Key West, to create the Fleet Sonar School in the Truman Annex, tasked with training sonar operators to wage anti-submarine warfare against German hostiles. Monroe County later granted fixed-wing Army aircrafts access to the county airport on Boca Chica Key to support war efforts. Military installations on Key West (A majority of which occurred on Boca Chica Key) saw rapid growth following the onset of WW II, with Naval presence on the island increasing from 50 to 3,000 acres. A 134-mile-long water pipeline extending throughout the Florida Keys was built by the Navy to bring fresh water supply from the mainland to many of Key West's bases. In total, the Navy spent over $70 million in millitary fortifications and $7 million in defense projects in Key West with more than 882 merchant vessels passing through the island's harbour daily. On December 9, 1941, 75 army trucks carrying 1,500 soldiers moved into Key West, marking the largest movement of military personnel in the island's history.

Following the Japanese suprise attack on the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour in 1942, wartime efforts in Key West were amediatly resumed with the United States' entry into WW II. Only 4 days after the U.S. declared war on Japan on December 12, 1942, Operation Paukenschlag, commanded by Karl Doenitz, was ordered by Adolf Hitler to begin an extensive U-boat campaign within the American coasts, a large portion of which occuring offshore Key West. Blackouts were frequently imposed by the Navy in order to prevent warships from being identified. A practice blackout conducted on Janurary 11, 1942, formed a 300-mile-long stretch of darkness from Stuart, Florida, to Key West along the Florida coastline. On Febuary 6, 1942, the Gulf Sea Frontier (GSF), a U.S. Navy command tasked with defending the Straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, was headquartered in Key West. On the night of July 18, 1943, a K-74 navy blimp engaged in battle with a U-134 German submarine forty miles southwest of Key West. It was listed as the island's first Naval engagment during WW II.

In March of 1945, the airfields of Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Boca Chica and the Naval Auxiliary Air Station Boca Chica were combined and officially designated as the U.S. Naval Air Station, Key West, which revieved twelve additional long-range bombers upon its designation.

Post-WW II era[edit]
Following the end of WW II, Submarine Squadron 4 was transferred its operations from Pearl Harbour to Key West in August of 1945 as part of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. The squadron was assigned commanding officers, Captains Edward S. Hutchinson and Lawrence Randall Daspit, respectivly. The base was equipped with a fleet of one Fulton-class submarine tender, the USS Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16), one Chanticleer-class submarine rescue ship, the USS Petrel (ASR-14), and a Balao-class submarine, the USS Clamagore (SS-343), which served as the squadrons flagship from January of 1946 to August 1, 1959.

As relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union deterioted with the beggining of the Cold War, President Harry S. Truman made 11 trips to Key West to organize military defense plans while staying at the Harrt S. Truman Little White House in the Truman Annex. In March of 1948, Truman met with the Chiefs of the Armed Forces and the Department of Defense in Key West to discuss military fortification plans, known as the Key West Agreement. The agreement gave the Navy, Army, and Air Force in increase of control over thier aviation assets for reconnaissance, medical evacuation, and other tactical functions for the island's defense. Beggining in the 1950s, more than 20,000 naval personnel and over 3,000 sonar operators were trained in Key West. Important factors such as the island's advantageous water and climate conditions allowed for submarine operations to be conducted year round with minimal cancalations; Key West's stable water temperatures made sonar conditionals fairly predictable.

With the establishment of Fidel Castro's regime after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, growing concerns over Soviet activity in Cuba led government officials to direct operations from south Florida military installations such as Homestead Air Force Base, Opa Locka Marine Air Station, and the various U.S. Navy facilities in Key West.

Cuban Missile Crisis[edit]
On October 14, 1962, two CIA-modified U-2 survaillence planes captured 928 photographs

Notable installations[edit]
See also: Naval Air Station Key West, Truman Annex, and Trumbo Point

Facilities[edit]

 * Naval Air Station Key West
 * US Navy Joint Task Force
 * Straw Hat Beach
 * US Navy Morale Welfare & Recreation
 * USCG Station Key West
 * US Coast Guard Sector Key West
 * NAS Warehouse

Auxilary Annexes[edit]

 * Truman Annex
 * Trumpo Point Annex
 * Sigsbee Park Annex
 * Naval Branch Health Clinic Key West

See also[edit]

 * David Porter (naval officer)
 * Duval Street
 * Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park
 * Fort Jefferson (Florida)
 * Key West
 * Key West Cemetery
 * Key West Bight
 * Matthew C. Perry
 * Martello Gallery-Key West Art and Historical Museum
 * Mallory Square
 * Naval Air Station Key West
 * San Carlos Institute
 * Truman Annex
 * Trumbo Point
 * USS Maine Mast Memorial

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External links[edit]

 * https://www.cityofkeywest-fl.gov/967/History
 * https://www.kwahs.org/
 * https://www.trumanlittlewhitehouse.org/key-west/military-history
 * https://www.cnic.navy.mil/Regions/cnrse/installations/nas_key_west/

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 * This page was last edited on 21 April 2024, at 11:32.
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