HMS Saker

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HMS Saker is the Royal Navy’s “stone frigate” for personnel serving in the United States. It has existed at several locations since World War II and has been known as Saker I, II and III.

The first Saker appeared at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, as a Royal Naval Air Station. It had been a Royal Canadian Air Force station named HMS Canada. It was commissioned as Saker (or Saker II) on 1 October 1941 and paid off on 1 August 1942, relieved by HMS Canada.

Saker II began as an accounting base in Washington, D.C., on 1 December 1941 and became Saker on 1 November 1942. It had a satellite unit called HMS Asbury just outside New York City. This base helped crews moving to ships under Lend-Lease, crews sent to US yards for repairs or construction, and unattached personnel.

In 1943 it was in Lewiston, Maine, using Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Lewiston until 1945. From September 1943 to July 1944, Saker was the name used for British personnel at NAS Squantum, and from August 1943 to August 1945 at NAS Brunswick.

Chaplains included K. Boulton Jones, who in 1945 led a memorial ceremony for President Roosevelt at St Mark’s Church, Adelaide, Brooklyn, on 15 April 1945.

From October 1945 Saker was based in New York City, and in March 1946 it moved to 37 Wall Street. In December 1946 it combined with the British Admiralty Delegation to the US and moved to Washington, D.C., then Crystal City, Virginia.

The last building to bear the name Saker closed in 1976, and all personnel moved back to Washington. Today HMS Saker is the collective title for Royal Navy personnel serving in the United States; the current commander (Saker III) is the Assistant Naval Attaché of the British Defence Staff – US at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.