The Kingsborough Islands Group;
North and South Main and offshore smaller islands.
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​Kevan James
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Heading south, the distance from Kingsborough to Bay City is 230 miles; going in the opposite direction to the most northerly city on the North Island is some 220 miles. This northern outpost, appropriately named 'North Deal' (I did think about calling it 'New Deal' but decided against...) is thus a total distance of 450 miles from the top of the north to the tip of the south. And vice versa. Obviously...
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You couldn't miss The Kingsborough Islands in reality.
But then this is fiction so use your imagination...
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Maps, details and what is where below -
(more to come soon).
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Contents
1. The Mid Atlantic Location
2. Principal Cities and Towns
3. The Tectonic Plates
4. The City of Kingsborough Region
5. West Ilsea
6. Roeville
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1. The Mid Atlantic location
2. Principal Cities and Towns
3. The Tectonic Plates
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge forms the division between the North American and European Tectonic Plates. This makes it earthquake territory but curiously the Kingsborough Islands have never suffered any major 'quake disruption. Other than a small part of the south-eastern part of the South Island, which even today is uninhabited, quite wild and unspoilt, although one can 'feel' a major earthquake, none has ever caused major damage.
Minor disturbances usually pass unnoticed.
As a slight side-note, the strongest earthquake in the Atlantic occurred in 1816 on February 2, somewhere between the Azores Islands and Lisbon, Portugal. With an estimated magnitude of 8.3–8.9 the 'quake had an epicentre offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, and was felt in Lisbon at 00:40 local time.
4. The Kingsborough region
The city of Kingsborough itself lies on the northeast corner of the South island. To the immediate east is Falmouth.
Shown below are the 203 original A3 sheets of my father's map, set inside a wider and basic illustration of the Kingsborough/Jamesbury/Keffield area (drawn by me to provide a location perspective).
The city of Keffield, although not the capital, is the largest urban area on the islands and is now home to the largest and busiest shipping port serving the islands. Originally, the prime port of entry to the islands - for people and cargo - was Kingsborough itself, but traffic quickly outgrew the river and Falmouth become the port area. Once again the shallow inlet where the docks were located became insufficient and a new dock area was built at Victoria, at the mouth of the river on the northern edge of Kingsborough.
This was not considered a long-term solution however and at the other end of the channel separating the north and south islands, the deep water at Keffield and the scope for expansion meant the city was a natural location for the primary port serving the islands.
Taken together, Kingsborough, Keffield, Jamesbury, Terrbridge, Cranmere and Farnhead on the northern edge of the south island, have a population of some 5 million people.
The second busiest port is at the appropriately named city of Port Brooks, to the west of South Bay, on the southern tip of the south island (the third busiest is North Deal, at the very north end of the North Island).
5. West Ilsea
Take the south bound West Coast main line train from Camden station in Kingsborough and just over halfway to South Bay, get off at Shereton and catch the connecting branch line train to East Ilsea.
Use the local bus (or take a taxi) to the harbour and catch the ferry to Fordbridge, the primary port on one of the most interesting islands of the Kingsborough group – West Ilsea. Including the ferry trip, it will take a good portion of your day for the journey.
As a slight diversion, having arrived at East Ilsea, before catching the ferry, it’s worth a short journey to the ancient, historic and oh-so-cute town of Titford. Worth a night’s stay, one can continue the next day in good heart for what is sometimes a choppy crossing to Fordbridge
Alternatively save yourself a lot of time and catch a forty-minute flight but if you’ve never done it before, prepare for landing at one of the world’s scariest airports.
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In truth, it’s not ‘that’ bad and doesn’t really compare to somewhere like Paro, in Bhutan, which has been described as terrifying.
West Ilsea’s airport does however, rank highly in the seat-gripping stakes.
Approaching the single runway from the west is quite mild unless you have a window seat on the right; your aircraft descends over clear, open sea and everything looks quite rosy until the Ilsea Rock suddenly appears, seemingly within touching distance. The wing seems to clear the side of the rock by mere inches - the summit is some way above you. It drops away just as sharply, and then there is a slight left bank to line up with the runway – the reason for the mildly angled approach is to stay clear of the rock but after that you’re down safely.
Coming in from the east is a different ball game. There are two ways to fly in, the north approach and the east approach. The north approach is the more straightforward but your aircraft descends into a narrow valley, the sides closing in. Right before touchdown there is a steep bank to the right; then you straighten up and land. It’s not dissimilar to the approach at Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak airport.
​The east approach is the most interesting. Still your aircraft descends into a valley and banks to the right but moments later, banks again, this time to the left. Houses climb the valley walls. There is at least a more gentle final descent to the runway as you straighten up earlier and higher than on the north approach.
The massive lump on the left is the north end of the Ilsea Tor, preceded by the West Ridge, which stretches almost as far as Fordbridge and is thus west of the town, hence the name. On the right is the Hog’s back, followed by Ben’s Crag (the two are separated by the valley through which the north approach is flown).
Windy days make it even more hair-raising and pilots’ preferred approach is from the east as the valley is wider and the two turns not so marked as the one from the north, which is limited to use in clear weather anyway.
And if it helps, the airport and the airlines that serve it, past and present, have a perfect safety record (So does Bhutan’s Paro!).
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What makes the island so interesting? For a start it sits on the Ilsea Shelf, which provides shallow coastal waters and some of the world’s best beaches. Immediately northwest of the airport is the Rockharbour resort, a substantial area in which to enjoy one’s holiday, noted as a place for having a good time in. There are also smaller towns dotted around the coast, again with those beaches.
The exception to those shallow waters is directly opposite the resort. South west of the airport, in the bay formed by the Ilsea Rock and the City of West Ilsea itself, one finds the US Naval Station Rockharbour, an active base with harbour and docking facilities. The Navy's aircraft share the airport runway with civil traffic and it is one of the busiest Navy bases in the world.
Opened originally in WWII as a joint base for the US Navy, Britain’s Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, it has also been known as HMS Rockharbour and RAF Rockharbour.
Which civil service panjandrum came up with the Rockharbour name has never been made known but it’s taken from the very obvious feature of the Ilsea Rock, along with Ben’s Crag and the Hog’s back to the north and east and the immense bulk of Ilsea Tor, stretching southwards. Whatever the scope of imagination and the merits otherwise, the name has stuck.
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Prior to this, an airfield did sit on the site, with grass runways and with little else around it at the time (other than the mountains) it was conveniently close to the City of West Ilsea, and served the burgeoning civil traffic of the 1930s.
The wealthy would board a DC3 at Falmouth, then the primary airport serving Kingsborough, to fly here. Those of less means would travel by train to East Ilsea and use the ferry; the road from Fordbridge wound its way through the foothills of the West Ridge and Ilsea Tor, providing a scenic route to and from the sea port there – it still does today.
The arrival of the military transformed the area and after hostilities ended, during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, holiday making and tourism grew rapidly, as it did in the post-war era elsewhere.
The departure of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force in 1978 gave a much-needed opportunity to expand the civil terminal and some of the space was taken by a new road under the airport runway to the by now long established Rockharbour Resort, which has been catering for holidaymakers since the 1920s.
The US Navy also expanded their facilities, closing other bases around the Kingsborough Islands and concentrating their presence at West Ilsea (The US Air Force and Army did the same at Sunford, on the island of Roeville, it becoming their sole base from then on).
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Other than its use by the US Navy, why however, is the airport still where it is?
Surrounded by mountains to the north, east and south-east, the city to the south and the sea at the other end, plus the rock, one runway and not able to expand any further, it had reached its full capacity by 1988 and it has been full ever since.
Ilsea Tor and the West Ridge, the massive mountains that separate the city of West Ilsea from Fordbridge, occupy a major chunk of the northern half of the island as a whole. Fordbridge is a sizeable town in its own right as well as a busy port and West Ilsea’s urban area has a permanent population of some 250,000 people.
Part of that is due to the US Navy but the rest of the island is flat land – and all of it is prime, fertile agricultural land. It has been since farming was invented, well before holidaymakers and the military arrived. Along with similarly fertile land on other off-shore islands and much larger areas on the mainland (both north and south islands), the Kingsborough Islands as a whole are self-sufficient in food production. Despite inevitable population growth over the years, they are set to remain so.
The idea therefore of losing a significant portion of highly valuable farmland on a relatively small island to a new airport has never really been an option.
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Today, West Ilsea’s economy is primarily dependent on farming and food production but also on tourism and of course, still, the United States Navy.
The presence of the US military has occasionally, in some places at least, been a source of a little friction but not here.
Islanders regard the navy as part of the community and sailors and flyers regard it as a plum posting. American children attend local schools and some naval personnel retire here after leaving the service.
It's really not a bad place to live.
In the past, the airport has been served by a number of US carriers, notably and most obviously Pan Am and TWA. The list does however include others; two of the most colourful were Braniff and Hughes Airwest.
Who?
You may well ask – Braniff were well-known for their brightly coloured aircraft, domestically and internationally. Hughes Airwest on the other hand, was a regional airline principally covering California, Nevada and Arizona. Between 1978 and 1980 the US Navy needed extra transport capacity but did not need big wide-body aircraft (particularly with capacity constraints at the airport) so finding an airline proved difficult. Step forward Howard Hughes.
The airline’s bright yellow Boeing 727-200s were at the limit of their range across the Atlantic but with no cargo in the aircraft holds, this meant extra fuel could be carried - passengers were, for the most part at least, US navy personnel on postings. The flights began in San Diego, stopped at Las Vegas for fuel and again at Boston, before heading out over the ocean to North Deal and then to West Ilsea.
Calling at North Deal also meant use by the US Air Force and Army so the flights mostly ran full, operating twice a week.
With the contract coming to an end in September 1980, it was not renewed as the airline was grounded by a strike, resolved in October.
Out of their usual box the flights undoubtedly were for Hughes Airwest and it was never the quickest way of getting to West Ilsea from the USA but it served the purpose at the time and meant seeing an airline not normally operating beyond the western half of the US mainland.
Given the military links with the USA, there have been other US airlines operating regular services as well; Eastern Airlines, Continental, National, Northeast, Northwest, US Airways and a number of interesting charters among them.
Flights to the US are now usually operated only by American, Delta and United.
European airlines include, still today, Air France, Lufthansa, Iberia, KLM and TAP Air Portugal, as well as British Airways.
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Original drawing of West Ilsea Airport today by Kevan James:
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6. Roeville
Like other offshore, smaller islands, Roeville's chief claim to fame is its agriculture. Again like elsewhere however, it is a holiday destination in its own right but also has another attribute; the US Air Force base at Sunford and a substantial US Army garrison at South Bookhead.
The presence of the United States military in the Kingsborough Islands goes back to World War 2 and the strategic value of the location in mid-Atlantic. Like the Azores, the islands represented a useful stopping off point en-route to Portugal, Spain and the Mediterranean. Throughout the cold war years and into the 1990s, the United States maintained a significant presence.
More modern requirements led to a reduction in US use and by the end of the 1990s only the Navy base at West Ilsea, the Air Force base at Sunford and the Army station at South Bookhead remain.
For a small island, Roeville is unusual in that it has two active airfields: the Air Force base and the civil airport at Roeville Bay. The runways there are not quite long enough to handle bigger aircraft however and given the high-value farmland that surrounds it, expansion isn't likely.
Consequently there is a civil terminal at the Air Force base which handles long distance services to the US mainland and the UK as well as additional services to Kingsborough.
Roeville also has a light rail system connecting both airports with the island capital at Bookhead and other towns across the island.
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