Eighty years ago, while World War II was raging in Europe, the military carved 683 acres out of the state forest on the Vineyard to create the United States Naval Auxiliary Facility.
The tiny island that was used for decades as a bombing range will remain closed to the public as an unstaffed wildlife refuge, with minimal further efforts to remove unexploded munitions.
The United States Navy is set to open a public comment period on its proposed remedial action plan for Noman’s island— a 600-acre dot off the coast of Chilmark that was used as a naval gunnery range and aerial bombardment site for much of the 20th century.
The 83-foot sea-scalloper Stanley M. Fisher, Capt. George H. Fisher of Oak Bluffs, came up with perhaps the biggest catch of this or any other season last Thursday night, the Navy’s nuclear powered submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus.
Two Navy fliers lost their lives off Cape Pogue soon after 10 o’clock Tuesday morning when their dive bomber, in which they were making practice dives at a target, failed to come out of a dive and plunged into the sea. They were from Quonset Naval Air Station.
The professional trumpet player, Edgartown resident and 30-year career U.S. Navy band member (now retired) is a ubiquitous presence at parades, weddings and every military funeral on the Vineyard.
Residents along the south shore of the Island will likely hear loud explosions next Friday due to an operation conducted by the U.S. Navy to clear and remove unexploded ordnance on Noman’s Land left over from training exercises during World War II.
The operation to collect and detonate munitions was initially scheduled for today, although a Navy spokesman said yesterday it was postponed until next Friday, Oct. 10, due to the threat of inclement weather.
Island emergency officials were inundated with
calls from concerned residents Wednesday afternoon after a haze of smoke
and ash descended on the Island from a brush fire on Noman’s Land, the small uninhabited island off the southern coast
of Chilmark.
The fire was part of a
controlled burn started by the U.S. Navy to clear away underbrush and
expose unexploded ordinances left on Noman’s during
training exercises over the past five decades. Noman’s
Land is part of the town of the town of Chilmark, but is owned by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
