RBSC

**Exile** · November 13, 2011, 03:15 PM

Church service?

**Sir X** · November 13, 2011, 03:23 PM

Spoken Tales of History

Mutiny is one of the last untold stories of World
War I, told by veterans themselves.

Thousands of West Indian men had to campaign for the right to fight on behalf of King and Country, but by the end of the war, they were leading an extraordinary mutiny, in protest at the way they were treated by the white officer elite.

After the mutiny, the government feared the unrest that the veterans might cause on their return to the Caribbean colonies, so over 4,000 former soldiers found themselves displaced to Cuba where many would spend their final days.

Clifford Powell (aged 110), Eugent Clarke (aged 106) and Gershon Brown (aged 101) speak of their service with the British West Indies Regiment during World War I. And for the first time on television, the mutiny at Taranto and its long-term repercussions are revealed.

Stripped to the waist and sweated chest
Midday's reprieve much needed rest
We dug and hauled and lifted high
From trenches deep toward the sky
Non-fighting troops and yet we die
-From 'Black Soldier's Lament'

West India Regiment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
West India Regiment
Active 1795–1927
1958–1962
Country United Kingdom (for service in the West Indies and subsequently West Africa)
Federation of the West Indies
Branch Army
Type Infantry
Size 1–3 battalions
Insignia
Abbreviation WIR
The West India Regiment (WIR) was an infantry unit of the British Army recruited from and normally stationed in the British colonies of the Caribbean between 1795 and 1927. The regiment differed from similar forces raised in other parts of the British Empire in that it formed an integral part of the regular British Army. In 1958 the regiment was revived following the creation of the Federation of the West Indies with the establishment of three battalions, however, the regiment's existence was short-lived and it was disbanded in 1962 when its personnel were used to establish other units in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. Throughout its history, the regiment was involved in a number of campaigns in the West Indies and Africa, and also took part in the First World War, where it served in the Middle East and East Africa.
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Origins and early basis of recruitment
1.2 Nineteenth century
1.3 Later years
1.4 World War I
1.5 Post war
1.6 Revival in 1958
2 Officers
3 Battle honours
4 Honours and awards
5 Uniform and traditions
6 Other West Indian Regiments
6.1 British West Indies Regiment
6.2 Caribbean Regiment
6.3 Sierra Leone Creoles
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 External links
[edit]History

[edit]Origins and early basis of recruitment
The West India Regiments were initially raised in 1795. The original intention was to recruit both free blacks from the West Indian population together with purchased slaves from the West Indian plantations.[1]
In 1807 all serving black soldiers recruited as slaves in the West India Regiments of the British Army were freed under the Mutiny Act passed by the British parliament that same year.[2] In 1808 the Abolition Act caused all trading in slaves to be "utterly abolished, prohibited and decleared to be unlawful".[1] In 1812 a West African recruiting depot was established on Blance Island in Sierre Leone to train West African volunteers for the West India Regiments. By 1816 the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the reduction of the West India regiments to six enabled this depot to be closed.[3] Thereafter all recruitment for the various West India Regiments that fought in World War I and World War II were West Indian volunteers, with officers and some senior NCOs coming from Britain.
The WIR soldiers became a valued part of the British forces garrisoning the West Indies, where losses from disease and climate were heavy amongst white troops. The black Caribbean soldiers by contrast proved better adapted to tropical service. They served against locally recruited French units that had been formed for the same reasons. Free black Caribbeans soldiers played a prominent and often distinguished role in the military history of Latin America and the Caribbean.[4]
[edit]Nineteenth century
The new West India Regiments saw considerable service during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, including participation in the British attack on New Orleans. In 1800 there were 12 battalion-sized regiments with this title. The numbers were reduced after 1815 but during most of the remainder of the nineteenth century there were never less than two West India Regiments. In 1888 these were merged into a single regiment comprising two battalions. A third battalion was raised in 1897, but was disbanded in 1904.
The 1st West India Regiment from Jamaica went to the Gold Coast of Africa to fight in the Ashanti War of 1873-4. [5]
[edit]Later years
The regiment served in West Africa throughout the 19th century. In the early part of the twentieth century one battalion was stationed in Sierra Leone and the other was in Jamaica recruiting and training, the battalions exchanging every three years.[6] The regiment fought in the Anglo-Ashanti Wars.
[edit]World War I
On the outbreak of war in August 1914, the 1st Battalion of the WIR was stationed in Freetown where it had been based for two and a half years. A detachment of the Regiment's signallers saw service in the German Cameroons, where Private L. Jordon earned a DCM and several other men were mentioned in dispatches.[7] The 1st Battalion returned to the West Indies in 1916.
The 2nd Battalion were sent from Kingston to West Africa in the second half of 1915. They took part in the capture of Yaounde in January 1916. The Regiment was subsequently awarded the battle honour "Cameroons 1914-16". The 2nd Battalion, which had been divided into detachments, was brought together in Freetown in April 1916 and sent to Mombassa in Kenya, to take part in the East African campaign against German colonial forces based in German East Africa.[8]
The five hundred and fifteen officers and men of the 2nd Battalion formed part of a column that took Dar es Salaam on 4 September 1916. After garrison duty, the battalion subsequently played a distinguished part in the Battle of Nyangao (German East Africa) in October 1917. For their service in East Africa the WIR earned eight Distinguished Conduct Medals, as well as the battle honour "East Africa 1914-18".
Following their active service in German Africa the 2nd Battalion of the West India Regiment was shipped to Suez in September 1918. It was then transferred to Lydda in Palestine where it spent the two remaining months of the War.[9] Two battalions of a newly raised regiment also recruited from black Caribbean soldiers: the similarly named "British West Indies Regiment" (see below), saw front line service against the Turkish Army during the Palestine Campaign. General Allenby sent the following telegram to the Governor of Jamaica: "I have great pleasure in informing you of the gallant conduct of the machine-gun section of the 1st British West Indies Regiment during two successful raids on the Turkish trenches. All ranks behaved with great gallantry under heavy rifle and shell fire and contributed in no small measure to the success of the operations".[10][11]
[edit]Post war
After the war, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the West India Regiment were amalgamated into a single 1st Battalion in 1920. This was disbanded in 1927. The reasons for disbandment were primarily economic. The West Indies had long been a peaceful military backwater with limited defence requirements and the substitute role under which the WIR had provided a single battalion as part of the garrison in Britain's West African possessions had become redundant as local forces were raised and expanded there.
[edit]Revival in 1958
In 1958, with the foundation of the Federation of the West Indies, it was decided to raise the West India Regiment once again. Initially, the 1st Battalion was formed from the nucleus of the Jamaica Regiment. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions were also formed by 1960. However, the Federation was short lived, and the regiment again disbanded by 1962, with the constituent battalions becoming the infantry regiments of the two largest islands:
1st Battalion—1st Battalion, Jamaica Regiment
2nd Battalion—1st Battalion, Trinidad and Tobago Regiment
3rd Battalion—disbanded.
[edit]Officers

Overall the WIR had a good record for discipline and effectiveness, although there were three separate mutinies between 1802 and 1837. A factor in these (and a weakness in the WIR throughout its history) was that it did not always attract a high calibre of British officer. Prevailing social attitudes meant that service with "black infantry" was not a popular option during the nineteenth century and many of the more capable officers saw their time with the WIR as simply a stepping stone to more sought after assignments. It needs to be remembered that a British officer on secondment to a colonial outfit was out of sight and out of mind as far as the Colonel of his parent British regiment, who had the most influence on his promotion and preferment, was concerned. The attraction of colonial service was a matter of extra monetary allowances. Long serving British officers and non-commissioned officers, who had built up ties of mutual respect with their men, had mostly dispersed or retired by the end of World War I and in its final years of service the WIR was led by officers seconded from other British regiments for relatively short assignments.[12]
[edit]Battle honours

Dominica, Martinique 1809, Guadeloupe 1810, Ashantee 1873–74, West Africa 1887, West Africa 1892–93 & 94, Sierra Leone 1898
The Great War (2 battalions): Palestine 1917–18, E. Africa 1916–18, Cameroons 1915–16.
[edit]Honours and awards

Private Samuel Hodge of the 2nd WIR was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1866 for courage shown during the capture of Tubab Kolon in the Gambia. Private Hodge was the second black recipient of this decoration—the first being Able Seaman William Hall of the Royal Navy. In 1891, Lance Corporal William Gordon of the 1st Battalion WIR received a VC for gallantry during a further campaign in the Gambia. Promoted to sergeant, Jamaican-born William Gordon remained in employment at regimental headquarters in Kingston until his death in 1922.
[edit]Uniform and traditions

For the first half century of its existence the WIR wore the standard uniform (shako, red coat and dark coloured or white trousers) of the English line infantry of the period. The various units were distinguished by differing facing colours. One unusual feature was the use of slippers rather than heavy boots. In 1856 a very striking uniform was adopted for the regiments modelled on that of the French Zouaves. It comprised a red fez wound about by a white turban, scarlet sleeveless jacket with elaborate yellow braiding worn over a long-sleeved white waistcoat, and dark blue voluminous breeches piped in yellow. This distinctive uniform was retained for full dress throughout the regiment until 1914 and by the band until disbandment in 1927. It survives as the full dress of the band of the modern Barbados Defence Force.
[edit]Other West Indian Regiments

[edit]British West Indies Regiment
Main article: British West Indies Regiment

On the Somme, September 1916
Surprisingly limited use was made of the long serving regulars of the West India Regiment during World War I. However, in 1915 a second West Indies regiment was formed from Caribbean volunteers who had made their way to Britain. Initially, these volunteers were drafted into a variety of units within the British Army, but in 1915 it was decided to group them together into a single regiment, named the British West Indies Regiment. The similarity of titles has sometimes led to confusion between this war-time unit and the long established West India Regiment. Both were recruited from Caribbean blacks and a number of officers from the WIR were transferred to the BWIR. ent played a significant role in the First World War especially in Palestine and Jordan where they were employed in combat roles against the Turkish Army.[13] A total of 15,600 men of the British West Indies Regiment served with the Allied forces. Jamaica contributed two-thirds of these volunteers, while others came from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas, British Honduras, Grenada, British Guiana (now Guyana), the Leeward Islands, St Lucia and St Vincent. Nearly 5,000 more subsequently volunteered to join up.[14]
[edit]Caribbean Regiment
Main article: Caribbean Regiment
Another West Indies regiment was formed in 1944, this time called the Caribbean Regiment. This consisted of members of the local militia forces, as well as direct recruits. The regiment conducted brief training in Trinidad and the United States of America, before being sent to Italy. Once there, the regiment performed a number of general duties behind the front lines—these included the escort of 4,000 prisoners of war from Italy to Egypt. Subsequently, the regiment undertook mine clearance around the Suez Canal. The regiment returned to the Caribbean in 1946 to be disbanded, having not seen front line action—this was due to inadequate training and partly because of the political impact in the British West Indies if it had incurred heavy casualties.
[edit]Sierra Leone Creoles
As noted above, the West India Regiment provided detachments for service in West Africa for over a hundred years. This began when the 2nd WIR was sent to Sierra Leone to quell a rebellion of 'settlers' (freed slaves) in 1819. Upon completion of their service, some soldiers of this and subsequent WIR regiments remained in West Africa and intermarried with other Sierra Leone Creole Settlers, whose descendants today are the Sierra Leone Creole people.
[edit]See also

Corps of Colonial Marines
Arthur Andrew Cipriani
British and Commonwealth protectorates
Garrison Historic Area, Barbados

http://www.westindiaregiment.org/

**TDowl** · November 13, 2011, 04:05 PM

Happy Poppy Day Sass and Maudib.

**Sir X** · November 13, 2011, 07:49 PM

'There were no parades for us'

reddit this
Simon Rogers
The Guardian, Tuesday 5 November 2002
Article history
More than four million men and women from Britain's colonies volunteered for service during the first and second world wars. Thousands died, thousands went missing in action, and many more were wounded or spent years as PoWs. But until now their sacrifice has been largely ignored by the mother country they fought to protect. As the Queen opens memorial gates in their honour today, Simon Rogers talks to five unsung heroes.

The first world war veteran

George Blackman, age 105
4th Battalion, British West Indies Regiment, 1914-1919

George Blackman leaps up, brandishing his walking stick. "Like this," he breathes, imitating the thrust of a bayonet. "Like that," he says, mimicking the butt of the rifle. "I still got the action. I'm old now, but I still got the action."

George is 105. When he was born in Barbados in 1897, Queen Victoria was on the throne and two-thirds of the world was coloured pink.

He points to a scar above his left eyebrow. "That is a bayonet cut on the eye." He touches his hands. "This is from the blow of the rifle butt."

George is almost certainly the last man alive of the force of 15,000 who rushed from the beauty of the Caribbean to the mud and gore of Flanders and the Somme to defend king and country during the first world war. His old comrades are all gone now - the last, Jamaican soldier Eugent Clarke, died earlier this year at 108. When Blackman goes, that will be it.

Sitting in his niece's house in northern Barbados, Blackman is now partially blind and almost deaf. Anita tidies his shirt collar for him as we speak. He is still articulate and energetic, and his fiercest remarks are reserved for England. "I need help but the English government don't help me with nothing," he says. "It's she, she who give me this," he says, gesturing to Anita.

This bitterness has been growing deeper over the years. There was a time when he would have done anything for the mother country. In 1914, in a flush of youth and patriotism, he told the recruiting officer he was 18 - he was actually 17 - and joined the British West Indies Regiment. "Lord Kitchener said with the black race, he could whip the world. We sang songs, 'Run Kaiser William, run for your life, boy'." He closes his eyes as he sings, and then keeps them closed for the rest of our interview.

"We wanted to go. Because the island government told us that the king said all Englishmen must go to join the war. The country called all of us."

Enthusiasm for the battle was widespread across the Caribbean. While some declared it a white man's war, leaders and thinkers such as the Jamaican Marcus Garvey said that young men from the islands should fight with the British in order to prove their loyalty and to be treated as equals. The islands donated £60m in today's money to the war effort - cash they could ill afford.

While Kitchener's private attitude was that black soldiers should never be allowed at the front alongside white soldiers, the enormous losses - and the interference of King George V - made it inevitable. Although Indian soldiers had been briefly in the trenches in 1914 and 1915, Caribbean troops did not arrive until 1915.

The journey to Europe was perilous - hundreds of soldiers from Jamaica succumbed to severe frostbite when their troopship was diverted via Halifax in Canada. Their winter uniforms were left locked up while they froze in thin summer clothes.

When they arrived, they often found that fighting was to be done by white soldiers only - black soldiers were assigned the dirty and dangerous jobs of loading ammunition, laying telephone wires and digging trenches. Conditions were appalling. Blackman rolls up his sleeve to show me his armpit. "It was cold. And everywhere there were white lice. We had to shave the hair there because the lice grow there. All our socks were full of white lice."

A poem written by an anonymous trooper, entitled The Black Soldier's Lament, showed how bitter the disappointment was:

Stripped to the waist and sweated chest

Midday's reprieve brings much-needed rest

From trenches deep toward the sky.

Non-fighting troops and yet we die.

Yet there is evidence that some Caribbean soldiers were involved in actual combat in France. Photographs from the time show black soldiers armed with British Lee Enfield rifles, while there are reports of West Indies Regiment soldiers fighting off counter-attacks - one account tells how a group fought off a German assault armed only with knives they had brought from home. Blackman - who was born to a white mother from London and a Barbadian black father - still remembers trench fights he fought in, alongside white soldiers. "They called us darkies," he says, recalling the casual racism of the time. "But when the battle starts, it didn't make a difference. We were all the same. When you're there, you don't care about anything. Every man there is under the rifle."

He remembers one attack with particular clarity. "The Tommies said, 'Darkie, let them have it.' I made the order: 'Bayonets, fix,' and then 'B company, fire.' You know what it is to go and fight somebody hand to hand? You need plenty nerves. They come at you with the bayonet. He pushes at me, I push at he. You push that bayonet in there and hit with the butt of the gun - if he is dead he is dead, if he live he live."

The West Indies Regiment experienced racism from the Germans as well as the British. "The Tommies, they brought up some German prisoners and these prisoners were spitting on their hands and wiping on their faces, to say we were painted black," says Blackman.

He didn't make friends. "Don't have no friend. A soldier don't got friends. Know why? You believe that you are dead now. Your friend is this: the gun. That is your friend."

At the end of the war, after years of hard fighting, not only against the Germans but also the Turks, men of the West Indies Regiment were transferred to a British army base in Taranto, Italy, where one of the bitterest events of the war would occur - a mutiny. Days were tough there and comprised largely of manual labour such as loading ammunition, or even cleaning clothes and latrines for British soldiers. Blackman, who was not there long, remembers it being hard. "From Marseille, it was seven days to reach Taranto. It is a seaport - all the boats were coming from London with ammunition. We have to unload the boat, the train come and we got to load the train to take the ammunition up the line."

For some of the black troops there, a pay rise for the white soldiers - but not them - was the final indignity. Riots ensued and senior British officers were assaulted. Eventually the mutiny was put down, with one soldier executed and several others given lengthy jail sentences. But the black soldiers were left with a new-found feeling of rebellion.

The immediate result was that the West Indies troops were kept away from the victory parades that marked the end of the war, and hurried home under armed guard. "When the war finish, there was nothing," says Blackman. "I had to come and look for work. The only thing that we had is the clothes and the uniform that we got on. The pants, the jacket and the shirt and the boots. You can't come home naked.

"When we got home, if you got a mother or father you have something, but if you're alone, you got to look for work. When I come I had nobody. I had to look for work. I had to eat and buy clothes. Who going to give me clothes? I didn't have a father or nobody. Now I said, 'The English are no good.' I went to Jamaica and I meet up some soldiers and I asked them, 'Here boy, what the government give you?' They said, 'The government give us nothing.' I said, 'We just the same.'"

And that's when Blackman disappeared off the veterans' radar. Travelling around South America, he worked as a mechanic in Colombia, before retiring to Venezuela to live with his daughter until the Barbados government helped to bring him home earlier this year.

As a Barbadian living in Venezuela for decades, he was not entitled to a pension there. The Barbados government (in the form of one dedicated civil servant) is still processing his application for one in his home country. And from the British? Nothing.

The empire changed when Blackman and his comrades returned from France. The soldiers who emerged were so politicised that island governments encouraged them to emigrate to Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela. Those who returned to their countries altered everything. Gunner Norman Manley, who had seen his brother blown apart in front of him during the war, eventually took Jamaica to independence, becoming its first prime minister in 1962.

A secret colonial memo from 1919, uncovered by researchers for a Channel 4 programme on the Taranto mutiny, showed that the British government realised that everything had changed, too: "Nothing we can do will alter the fact that the black man has begun to think and feel himself as good as the white." In a sense, history was rewritten. That meant no celebrations, no official acknowledgment.

For George Blackman, the situation has become even more simple. "England don't have anything to do with me now. England turned me over." He opens his eyes - they are almost blue. "Barbadians rule Barbados now."

The pilot

Mahinder Singh Pujji, age 84
Squadron leader, Royal Air Force

Mahinder Singh Pujji is one of the 2.5 million Indians who left their homes during the second world war to fight for a country they regarded as the motherland. Many ended up giving their lives for Britain, but the sacrifice they made barely registered in either Britain or India.

Pujji is 84 and lives in a neat flat in sheltered accommodation in Gravesend, Kent. Ramrod-straight, he greets us in RAF tie. He is a product of empire - his father was a senior officer in the colonial administration. Born in Simla at the end of the first war, he remembers growing up in the Raj as a "wonderful time".

"It's very difficult for you to understand," he says. "Today, we say India or England, but then it was just one."

After college in Lahore, he learned to fly, and when war broke out saw an advertisement: "Pilots needed for Royal Air Force." "I could have joined the Indian Air Force any time I wanted to - but I was quite comfortable in a civil job which was well paid and for a British company. But this was an opportunity for me to go abroad and see the world."

He was among 24 Indians accepted immediately for training and to develop "the manners that are required of a commissioned officer". It was August 1940 - the height of the Battle of Britain. "We were all experienced pilots. Among us were very famous Indian pilots. They were the pioneers who had flown solo flights from India to London and created records.

"I was very happy. My salary doubled and in one month's time I was on the boat to London. As officers, we were entitled to first class. I had a cabin of my own and I thought, 'This is worth taking any risk.'" He was just 22.

Even in training, Pujji insisted that he be allowed to fly with his turban, unlike many other Sikh flyers - and he is probably the only fighter pilot to have done so. "I thought I was a very religious man, I shouldn't take off my turban. The British people were so nice and accommodating. They respected that. I had a special strap made to hold my earphones. I used to carry a spare turban with me so I would have one if I got shot down."

In wartime Britain, Pujji became used to being a curiosity. "On one occasion, I was driving through to Bath and a traffic policeman in the centre of the traffic saw me in my car and he just froze in amazement."

But everyone was kind to the RAF officer. "Everybody was lovely and wonderful. In the evenings we would have VIP treatment. They wouldn't let us pay for tickets in the cinema and in restaurants we got sugar [which was rationed]. People saluted me and called me sir."

During the Blitz, bombers attacked London every night. "I was impressed with the courage of the English people - there was no panic. I used to watch movies - the screen would go blank for the air-raid warning. People were told, 'If you would like to go to the shelters, please make your way out now,' and nobody would get up. I was really amazed at how brave these people were."

Pujji trained to fly Hurricanes, less glamorous than a Spitfire but loved by their pilots for their manoeuverability and heavy-calibre weapons. "Inside a fighter plane it's very cramped - there's not much room for movement. There's a big panel in front of you. There's an oxygen mask - you are not used to it. It irritated me and I would often fly with it off."

Of the 24 pilots who came over from India, eight were considered suitable for fighters, including Pujji. The odds against survival were high. "Among these fighters, six were killed in the first year I was here."

He was posted to 258 squadron, near Croydon, south London. "Once, 12 of us went escorting bombers over occupied France. I was enjoying the flight. Then suddenly I saw beautiful fireworks around us - it didn't dawn on me for a couple of seconds that they were firing at us from down below. In ignorance I was enjoying it.

"The squadron split up. Very soon I was alone. I looked in the mirror and saw German fighters. The Messerschmitts were very fast, but the Hurricane could turn a tight circle. Either they hit us straight away or just missed us. It was thrilling - maybe I am an exception, but I was not scared."

The increasing casualty rates hit his squadron hard - two or three pilots would disappear every day. And every day, the group captain would come in and ask for volunteers for the day's operation. "I could see how brave these young pilots were. Everybody would raise their hand. They knew they would not all come back. Every evening, there would be two or three less people at dinner. But by breakfast, they would be replaced, and so it went on."

Pujji almost became a casualty himself several times. On one occasion his badly shot-up Hurricane nearly crashed into the English Channel, and Pujji was advised to ditch in the sea by the "nice English girls" in the control room. "But I couldn't swim, you see. I carried on until I saw the white cliffs of Dover and I thought, 'I'll make it.' The aircraft was a total wreck - I was dragged out and I heard voices saying, 'He's still alive, he's still alive.' Because my eyes were closed I couldn't see. The padding of my turban saved me - it was full of blood. I was taken to the hospital but after seven days I was back to flying again."

After hundreds of missions, he was posted to the north African desert, and then to India, fighting rebels on the Afghan border. Posted to Burma, he ended up in one of the fiercest conflicts of the war. Flying in a reconnaissance squadron, Pujji's task was to search for and attack Japanese troops. "I saw a small column. I would be flying very low and they would hide. I would go up so they would come out again and dive back and open all my guns," he says. "It happened very often. I felt elated. Now I feel very bad when I think about it. I was very cruel. I am responsible for killing many Japanese."

By this time, it was 1944 and he was effectively commanding a squadron which became known as the "eyes of the 14th army". On one occasion he located a lost troop of 300 US soldiers, saving their lives. He became one of the few Asian pilots to be awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Soon after the war he married, only to discover he had TB. "I was told I had six months to live. I said I had one request - send me back to my home. I want to be with my family." Back in India, he recovered - despite what the doctors had told him. From then on, his life reads like a Boy's Own adventure tale: he flew racing planes across India; he won gliding championships and flew with Nehru, India's first prime minister.

Eventually, he stopped wearing his turban, partly because it got in the way, partly because he felt different about religion. "My father said, 'You have lost your religion,' but for me, I wanted to cut off my hair."

When his career finished in 1974, he finally retired to Kent. "When I retired, I had to settle down somewhere and I had such a wonderful impression of England from the 1940s, I thought, 'I'll come here.' I was allowed to enter the UK as the government's 'honoured guest' in 1974 - which I found out was very rare."

He has lived here ever since, even after his wife's death. But his enthusiasm for Britain is not quite what it was.

"Now, the man in the street thinks every Indian is illiterate. Once I was driving in town and I had to pick my wife up - it was a double yellow line. And this young policeman started shouting at me, as if I was stupid. Then I saw him across the road with a white driver being very polite. I didn't want to tell him I was an officer - he would have saluted me during the war.

"This is not the England I knew - but maybe if my story is told, then people will remember us and what we have done."

The sailor

Allan Wilmot, age 77
Royal Navy, Royal Air Force

It was 1941 when Allan Wilmot enlisted in the Royal Navy - he was forced to lie about his age to get in. "I was 16 and they wanted men - so when men are wanted, they turn a blind eye. We Jamaicans were pro-British. We felt British. When war broke out, it was a case of the mother country's in trouble and needs your help. And help was given, without a second thought."

The Caribbean was a hazardous place for the vital shipping which plied its way to England with supplies and motor oil via the Panama canal. Wilmot found himself on a mine-sweeper on convoy escort duty, picking up survivors as cargo vessels were torpedoed in front of them. One of a dozen Jamaicans on board, he says racial distinctions quickly blurred. "On a small ship you become a family. You depend on each other - you're all brothers. There's no room for discrimination - in three minutes you could be at the bottom of the sea. Being the youngest one, I was more or less a mascot."

In 1943, he enlisted with the RAF for motor boat duty, which involved picking up ditched airmen and laying flight paths for flying boats. He soon found himself in England. At first, the welcome was complete. "When we landed at Liverpool, an air vice-marshal came to meet us. He said, 'Thank you very much chaps, for coming to help us.' That didn't last. After the war it was, 'Thank you very much. Goodbye.' The English were very, very curious about us. In Jamaica, we knew everything about the British empire. But over here, they knew absolutely nothing. Once your face is black, you must come from Africa. We said, 'We are from Jamaica,' and they would say, 'What part of Africa is that?'At first we thought they were taking the mickey when they asked us, 'Where did you learn to speak English?' or 'Did you live in trees?' They didn't have a clue."

After the war, Wilmot was turned down for the merchant navy and headed back to Jamaica. "There were no victory parades, no preparations made. The British government thought it was up to the Jamaicans, the Jamaicans thought it was up to the British."

After a brief period as a customs officer, he returned to England in an old troopship with other ex-servicemen. He became one of the first six black postmen in Britain. "When we were out on collections, the crowd used to gather, just to see us."

Now he is the vice-president of the West Indian ex-servicemen and servicewomen's association. He still feels there is a need for the stories of servicemen like him to be told. "What we need is official recognition," he says. "The memorial gates are a start."

The engineer

Chanan Dhillon, age 79
Colonel, Indian Engineers

Chanan Dhillon grew up in a small village in the Ludhiana region of India in the 1930s. "Our lives were very strenuous, our school was about four-and-a-half miles away with no roads and before we got to the school, we had to water the cattle and buffalos. At that time boys went to school to be a revenue official. I didn't know I was going to be a soldier."

As it turned out, Dhillon proved to be a talented athlete and was spotted by British officers. Sitting in his daughter's house, not far from Heathrow, the 79-year-old colonel says: "I came up to this rank [thanks to] British officers who liked me because of my talent as a hockey player. I will always remember one Captain Radcliffe-Smith. In one of our hockey tournaments, we had a hailstorm and we got drenched. I was not carrying a coat or anything - we were village boys - he came and put his coat over me. Within six months he recommended me for an officer commission."

At the outbreak of war, Indian regiments were immediately mobilised. Dhillon's sappers were sent on a grand tour of the British empire - they first marched through what is now Iraq, before going through Iran to North Africa.

"We heard that there was a big battle at Tobruk. We reached Al Dhaba airfield and then Marsamatru, the last line of defence."

Tobruk was a disaster for the British, with Rommel's army advancing rapidly through the desert. "By the time we reached there, our column had already started retreating. We had to defend the line - we had a ring around us. Our armoured force couldn't hold there.

"We started retreating at midnight - we could see the German convoys. We went into the desert so that we could cut through the ring surrounding us. We were under attack all night and trying to fight our way through. They had motorcyclists armed and were driving at us. By daybreak, one of our vehicles was hit - all the soldiers died."

His soldiers were forced to surrender and were taken on a troopship towards Italy. But then, a torpedo struck the boat 40 miles from the Sicilian coast. "Our ship went down within 20 minutes," he says. "There was panic - people didn't know what to do. The Italian guards had lifejackets, we had none. When the captain ordered them to get off the ship, we fought hand-to-hand for those life jackets."

Surrounded by the drowning and the wreckage of the boat, Dhillon was pulled from the sea by German sailors. "When a ship drowns, the sea becomes very furious. I always thought I would die, but I was still striving to live."

He was taken to an Italian prisoner of war camp. The relaxed atmosphere of British, Australian and Indian prisoners was conducive to one thought: escape. "We could socialise in the evening - and we would plan what to do. We wanted to escape and we were engineers. The British were very enterprising. They started a tunnel." Digging the tunnel gradually, night by night, they broke through.

"One day, 40 prisoners escaped and I was one of them. It was bad luck - with our turbans, we couldn't be mistaken for Italians. I was arrested again and put in a cell for 14 days. It was a very harsh punishment."

That could have been the end of Dhillon's war. But it was 1942, and the Italians were about to capitulate. Dhillon and his fellow Indian prisoners were taken to a camp in Germany, Limburg, near Frankfurt. Dhillon was put in charge of the now-segregated camp's Indian soldiers, organising activities and welfare for the prisoners. He says the German authorities respected the Geneva convention, even if the soldiers didn't. "One of my NCOs was told to unload munitions. He refused to do it because I had told him only to do work not related to war effort. A German threw a grenade at them, killing them all.

"I demanded to see the site straight away. Five prisoners had died. They were all Indian. The guards were arrested - and court martialled."

Repatriated to India on the brink of independence, he married before fighting again - this time in the contested region of Kashmir. Now, after 37 years in the army, he has plunged himself into ex-services welfare of 500,000 veterans as chairman of the Indian ex-services league in Punjab.

He feels now that many of his comrades were ignored on their return from Europe and the desert by both the UK government and the hastily-arranged new Indian government. Many of the British veterans ended up living in poverty. "I came to VE day here [in Britain] in 1995 and there was no mention of the Indian forces. I wrote to John Major to complain.

"A country or a nation should be grateful to a soldier - a soldier should be treated as a special human being."

The intelligence officer

Weerawarnasuriya Patadendige Jinadasa Silva, age 91
Major, Ceylon Light Infantry

'I had a boarding school education, read the Boy's Own paper, and I read Shakespeare," declares "WPJ" Silva. "Of course we felt English. Particularly going to boarding school. We knew more about English history than our country's history. It's not the best thing, but that's how we were."

Born into a well-off family in what was then Ceylon, Silva fell into the army by accident. "It was through another member of the club I went to," he says. Prewar Ceylon had only a part-time army; Silva joined as a territorial in 1936, although he remained determined to pursue a civilised career in the civil service. "We had to be ready. We had training after office hours in barracks. Once a year we had a camp in the hill station where all the others from the whole country came. It was very hard working but very jolly." Witty, urbane and intelligent, it's easy now to imagine the 91-year-old veteran in the role of British officer - the "W" in his initials was assumed by the English officers to stand for William, so he became universally known as "Willie".

It wasn't until the fall of Singapore in 1942 that Ceylon was truly under threat. Silva still recalls the sight of wounded British soldiers straggling into Colombo. "They got there whatever way they could. They lost their arms and uniforms. They lost their clothing - everything. It was sad to see them in that shape. For some weeks, they were walking about dazed, poor chaps. How they escaped I don't know."

Suddenly in the front line, and a harbour for British battleships, attack by the Japanese was inevitable. Willie Silva was put in charge of the defence of Trincomalee harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world. "It was the Clapham Junction of the east," says Silva. "Ships had come through the Suez canal or South Africa. Most of them had to go to Colombo for refuelling, for loading and unloading. Ceylon was a centrepoint, and the defence of it was very important. I remember seeing the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary both berthed side by side there - a very rare sight. The harbour was so enormous, they didn't look big at all."

When the air assault finally came, it was nearly catastrophic. British ships were sunk and Silva's troops, protecting the camouflaged guns on the hillside, had to hide in slit trenches under orders not to reveal their positions. "I lived purely by accident, purely by that chance," he says. "There were tons of planes over the harbour and we could even see the Jap faces with their goggles. Two of my men were injured during that raid - they were too fat to get to the slit trenches. They caught a splinter and shrapnel, but instead of feeling sorry for them, you couldn't help laughing."

But clever intelligence had done its trick - the Japanese believed the harbour was much better protected than it was and never again attempted a full-frontal assault.

Progressing through the ranks from sergeant to lieutenant, he eventually became a military intelligence officer, preparing briefings for the army's senior commanders in the area. It was a reluctant Willie that took up this role, because he didn't want to work directly under the British. "My feeling as a proud Sri Lankan was very British but we also have our own tradition. We have a written history of 2,500 years, unbroken. When you were a Roman colony, we were an important country," he says. "But then I went, and I loved it - I never looked back from then. I was the only Sri Lankan out of 70 officers. Was I treated as an equal? Absolutely - I liked them, they liked me and we got on very well."

After the war, Ceylon finally achieved independence, becoming Sri Lanka in 1948. Silva progressed through a role as recruiting officer, to aide-de-camp to the island's governor general. In the late 1950s, he became the Sri Lankan senate's equivalent of Black Rod. By any standards, he was an important man on the island. But he didn't stay.

Working for the UN world veterans' federation, Silva met and married an English woman, an interpreter, and moved to Britain where he worked as a civil servant. The circles they moved in were civilised and polite. Asked if they have ever experienced any discrimination as a mixed-race couple in the 1960s, both hotly deny it, something Silva emphasises has been a feature of their life together. Now a Member of the British Empire, he says he feels at home in south-east London. "My street is very quiet, very nice," he says. "I like it here. I even married an Englishwoman. It's quite natural for me to live here, feeling English, and not feel a foreigner at all."

· To contact the British Commonwealth ex-services league, write to: 48 Pall Mall London SW1Y 5JG. The West Indian ex-servicemen and servicewomen association is based at 165 Clapham Manor Street London SW4 6DB. For information on the Memorial Gates Trust, email: srenton@mgt.demon.co.uk. Squadron leader Pujji talks about his experiences at: guardian.co.uk/audio.

• This note was added on Thursday December 11 2008. George Blackman, profiled above, was not the last Caribbean veteran of the first world war; at the time this article was published there were at least two surviving members of the British West Indies Regiment: George Blackman and Stanley Stair of Jamaica. George Blackman died in 2003; Stanley Stair lived until 2008.

**Sir X** · November 13, 2011, 07:58 PM

Mutiny at Taranto

After Armistice Day, on 11 November 1918, the eight BWIR battalions in France and Italy were concentrated at Taranto in Italy to prepare for demobilisation. They were subsequently joined by the three battalions from Egypt and the men from Mesopotamia. As a result of severe labour shortages at Taranto, the West Indians had to assist with loading and unloading ships and do labour fatigues. This led to much resentment, and on 6 December 1918 the men of the 9th Battalion revolted and attacked their officers. On the same day, 180 sergeants forwarded a petition to the Secretary of State complaining about the pay issue, the failure to increase their separation allowance, and the fact that they had been discriminated against in the area of promotions.

During the mutiny, which lasted about four days, a black NCO shot and killed one of the mutineers in self-defence and there was also a bombing. Disaffection spread quickly among the other soldiers and on 9 December the 'increasingly truculent' 10th Battalion refused to work. A senior commander, Lieutenant Colonel Willis, who had ordered some BWIR men to clean the latrines of the Italian Labour Corps, was also subsequently assaulted. In response to calls for help from the commanders at Taranto, a machine-gun company and a battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment were despatched to restore order. The 9th BWIR was disbanded and the men distributed to the other battalions which were all subsequently disarmed. Approximately 60 soldiers were later tried for mutiny and those convicted received sentences ranging from three to five years, but one man got 20 years, while another was executed by firing squad.

An organisation called the Caribbean League was formed at the gathering to further these objectives...

Although the mutiny was crushed, the bitterness persisted, and on 17 December about 60 NCOs held a meeting to discuss the question of black rights, self-determination and closer union in the West Indies. An organisation called the Caribbean League was formed at the gathering to further these objectives. At another meeting on 20 December, under the chairmanship of one Sergeant Baxter, who had just been superseded by a white NCO, a sergeant of the 3rd BWIR argued that the black man should have freedom and govern himself in the West Indies and that if necessary, force and bloodshed should be used to attain these aims. His sentiments were loudly applauded by the majority of those present. The discussion eventually drifted from matters concerning the West Indies to one of grievances of the black man against the white. The soldiers decided to hold a general strike for higher wages on their return to the West Indies. The headquarters for the Caribbean League was to be in Kingston, Jamaica, with sub-offices in the other colonies.

Meanwhile, the cessation of hostilities quickly led to a profound change in white attitudes to the presence of blacks in the United Kingdom. As white seamen and soldiers were demobilised and the competition for jobs intensified, so too did the level of race and class antagonism, especially in London and the port cities. The more serious aspect of this was the numerous riots which erupted and the assaults on blacks in the United Kingdom. Because of the large-scale onslaughts on blacks, and in an attempt to appease the British public, the government decided to repatriate as many blacks as they could and by the middle of September 1919, about 600 had been repatriated.

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Home Front

Even more alarming to the authorities, especially those in the West Indies, was the fact that between 1916 and 1919 a number of colonies including St Lucia, Grenada, Barbados, Antigua, Trinidad, Jamaica and British Guiana experienced a series of strikes in which people were shot and killed. It was into this turmoil that the disgruntled seamen and ex-servicemen were about to return and many people in the region were hoping or anticipating - and, in the case of the authorities, fearing - that their arrival would bring the conflict to head.

West Indian participation in the war was a significant event in the still ongoing process of identity formation in the post-emancipation era of West Indian history.

When the disgruntled BWIR soldiers began arriving back in the West Indies they quickly joined a wave of worker protests resulting from a severe economic crisis produced by the war, and the influence of black nationalist ideology espoused by black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey and others. Disenchanted soldiers and angry workers unleashed a series of protest actions and riots in a number of territories including Jamaica, Grenada and especially in British Honduras.

West Indian participation in the war was a significant event in the still ongoing process of identity formation in the post-emancipation era of West Indian history. The war stimulated profound socio-economic, political and psychological change and greatly facilitated protest against the oppressive conditions in the colonies, and against colonial rule by giving a fillip to the adoption of the nationalist ideologies of Marcus Garvey and others, throughout the region. The war also laid the foundation for the nationalist upheavals of the 1930s in which World War One veterans were to play a significant role.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwa...ndies_01.shtml

**Exile** · November 13, 2011, 11:25 PM

X my Dad used to tell us stories in WW2 when he was in the RAF - there was a West Indian mutiny of sorts about conditions of living, food, entetainment etc. In fact, it was one Dudley Thompson who came after as the intermediary.

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