REMEMBRANCE DAY – Our West Indian Heroes
By Stanford Conway
Editor-in-Chief-SKNVibes.com
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| BWIR badge - this is the insignia of the BWIR as worn by BWIR troops |
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – Today (Nov. 9), as the world remembers the sacrifices made by members of the armed forces who fought in World Wars l and ll to achieve global peace, it is incumbent upon SKNVibes to sensitise Kittitians and Nevisians, especially the young, on the racist and discriminatory manner in which members of the British West Indies Regiment experienced.
Firstly, be it known that Remembrance Day, also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day, is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war. It is observed on November 11 to recall to the end of World War l in 1918 and was dedicated by King George V on November 7, 1919. However, in most countries, though this day is observed on November 11, the main observance is on the second Sunday of November.
Typically, on Remembrance Day, wreaths are laid at war memorials in countries around the world, including St. Kitts and Nevis, by government representatives, the armed forces and local civic leaders, as well as by local organisations including ex-servicemen, scouts and girl guides, among others.
From this backdrop, SKNVibes has researched and has taken excerpts from Retired Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Brigadier-
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BWIR at the Western Front
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General David Granger’s ‘Guyana Legion’ and an article published in a journal called Mutiny that speaks to ‘Untold – Black History Season’, provided by the US-based former GDF Special Forces Staff Sergeant Winston Smith.
Granger posited that the First World War (1914-1918) changed the course of human history in significant ways. He noted that for the over 700 loyal British Guianese officers and soldiers among the 16,000 black West Indians who voluntarily enlisted and travelled overseas as members of the British West Indies Regiment, it was an unforgettable experience, but often for unexpected and unpleasant reasons.
Granger had provided details of Cedric Joseph’s ‘The British West Indies Regiment, 1914-1918’, in which he recounted of how shabbily West Indians who served in the British army were treated and how systematic official discrimination led to their disaffection.
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| BWIR soldiers in France - confident and eager to fight for King & Country |
He noted that it was largely through the efforts and evidence of Captain A.A. Cipriani of Trinidad after the war that the West Indians were eventually exculpated from charges of military misconduct.
The Retired Brigadier-General pointed out that as a reaction to official mistreatment, Sergeants of the Regiment, at a secret meeting in the Sergeants’ Mess at Cimino camp, Italy in December 1918, formed an association called the ‘Caribbean League’, aimed at promoting closer union among the West Indian islands after the war.
He stated that the League’s impact was powerful enough for Joseph to suggest that:
“…the early post-war period witnessed the development of some of the League’s aims as seen in the general growth of the working-class movement, the organisation of trade unions, the demand for representative government and, here and there, calls for a closer union of the West Indian colonies. It is worth noting that two outstanding West Indian leaders in subsequent periods of reform had served in the war − Captain A.A. Cipriani of Trinidad and Sergeant N. W. Manley of Jamaica, Military Medal.”
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| Clifford Powell, 110, Jamaican-born BWIR veteran who migrated to Cuba |
This, Granger said, was a strong statement of the solidarity among soldiers from over a dozen different colonies 90 years ago.
The following is the Untold – Black History Season’s article in its entirety:
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'
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| Eugent Clarke, 106-year-old BWIR veteran from Jamaica |
The sacrifices made by the 16,000 black West Indians who volunteered to serve under British imperial command have largely been ignored in accounts of World War I. One of the few facts about these men to make it into the official histories of the conflict is the violent mutiny at Taranto, Italy, in which some of them participated at the end of the war.
For the first time, Mutiny reveals disturbing facts about the treatment of the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR), combining recently declassified government documents and the exclusive testimony of Britain's oldest surviving World War I veteran, 110-year-old Clifford Powell.
He and other BWIR veterans discuss how they fought a battle against racism just to be allowed to fight for King and Country, and how the rebellion - and the harsh treatment meted out afterwards - were turning points in the fight for equality and freedom in the Caribbean.
Loyal subjects of the empire
“I was so joyful to go and fight for England”, recalls 106-year-old veteran Eugent Clarke. “We can’t talk bad about the English. The English are great man, greatest in the world,” reminisces Clifford Powell.
In 1914, after more than 300 years under the yoke of slavery and colonial rule, the majority of black people in the British West Indies saw themselves as loyal subjects of the empire.
The islanders made many generous donations of goods and equipment for the imperial war effort, and they contributed cash that was
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| Gershom Brown, 101, BWIR veteran living in Guyana |
the equivalent of £60 million in today’s money. But patriotic young black men who wanted to enlist were not allowed to fight - because of their colour.
The British imperial establishment, who feared that the participation of black men in the war would encourage a challenge to the supremacy of colonial whites in the Caribbean, displayed appalling racist attitudes towards the idea of black soldiers. These prejudices were official, as recorded by the British minister of war, Lord Kitchener: 'Blacks' colour makes them too conspicuous in the field ... Black soldiers; a greater source of danger to friends than enemy.'
Joining up
With the loss of huge numbers of British troops and the backing of George V, black volunteers were finally allowed to join up.
Conditions were harsh; many lost their lives even before they reached the war zones. In one incident, over 600 khaki-clad BWIR recruits suffered severe frostbite during a blizzard at sea because the winter uniforms on their troop carrier were never issued to them.
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| Gershom Brown as he was in 1916, proudly showing off his BWIR uniform |
Eight of the BWIR’s 11 battalions were sent to the Western Front.
However, the army’s high command had decided at a secret meeting that they would not be allowed to fight on the front-line - a decision of which the BWIR was never officially informed.
Instead they were used as labour battalions at Ypres and on the Somme, supplying British artillery batteries with high-explosive ammunition while under heavy fire - vital and life-risking roles only recently acknowledged.
Letters home to the Caribbean spoke of the poor treatment meted out to black soldiers compared to the white troops, and the indignity of their non-fighting role was captured in the war poems they wrote, such as the ‘Black Soldier’s Lament’.
Mutiny and liberation
At the end of the war, the ‘other ranks’ of the BWIR - still under the thumb of the British command and stranded in an Italian transit camp - were disillusioned and embittered. A pay rise of six pence a day awarded only to white soldiers and then shameful instructions to clean the latrines of their fellow white soldiers and Italian civilians proved to be the final straws at the conclusion of what had been, for the most part, a humiliating and degrading tour of duty. When their commanders refused to take seriously complaints that they were being discriminated against, the black soldiers rose up in a violent mutiny. Many of the mutiny’s ringleaders were jailed; one was executed by firing squad.
The mutiny was a turning point for the West Indies. The black soldiers had volunteered their lives, yet back in the Caribbean, the oppressive, racially based social and political structures remained unchanged. The colonial authorities - fearing that these politicised and weapons-trained veterans would return to lead a violent revolution - encouraged over 4,000, nearly a third of the BWIR veterans, to emigrate to Cuba to work on the sugar and fruit estates. Some remain there to this day, including Clifford Powell.
But throughout the Caribbean, BWIR veterans - including Norman Manley, who would become Jamaica’s first prime minister in 1962 - led the struggle for black pride, civil rights and national liberation. As a Colonial Office memo of 1919 recognised: “Nothing we can do will alter the fact that the Black Man has begun to think and feel himself as good as the white”. The tide of change was irreversible.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF’S NOTE: Gershom Brown died in Guyana over two years ago and it is believed that both Clifford Powell and Eugent Clarke are also dead, but this was not confirmed.
