Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture hosted by me, alexandria Miller. Strictly Facts teaches the history, politics and activism of the Caribbean and connects these themes to contemporary music and popular culture. Hello, hello everyone, wagwan, and welcome back to another episode of Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, where we dive deep into the histories, struggles and resistance that have shaped Caribbean people at home and abroad. I'm your host, alexandra Miller, and today we are continuing to explore Caribbean military histories, this time getting into the powerful yet often overlooked chapter of global history how the Caribbean contributed to and was impacted by the world wars. Now, when most people think of World War I and II, you know things like Normandy and you know European trenches and all of these things sort of come to mind, or at least that's what I was sort of taught about. However, we cannot overlook these important contributions of the rest of the British Empire, so that's including the Caribbean, of course, but India, many parts of the continent of Africa, right, they were all deeply entangled in this conflict across. You know the first half of the 20th century, and so we'll look at today. You know the soldiers century, and so we'll look at today. You know the soldiers, the workers, the economy, the ideologies that emerged from this period, and we'll connect the dots between the global conflict and the local transformation.

Speaker 1: 1:33

But before we get too much into that, I am really grateful to have John Conka join us for our discussion today. He is a historian of World War II and, you know, I'm just again really grateful to have him because this is an episode that I've really wanted to do for quite some time now. So, john, welcome to Strictly Facts. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself? You know your, of course, connection to the region and what inspired your, you know, passion and interest in studying World War II.

Speaker 2: 2:05

Yes, well, first of all, thank you. I'm really excited to be here to talk about this. I think this, that connection between the Caribbean and the global conflict of the 20th century, is really important, especially in our current time. But how I got here? Well, it's sort of part family part, my own madness. My mother is Trinidadian. She grew in canada before she moved to england, which is why I sound like this.

Speaker 2: 2:28

But I grew up in london, england, my mixed household, my father's an irishman, my mother's canadian, but a strong caribbean roots.

Speaker 2: 2:35

Of course, in england, especially in london, south london, you can't avoid the strong caribbean diaspora groups there.

Speaker 2: 2:41

And through that and my own interests, I sort of stumbled with a 12-13 year old on stories of Caribbean veterans.

Speaker 2: 2:48

So I started to prop up around you know the Windrush celebrations in England around Remembrance Day.

Speaker 2: 2:53

You know nothing about it and I started to follow and follow it while continuing my studies in different areas and it just became this thing that I had my academic work on other things and then I had all this stuff on Caribbean airmen and soldiers and sailors in the second world war and at some point it just became.

Speaker 2: 3:12

They just managed to match each other and I managed to take my love of the evolving identity of the Caribbean and history and the second world war and put them together, which is where I am now, you know, as a postgraduate student of it in England and I think with a second world war and doing it it's an 80 years since the end of the war. We still live in the shadow of it, we still have lessons to learn from it and I think especially Caribbean, the Caribbean diaspora, should take pride in the role that they played and if the lessons they drew from it and I love telling people about this- certainly, certainly I do want to get some of the like time period and all that stuff out of the way before we really jump into talking about the Caribbean.

Speaker 1: 3:54

So for our listeners, you know, tuning in World War I, some people know it, as the Great War started in 1914 and lasted until 1918.

Speaker 1: 4:03

It was, course, sparked by a conglomeration of things, but really the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand from Austria, you know this quickly escalated into a global conflict due to the tangled web of alliances, imperial ambitions, militarism several things right, imperial ambitions, militarism, several things right. And then you know World War II picked off 1939 until 1945, really massively triggered by the expansion of Nazi Germany under Hitler, as a lot of people know. And once again the world was, you know, really plunged into the war due to, you know, creating alliances, etc. But what is often missed, because you know, creating alliances, et cetera, but what is often missed because you know, I think, especially from the US side over here it's talked about, you know, the allied powers and all of these things, but what's often missed is that you know this wasn't just a European war right, that's sort of sometimes how it's framed or not even just European, but maybe just like a global north war rather. I'd say, right it was.

Speaker 2: 5:06

You know, it's really an imperial war yeah, especially as an interesting shift that's happening in especially a lot of English history now. So we're getting better, I think, of acknowledging that Britain fought both wars as an imperial war. In the first world war, britain fought as a war of imperial pride. You know whether you were an englishman, an irishman, a canadian, um, a south african, and then you know the. It was sold to you. As this is a war being fought for the empire and that's your role in the empire fight and that has effects on what happens between the wars.

Speaker 2: 5:39

But the second world war, especially now, british writers and even british popular culture is being acknowledge that we didn't fight that war alone, that everyone, the British, made an effort to bring people together to fight fascism and that had complications in an imperial power trying to fight authoritarian evil while still ruling India, ruling the ruling the third, the globe, but still committing to a free world. Afterwards that gets complicated, we'll get to it. But these are global wars, as you say. We consider them global north wars. But even though all the fighting doesn't happen in the global north, even all the effects of it didn't happen in the global north and you know the caribbean, especially in the second world war, was't happen in the global North and you know the Caribbean, especially in the Second World War, was quite close to the action.

Speaker 1: 6:28

Definitely. I think you know this idea that you know the Caribbean or South Africa other places were just distant territories is usually how you know empires talked about, especially the British Empire. But that's certainly not the truth, for you know what we obviously know today, but especially in this case, for um, world war one and two, uh, they were really crucial sources of manpower, of resources, of strategic positioning, you know, for things like naval bases.

Speaker 2: 6:56

Um, you know the list goes on, I mean yeah, sugar bananas, bauxite, we could oil.

Speaker 2: 7:03

One of my favorite anecdotes is um, you know the big like national mist moment in england's battle of britain? You got, you know the? A spitfire pilots fighting the german air force in the skies over london. All those planes are being uh flown with fuel refined in trinidad because it can't come from anywhere else and it's the safest way to get it, and it's also by time the war starts. The refineries in Trinidad have the best engineers and the best equipment to create the fuel the air force needs, and they know this. So, if you're like, the battle of Britain has won many places and one of them is Pont-au-Pierre in Trinidad.

Speaker 1: 7:38

So certainly, as we're just sort of, you know, spitballing things, right, could you just share a little bit more about this idea, as you were sort of alluding to right people fighting for the mother country, right, and these sort of varied opinions of Caribbean people just in terms of their region's involvement?

Speaker 2: 8:01

yeah, it's a broad, you know, god, I, people have written papers and I'll try and be quick about it because, especially, it's a very different conversation between the first and second world war. There is very much an outpouring of popular support in the first world war for the mother country and for taking part in the mother country struggle. You know that you've previously talked with other people about the um, the west india regiments, and there's so many people who want to join up. They have to create a different unit for the new volunteers, which is called the British West India Regiment, and they end up fighting in modern day Syria right at the end of the war. But they also have to do and that's sort of a nice end, not nice end, it's. They are treated really horribly.

Speaker 2: 8:45

The first of all, this is some juxtaposition of people in the Caribbean wanting to do their part for Britain and for their locality and hoping that doing so will earn them something in the future. And because that doesn't happen by the Second World War, there's this twist to it there are lots of people who oppose the war passively, not actively. You're never seeing sort of general active resistance to it. You to see a lot of. Why should we take part in the white man's fight because we did it 20 years ago and we got nothing out of it except riots and strikes and soldiers on the streets. But on the other hand, there are a lot of people, especially the younger generation who grew up between the wars, who are looking at hitler. They're looking at muslimi. They're looking at what's happened, especially in Hitler, they're looking at Mussolini. They're looking at what's happened, especially in Ethiopia, and they're not willing to stand by. I think what's forever interesting to me is, you know, there's this whole period where the European powers are attempting to appease the Nazis and the fascists, to try and push the war off, and on the other hand, in the Caribbean there are anti-Italian riots because people are so angry about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and there are thousands of people petitioning the British government to let them go and fight the Italians. You look at a lot of the people who fight in British uniform later in the war. They talk about their radicalizing moment as being the fall of Ethiopia and the exile of Haïs Elassie. The fascists are coming for us. This isn't a European's problem anymore and that motivation sticks through. There's a sort of understanding that we can't sit this one out either.

Speaker 2: 10:13

I think when the war starts and it looks like it's going to stay in this, what they call the phony war period, where nobody's really fighting that oh, this is just a pointless white man's war, nothing's going to happen. But once the Nazis conquer France and start bombing Britain and threatening trade and movement around the world, this is going to massively threaten our way of life too. Because the gamble if you are a lot of people who are trying to remove British rule, introduce democracy to the colonies, build the Caribbean that sort of has been imagined, you know, a century since emancipation the gamble is that the view is well, we don't like the British. They're awful, they're happy to treat us badly, cut us out from leadership, let us live in horrible conditions, but we can beat them. Their system of governance cannot sustain this system. They're treating us under. At some point it'll crack, whereas the nazis will just kill us. There's a general real acknowledgement there's no way to negotiate and outfox the nazis. It will just be violence, and especially amongst a lot of the um trade union movements and radicals in places like jamaica.

Speaker 2: 11:23

A lot of these guys are the british chucking prison anyway. The general view is we're going to resist British rule and we're going to try and seize the works. But we're never going to stand in lockstep with, you know, people who are sympathising with the Nazis. We're never going to go and stand in lockstep with the French collaborators. It's more of a we're going to stand up for ourselves. You know, these guys aren't even bothering to go and do work with the American government because they don't trust the American visa. I mean, the volunteers know exactly what they're fighting for. You know, in Britain, which is a conscript army, there's a lot of people who aren't quite sure what they're fighting for until they can process it afterwards. But a lot of the Caribbean volunteers are very aware.

Speaker 2: 12:01

There's a story from a Jamaican called Dudley Thompson and his anecdote was he was in a dentist office in Kingston and he was trying to avoid thinking about the surgeries. He picks up a magazine in front of him which has an excerpt from Mein Kampf and he's so upset and angry about what he reads in Mein Kampf that he immediately forgets what his plan is to become a teacher. It's like I'm going to join the Royal Air Force. That's all I've got to do now. I've got to stop it, supposedly when he goes to the recruiting officer because I like to join up. He does all the forms. The officer goes. Are you sure you understand? Because he can't believe that some middle-class Black Jamaican teacher would do this. And Dudley goes. Well, of course I do.

Speaker 1: 12:48

I think that foregrounds and probably even more so complicates this history in a lot of ways. Right, because, as we've talked about in the previous episodes, the experiences of soldiers upon joining, you know, whether it's the West Indy Regiment or during, you know, the War of 1812, they weren't great, and that's me sort of being nice, right being very nice.

Speaker 1: 13:14

And so, in terms of the recruitment of soldiers and everything I even you know I'll put it up for our listeners to check out on the Strictly Fact syllabus, but I even came across I believe it was either Bahamas or Barbados like a flyer, in terms of you trying to recruit soldiers for the, the British armies, and so you know, could you just share about, you know, ultimately, the experiences of these soldiers upon joining because, as I said, right, they weren't the nicest and it's very different depending on the war and the branch.

Speaker 2: 13:47

I mean the experience in the first of war. The huge number of volunteers is bad. You know these guys are signing up with the expectation they're going to play their part for king and country. They're going to fight on the front, they're going to do, in the very contorted, hyper-masculinity of the 20th century, proper soldier's work. You know they think they're going to win the glory and they go through all this brutal training that's dehumanising enough before you deal with racism. And they arrive in the Western Front or in Italy or in Egypt and they discover they're being used as labourers. They're being used to dig trenches, dig latrines, move cargo.

Speaker 2: 14:26

The fury itself. It really cripples the relationship between the colonial power and the populace because they've sent their young men to fight and gain glory and they're not Gaining glory at a First World War is a little star next to that, because that's largely a lot of young men dying. But it was important at the time for these people that they played their part and it becomes a real roost at the end of the war when there's one unit of the British West India Regiment that's being held as a final labour unit in Italy as a mutiny, because they're like we're fed up, we want to go home. You've told us we can keep going home.

Speaker 2: 15:04

White officers and non-commissioned officers are abusing us. We get slurs yelled at us by other soldiers, slurs yelled at us by other soldiers. Insanely, when one unit of the Western Red Ribbon marches through Alexandria in 1917, they come through the streets singing Rule Britannia and they get jeered by white soldiers for doing it. But in their view they have every right to because they're British subjects. You probably had other historians talk about the encounter of race. When you leave the Caribbean Suddenly you become black in a way that you aren't in the colonial space. And other historians talk about the encounter of race. When you leave the Caribbean, suddenly you become black in a way that you aren't in the colonial space and that's really alienating for a lot of the soldiers.

Speaker 1: 15:41

So you know, Zabitulis.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Then there are riots when they come back in 1919 and that kind of this day festers all the way to the Second World War. The thing that's different in the Second World War is they don't raise a West India regiment until quite late on, and that's because of what the British government is very weird about. So the administration doesn't want to raise a new West Indian unit for ground fighting and the sort of argument is one, we don't really know where to use it. Two, the population is very uneasy about with us. They don't like us. At the moment there's been five years of labour disturbances the euphemism goes for rebellions and riots and strikes, and they don't want that year to cause trouble.

Speaker 2: 16:26

And there's also from the lessons of the First World War. They do all the numbers in about 1940-41. They reckon they could raise about three battalions, so about 3,000 men. All you need is one bad battle and you'd lose 1,000 men. And there's a real concern about what would happen if the news comes back that one of the Caribbean battalions has been wiped out in a battle in Italy or somewhere. But it's still pushed back. So there's a huge protest in trinidad in july 1940 about wanting to serve as another one, jamaica. The biggest supporter in government of a west indian fighter unit is winston churchill. He thinks it's a great idea. One of these, these very Churchill.

Speaker 1: 17:12

I have no idea what it is.

Speaker 2: 17:15

I guess I don't know, but he's like I really want a West Indian brigade and he's like we should send them and make them a garrison at Singapore. And he says this in October 1941, which is like, oh, that's nice. He wants to get them, you know, defend one of Britain's major naval bases. But, as some people might know, if they had done that, the entire brigade would have then been captured by the Japanese about three months later. And if we learned anything from how the Japanese treat West African prisoners a few years later, it would have ended really, really badly for everyone involved.

Speaker 2: 17:48

So this is weird to swing around about, but those who do end up in service in the Second World War have a very it's a very similar experience and a different one depending on your branch.

Speaker 2: 17:58

So when the eventual West Indian Caribbean regiment is formed because they give it a different name for reasons beyond me, they basically are used as a fetch and carry labour regiment again by the end of the war.

Speaker 2: 18:10

And that comes down to I, I think real anxiety about what happens if that unit takes heavy casualties, because by the time they fight in 1943 they're sent out to the middle east in 43, 44.

Speaker 2: 18:24

There's already been instance, with the new zealanders, who you know are white colonial soldiers, being withdrawn from british forces because they've taken too many casualties, and that government is that we can't face more casualties at home. It's going to cause too much damage to our society and that the allies but the Americans and the British and the colonial British imperial forces are trying for the second world war in a way that doesn't involve having a lot of young men in trenches. The view is that if you have this Caribbean regiment and they can do labour work, and that labour work means that other men don't have to go fight as hard, that's fine. But it still builds this burden of resentment amongst the servicemen because they thought they were going to be able to do something important, and moving boxes in the warehouse might be important to a bureaucrat and it might be important to a historian. 80 years later it feels like real shit at the time.

Speaker 1: 19:19

Apologies, I shouldn't swear no, but it's true, and I think you know just to even underscore the numbers, right, so it's over 15 000 caribbean men, um, joining for World War I and about 6,000 for World War II.

Speaker 1: 19:34

Right, and as you were sort of alluding to by World War II, things are a lot more complicated, especially on the ground in the Caribbean. We obviously have the like 1930s and 40s labor unrest, as you also noted, you know, rise of fascism, also, of course, increased nationalist sentiment. We can't underscore. You know how that is obviously evolving as well, right, and so the resistance, of course, is unfolding both at home, you know, people being sort of by World War II deciding, you know, a little bit more complicated in terms of our involvement. But what is, as you're sort of alluding to, some of the official stances or the conflicts that you know Black and mixed race people were facing upon joining the military, beyond this sort of impetus of how they were treating Black soldiers. I've just heard several little complicated stories of you know people like you refer to. You know teachers joining and other other instances like that they're sort of multi-layered.

Speaker 2: 20:41

So I think the one thing is not as black and white as say, when we talk about black gis. Where you have a military system built on, you know somebody wants to further it correctly. You know it's a parasite in how America fights this war. Segregation Completely. They have one of the most efficient military industrial complexes ever created in the Second World War In the middle of it. Segregation just completely screws it up. Doesn't happen in the British Army in the same way, especially the Royal Air Force. British government has a what one might call a shadow colour bar, in the sense that it is on the rule the books that you cannot become an officer if you are not of European descent.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Nobody defines what European descent is. It's very notorious during the First World War that British army has a lot of mixed race officers. We're usually the children of colonial bureaucrats and local women who come back to england, have a british education and they go to the recruitment office in the first world war and the recruiting officer says something like are you a pure european descent? And either you go yes, and the recruiting officer looks at you, who goes yeah, right, whatever. Or you go no and the recruiting officer looks at you, who goes yeah, right, whatever. Or you go no and the recruiting officer looks at you and goes walk around the building and come back and tell me what you are. You are then because they don't care. But by the second world war they're very strict on this and the interesting thing is that everybody's very anxious in all the documents before the war to make sure nobody knows the rule exists. And it's this funny thing that's absurd to us in the 21st century that the British Empire is really insistent on the statute that the official policy is. There is no racial discrimination in the British Empire. It's ridiculous. But all these colonial officials, all these colonial office officials. No one can admit that we do any of this stuff officially. So we all know that you're never going to get a black foreman in this government office but you can't admit that Completely opposite end of the view from the American system. And it's interesting what they do to let it through. I mean, before the war I found doing solutions the great letter from a British MP by the name of Stafford Cripps who ends up being in the first socialist government after the war and he's writing to the air ministry to go. I've got a letter from a constituent telling me about a student of his who's mixed race who was rejected from the royal air force because of his color. And the member of parliament goes. But I was told you don't have a color bar and all the internal records go. Okay, we absolutely didn't let him in the RAF because he's not white. But if we admit this in Parliament we'll be in trouble. So we'll just let this one slide.

Speaker 2: 23:20

And there's another incident about six months later where a Jamaican man goes to London to sign up for the RAF and he's a very well-credited flight engineer. He's got all the records and it's only when he walks in for the interview that the interview panel discover he's um black, he's come all the way from jamaica on government expense to do this interview, to be in the royal air force, and they're like, well, he's come this far. We can't tell him no without admitting that it's just a color issue. So it's this very odd thing where there's a policy that everyone's kind of aware of, nobody wants to admit it exists, and it all comes to a head at the beginning of the war because the children of a famous black Jamaican civil rights activist, dr Harold Moody, attempt to join the British Army and they're both turned away and they're both privately educated, upper middle class public school boys. Apart from their parents origins, they're as english as you can possibly imagine an english officer to be.

Speaker 2: 24:21

So when this all comes in front of the press, the government doesn't have a leg to stand because they can't argue, these guys. They aren't qualified, they can't argue, they're unwilling, they can't argue, they're foreign nationals. So the government just basically goes we're going to drop the color bar for the duration of hostilities, which is a code, for we're doing this because there's a war on. We can do a lot of things because there's a war on but it never quite drops. So it means that by the time you have a lot of the West Indian volunteer servicemen arrive, people like Errol Barrow, orrick Cross, michael Manley, and when they go through officer school and pass through because of Britain's class system, once they've got their officer tabs the prejudice from whatever prejudice exists drops away because they're officers. In a certain sense they're protected by their military status in military life. In a way they aren't civilian life.

Speaker 2: 25:12

And there's this um billy strachan has a great line about the sort of complicated nature of it where he says when one black man walks in he's a friend. When two walk in they're wary but they can cope and it's straight when the difficulties happen. Strachan was um a force of nature. He'd um decided to join the rf in March 1940, sold his treasured bicycle and saxophone to pay for his boat ticket to Liverpool, got off of Liverpool, went to London, walked up to the Air Ministry and went I'd like to join the Royal Air Force. And the sergeant on the door went you're not joining the Royal Air Force, f*** off. And he has this row with the sergeant at the door until an officer posts his head out and goes oh, are you trying to join up. No, you have to go around the corner for that. And he goes around the corner and the guy around the corner at the recruitment officer goes oh, fantastic, great, just slamming the door to life, because there's just so much weird circumstantialism to it.

Speaker 2: 26:13

It's not like Britain isn't a racist country. It's not like all these, all the recollections talk about being stared at in the street and girls and dancers groping them, looking for their tails and really awful stories like that. But especially in Britain it's a different experience to what they're the generation before hadn't experienced in Italy and the Mesopotamia. Number one, they're not in a completely military space and two, theain of the second world war is an international island. It's still as frenchman, poles, czechs, indians, um, south africans, americans of all types. So the country is just kind of accepting that. It's a full of different people and in many senses you, you walk in, you're in a brit uniform. That puts more people at ease than anything else. But everybody has a very odd experience and it depends as well on where you are.

Speaker 2: 26:57

So if you're in the RAS, royal Air Force at the time, it is essentially the hotshot, modern, high-tech, futuristic branch of the service. It's difficult to comprehend to us because you know you see pictures of the aircraft they fly. They look so antiquated but you know these are the most advanced machines in the world and the people running this are trying to run the most advanced organization in the world and they've got the most for lack of a better word. The smartest people in the country are largely involved in the Royal Air Force. In the Royal Air Force it is a comment that many I think Cy Grant, who was shot down in the Royal Air Force in the Netherlands and then ends up in prison camp, makes that being in prison with all his RAF comrades felt like being at university, because you're surrounded by all the smartest people you've ever met sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Speaker 2: 27:49

But it's different for the guys who were in the Honduran Forestry Corps. Who were in the honduran forestry corps who were brought in to replace war workers in scotland, have a very different experience of the war because they are basically about 1200 of them were dumped in scottish communities to conduct forestry labor and some of them have really good experiences. I wildly, about five years ago, the month before COVID kicked off, I was in a hospital in Edinburgh and I met two old they'd be aunties in Jamaica, but they had the thickest Scottish accents I wasn't quite sure what the correct word would be, but they were lovely because their father had been one of these Honduran forest workers and he'd met a local girl and he'd asked when they were leaving. He'd asked her father to marry her and the father had said come back tomorrow and I'll say yes, knowing they were leaving that night, and he jumped out of the van as they left in the bush till the morning and knocked on the door and go well, here I am, well, it worked. So there's these different. Yeah, there are a surprising number of West Indians come across just to work in the factories and in the coal mines in the Midlands and you know then you can't even count the number of merchants seeming. They didn't keep those records. But it's the different.

Speaker 2: 29:05

Experiences really vary. I don't think any servicemen have the same experience of prejudice. There are a lot of similarities. I think every record I've said everybody's just horrified about how grey and cold England is, which is a universality. It's grey and cold today. I can see it outside. But I think what's interesting as well about these experiences is a lot of these people are never quite sure where they stand with the British People get lots of flack in the British. There's a lot of anxiety in the British about sexual patriotism, about British women walking out with non-white British men. A lot of that drops away whenever the Americans have a go at West Indian or African servicemen. People in Britain don't like that.

Speaker 2: 29:53

There's a lot of stories of famously in America. There's a story of the Battle of Bamberg Bridge where British civilians stand up for American servicemen. But there's lots of anecdotes of West Indian servicemen being stood up for by British soldiers, their superiors, civilians. There's a great anecdote I know there was a shared air base and there was a Jamaican as part of one of the flight crews and when some Americans come into the mess hall they start berating him and trying to get him to leave and one of the volunteer women, a headmistress from a local school manning the mess counter, walks over and slaps the lead American across the face and tells him to get out and they just leave and apparently everyone was completely shocked that she'd done it. No one expected it. But that's the sort of treatment you have.

Speaker 2: 30:42

And I think Baron Baker, who was a Jamaican pilot no, he was an air crew asked to speak for the Black British personnel on his base to an American colonel and he was very frank. Which is? He went. We are King George VI's sixth soldiers, not roosevelt's little black boys. We are not foreigners, we are british subjects and this is a mother country and you, as a yankee foreigner, aren't beating us one inch from where we are. And he said that to a superior officer with, and was backed by, his own superior. So it sort of tells you about the weird nuances of relationship. It's not that it was always that they weren't always stood up, for there were multiple riots in London between white American servicemen and black American servicemen and black British servicemen. Orrick Cross and Billy Strachan have most often referred to the American GIs as their little brothers in those fights, in that they'd always end up coming in to protect them from other people because they knew how to play the rules.

Speaker 1: 31:41

I think especially I mean growing up in America we obviously don't get this side of the story at all Right. But I think one thing about when it comes to military histories, there are always specific soldiers you know whose names are sort of heralded Right, and I've virtually got none of that in my education. But I think there are some outstanding people who you know, especially later on for Caribbean history become, you know, monuments of nationalism and things like that. I mean you mentioned Errol Barrow first. You know prime minister of Barbados and so and so for you, who are some of those standout individuals who really contributed to either World War I or World War II?

Speaker 2: 32:27

I'll start with Barrow, because he's always fascinating that he was going to be a teacher too. He signs up as a navigator in the Second Barbadian Contingent with his brother and he fights through the whole war and post-war. He ends up as chief navigator to a man called Air Vice-Marshal Sholto Douglas, who had been a really important planner and organiser during the war, and they have such a close relationship that Arrow Barrow is Sholouglas's son's godfather. There's a very interesting relationship. That barrow flew 48 missions um in tactical bombers between september 1944 and may 45, so that over the space of about um eight months, nine months, which is a lot. Most pilots were withdrawn after about 20, 30 because of the exhaustion rates and the risk and he didn't find the most.

Speaker 2: 33:25

We have to talk about Oret Cross, of course, who was one of the founding fathers in many senses, not just of Trinidad but a really important jurist and lawyer across the post-Soviet Caribbean. Personal relationships with Nkrumah, nyerere, governments of Canada across the post-war Caribbean. Personal relationships with the crewmen, the government of. You know it's incredible what he did, but he was also an unbelievably brave man. He flew 80 missions with a unit known as Pathfinders. The Pathfinders' job was to go in before the bombers to mark the targets in the complete night and they were reliant completely on the navigation being completely accurate and cross with a navigator. And he was so good that a lot of the pilots in his squadron would do what they could to make sure he flew with them. And he flew 40 missions. And they asked him do you want to fly another 20? And he went yes, and I can't off the top of me remember the chest full of medals he has. But it's incredible, he's one of these in many senses the public face of the caribbean war. After he's involved in all the propaganda work that's done with the bbc um. After the war he's involved in the colonial office's attempt to repatriate the huge numbers of african and west indian settlements across the world. I think the one thing we forget the war ends on the 8th of May 1945. It takes until 1947, 1948 for everyone to get home, and that's just soldiers, huge refugee crisis everywhere you can imagine. But he's involved in the effort to get all those people home.

Speaker 2: 34:52

I thought it was an interesting one because if you go on YouTube there's a great two-part lecture he gave for the Trinidadian Military College and you know he's um, he's in his mid-80s and he talks and his arcane is a little bit like a cartoon british pilot from the 40s. He talks this way he's very dead, paddy, very dry, and he can sort of see. He just even at that age oozes absolute charisma and I really recommend the listeners try and search out and try and watch it because I could tell you it, you can hear it from his own words and I think you know. And then sort of you've got people like Owen Sylvester, who had a much harder time than Cross. He's not as well connected, cross and Ivanka. Knowing Louis Constantine but you know, knowing the most famous athlete of your country helps. But Sylvester is interesting.

Speaker 2: 35:38

Sylvester, if you had one example of the kind of prejudice you could face, sylvester faced it and went past it. Um, the infamous story of he became a warrant officer of a bomber crew. That and the bomber crew really liked him. It was interesting. Half his crew was white south africans and at the time they got on really well with him. There's an infamous story he got a new commanding officer and the commanding officer was going down the line of crews and they get to um sylvester's crew and he goes and talks with south african navigator and says, oh, you must be the crew captain and the navigator answers the negative and says it's warrant officer sylvester.

Speaker 2: 36:18

The ceo looked unhappy and then turned to his aid later and went. I know how to deal with these people, I have experience with them in india and there's this constant then battle. I've seen the records that's really grim, where the ceo is just trying to trip sylvester up and get him out the unit and prove him wrong and essentially eventually he catches him and it's a dispute over uniform. Sylvester turns up in the wrong uniform to an event and it's clearly not Sylvester's fault and he's clearly still angry about it. 40, 50, 60 years later he's interviewed, especially considering the amount of combat he'd seen, and there's one guy screwing him over, but also that one officer screwing him over then ends up being justified to prevent promotions amongst other West Indians in the next two years. It's mad.

Speaker 2: 37:07

There's a site called Caribbean M and it's a great digital archive and I cannot recommend it more in terms of these personal stories because it's got all the photographs and it's got all these recollections and it'll tell you that I can't remember if my head and my notes, all my notes, are sort of linked to it, because I can't recommend it enough and I don't want to credit work, take work that isn't mine, except to say that people should go and read it. I think a story that touched me from there and I always think of is there was a pilot called Victor Tucker who was a Jamaican. He'd come to England before the war to study at Oxford. He may have a stock program in the city of London. He signs up for the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain and he's incredibly popular with his unit and he does very well.

Speaker 2: 37:51

And I think it's the 5th of May 1942, they go up to do what they call the sweep, which is when they would go with bombers over to france to hit a target, to try and goad the german air force into a fight, to try and degrade their strengths. And they go on a morning sweep and he comes down and he's promoted. On these. He's done well enough and then squadron commander promotes him provisionally promoted from a non-commissioned officer to an officer. And they go up in the afternoon and he's shot down and his parents find out that he's died the same day. They find out the promotion comes through.

Speaker 2: 38:25

And it's really tragic. But it tells you what the kind of sacrifice level was. I think amongst the Caribbean volunteers we're looking at a 50% cash-to-rate of people who went out and didn't come back across all the islands. There's not a lot of people but in terms of the scale that's punching above the rain. An average cash rate in bomb and command is about 30. So amongst even the deadliest unit in the royal air force they're doing, they're punching about the way in terms of the sacrifice.

Speaker 2: 38:55

It's a shame because there is an awareness of it, of that sacrifice. It's resurfacing now and you can sort of know why. It's not in the anti-colonial period. Now a lot of these guys, these servicemen, these decorated soldiers, come home and after 1948-49 put the uniform in the drawer because they've got a more important job. You know they are now committing to the independent struggle and for some of them it means that uniform has to stay above the drawer, the medals have to go to the back of the cupboard, because something else more important is, you know, errol Barrow manages to balance it. I mean, there's famously the pictures of him on Independence Day in Barbados. He's wearing his RAF dress. Blues Him and actually both of them, michael Manley, are always wearing RAF regimental ties, so it's clearly important.

Speaker 2: 39:42

But others put it aside until reasonably recently and I think that's just an odd legacy of it's not an odd legacy, I think it's an expected legacy of the anti-colonial struggle. But a lot of these people I don't think would have taken up the mantle of resistance they do in the late 40s and 50s if they hadn't served, because when you've been shot at over Germany at 20,000 feet in the middle of the night the British aren't very scary anymore. I think it's the same. You know, in America you have the constant double victory in how you lead.

Speaker 2: 40:17

From the return of the GI Australian civil rights movement I think you can see that parallel in the Caribbean and microcosm in a very Caribbean way. You know it's not as grand but it's very Caribbean. There's a lot of small committees and people in front rooms figuring out how they want to do it and you know a lot of accusatory letters and people who grudges kind of go back to when they were at school together but they're still going to put it aside for the next five years and come back to it when they were independent you bring up, you know just, the tremendous loss of caribbean soldiers and I, just off the top of my head, think of the many monuments that are back home, sort of in tribute to the loss of all these airmen.

Speaker 1: 40:59

You know, workers, etc. Um, you know, for Jamaica, there, of course, is a monument in National Heroes Park right. Um, for Trinidad, there is Memorial Park. I also think of schools. If you go to several high schools across Jamaica, whether it's Wilmer's, whether it's JC, you know, and of course I'm sure the list goes on. And even within parishes, there's, I think, also one in Clocktower Plaza in Clarendon, if I'm not mistaken. There are so many tributes to the loss of, and you know, just to really uphold the memory of these servicemen who were lost throughout the wars. And so, I guess, paralleling or, you know, as a sort of continuation of that, what are some of the ways that you find, you know, we're really memorializing and upholding the memory of these servicemen in contemporary, you know, caribbean popular culture and British popular culture as well, british, popular culture as well.

Speaker 2: 41:57

I can't speak to the Caribbean side being, you know diaspora, but I think you're right. I do remember from summers in Trinidad and Memorial Park is just, it is important. I think what always surprises with me when I talk to British audiences is they aren't aware whether even the black black British audiences this is a new thing in a way that it isn't to that to people in the Caribbean. When my mother goes home and talks about what I do to her relatives, they know what they're talking about, they know who these people are. I think in Britain it's important. This commemoration is becoming much more prominent now and much more important as the first Windrush generation moves into sort of that period of historical memory. Because the Windrush generation moves into sort of that period of that historical memory because the Windrush generation is a war generation. You know, if you look at the Empire Windrush itself, a good quarter of people aboard it were ex-servicemen. There's a very famous photograph of the stern of the Windrush coming into London. You can see the crowd cheering. A good half of the men in that crowd are in RAF uniforms. They're in a very distinctive RAF jacket. They're all wearing them still and that's really an important legacy that people sort of have lost and I think needs to be regained is that the Britain that the Windrush generation were part of, that they contributed to, was as marked a product of the war as the country they came to.

Speaker 2: 43:19

The Caribbean had its own experiences of rationing, of threats to German attack, of trying to think about a new world. You know, one of the things that everyone is surprised at is, in the middle of the war, jamaica has a massive constitutional battle and its first elections. In the middle of the war, there's a commitment with the British government and the anti-Globalist system that we're not going to stop. In the middle of the world. There's a commitment with the British government and the anti-global system that we're not going to stop doing this because of the war. It's got to happen. We have to do this and you know, if you read the propaganda of the time both the British government trying to defend their constitution and the radical, the Jamaican Labour Party movement, trying to push for it is we're fighting this war so we can have this scuffle over democracy. So we shouldn't stop and I think that's a legacy. You know, windrush is possible because fascism is defeated, the idea that you can have a multicultural britain through all the struggles that it that has led to to this day. That is a thing that can only happen because everybody contributed to the defeat of fascism.

Speaker 2: 44:22

That's a lot of what I come down in terms of why the commemoration happens is important. I think we are, you know, as a generation really seriously slips away. We had a couple of funerals in the last couple of years of Windrush-era immigrants who had been RAF veterans and it really struck certain parts of the community that these people weren't really finally going. But that commemoration becomes more important and it's left the community now and hit a lot of the national institutions. You know, the RAF Museum, which is the official military museum of the Air Force, has very serious commemoration around Black veterans, which every year I think they get a bit better at improving on. They've got a wide base of talks and I think the literature here is getting a lot better. You're more likely to pick it up in the schools, I think, than you used to be, but there's always a way to go on this. But I think to me being able to place the caribbean diaspora's role in, you know, fighting fascism, defeating fascism, is important, especially in our current crisis.

Speaker 1: 45:25

I did have one. I also wanted to add um, just because I think you know, when we talk about war, we usually talk about men. That's a gendered conversation that we'll get into for another time. Um, for for sake of time here, but, um, I think dahlia bean's book jamaican women and the world wars on the front lines of change, I think is one that I I definitely wanted to shout out in our conversation today, just because there isn't as much you know, out there, um sort of formally and accessibly really, um, just in terms of underscoring women's roles in the world horrendously under isa sherrod.

Speaker 2: 46:01

I know a few people working on it and there's some wonderful oral histories that are exist and I, you know, I look forward. Yeah, there are people doing analysis now. There's bits being done. I look forward to the continuing analysis of women. You know I I feel bad that it's only taking this, taking me this long to talk about una marson, who you know not only big ones and from my parish, if I may add.

Speaker 2: 46:25

But you know, continue, sorry but you know, not only you know, uh, you know the linchpin of, you know, transatlantic pan-africanism, you know the link between the garvis and the, but you know also the linchpin of bringing the war to the Caribbean, in terms of both West Indies calling, as this BBC imperative to get West Indian servicemen to speak to home, but also in terms of supporting Caribbean voices in England, bringing the radicals into work with BBC, introducing them to the wider literary sphere and connecting. You know I can't think of. You know I'm really looking forward in my PhD to writing about Una Marsden because she's just absolutely brilliant and I feel quite bad about it because I was like it was in my notes.

Speaker 2: 47:14

It was a big Una Marsden in block capital. I just sort of went off on a stream because she's brilliant in block capital and it sort of went off on a stream because she's brilliant and you go through the archives and looking at the work done by people like carol moody, george padmore, rid of dumba, and she's always there. She's always writing the letters, correcting things, getting annoyed with people talking over her when she knows better. You know, knowing exactly when whatever white british radical they're talking to is going to screw them over. And also having to tolerate Hallie Selassie who by any standard seems to have been a real asshole. And if we're talking about a place for you really to go, I can't recommend Water and Josh.

Speaker 2: 47:51

More by Stephen Bourne. I can recommend absolutely everything Stephen Bourne's written in terms of thinking about Britain and Black Britain at war. He's a great writer, very intelligent writer, got right into detail, really dug through archives and oral history projects to be able to collate these brilliant collection of accounts. I'll make sure that there's a link in your syllabus to his work. It's all brilliant. He's a lovely guy as well.

Speaker 1: 48:19

Definitely, definitely, definitely. Yes, of course, I will add all of these links um to the YouTube, um, you know that you you referenced earlier at the YouTube video um, and all of these books and things that we're sharing, because, again, I think it's um, for me at least, the 20th century is so interesting, in particular because it's so close and yet sometimes feels so far away or so unknown um, and so you know any way that we can uplift these stories and, as you're saying right, some of these people, um, you know, while that generation is certainly aging and have maybe passed on right, their stories certainly are part of who we are and our enduring legacies. My final question, of course, was going to be on Windrush and the sort of subsequent influence of, you know, the Caribbean in England after the World War. So any final words?

Speaker 2: 49:13

Well, as I said, that Windrush generation is in many senses the Caribbean greatest generation, especially that first instance. But the influence is in many senses, the Caribbean greatest generation, especially that first instance. But the influence is another way. You know I mentioned earlier um Cy Grant who'd been a bomber pilot veteran. He's one of the people who helped bring Calypso to England. A lot of the Calypso artists who come to England iteration had and are written lots of well flack words, anti-nazi songs and anti-fascist songs in the 30s and 40s. So that legacy comes through. And there's a few people I know at the moment who are doing a lot of new and interesting work on looking at how Second World War veterans and organisations played a big role in the development of the Caribbean communities in England and keeping links back to the homeland, especially in the run-up to the attempt at federation.

Speaker 2: 50:03

This is a lot of work to be done. I think as academics we're only starting to grasp the long legacy of that war generation the Caribbean on Britain and connect Britain's story properly with the Caribbean story. And you know, I think we being able to look back and connect them is really important because Britain is beginning to come to terms with its imperial legacy properly and with its post-imperial legacy and see itself as part of a web of very messy web of international communities. Being able to look back and go the war is important to Britain, it's important to people who came to Britain. We should be able, we can connect those beyond the windrush moment. I think is something I'm excited about. And also, who like, who doesn't like punching nazis. Everyone should be able to see themselves in history and in popular culture punching a nazi, no matter where they're from or who they are. That's a good place to be. If you're upset about that, maybe you're the one being punched.

Speaker 1: 51:03

Right, certainly a story that I think we should all know just generally, but I think especially for the times we're in now. Right, but, john, I mean again can't thank you enough. You have crossed one of my major bucket list podcast items off my list today. So I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and expertise on the Second World War with us For all my students joining the podcast who have been guests and have shared their research and budding research. Really grateful because I know we're all in the trenches trying to finish, but I wish you the best of luck starting grad school this fall.

Speaker 2: 51:41

Thank, you, thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 51:43

Yes, of course, and you know, for our listeners tuning in. I promised you these links, so they will be up there on the website. So go to strictlyfactspodcom. I've got one final thing for your listeners to recommend? Oh yes, of course.

Speaker 2: 51:56

When the Athletic Atlantic spreads to the western side they have to cancel all the carnivals because the lights they have to put the black eye in. And this is a song for the last performed I believe it was performed for the first time on the last night of the last Trinidad carnival. The war ends and it's just called Adolf Hitler by Destroyer and it's brilliant and I won't attempt to sing it but I will send you it so you can put it in the show notes and I recommend all you listeners listen to it because it is that proper dry old star calypso humor applied to you know, defeating Nazis, and I think that's great.

Speaker 2: 52:30

there's a fair few, actually, of those anti-Nazi. There's a great Lord Beginner, run your, run Hitler, one from 1940. But I thought I'd finish, yeah, finish with a good song we love it and I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 52:43

I'm always, you know, as a lover of music, um, so you know I will definitely be adding those links to the website. So again, listeners, be sure to check out strictlyfaxpodcom for more links to learn more about. You know the tremendous I can't underscore enough tremendous influence and impact of the carib, world War I and World War II and thereafter. And so till next time, look for more. Thanks for tuning in to Strictly Facts. Visit strictlyfactspodcastcom for more information from each episode. Follow us at Strictly Facts Pod on Instagram and Facebook and at Strictly Facts Pod on Instagram and Facebook and at Strictly Facts PD on Twitter.