British West Indies Regt. 1914-18

[Tony]

I bought this BWM to a member of the British West Indies Regt. but am unable to find hardly any details about the unit so if anyone can help me, please do. The limited research I have at present was found online and passed on by the previous owner of the medal.

It looks to have been cleaned recently, I hope the dullness will disappear after a soapy water clean.

Tony

[Tony]

Pte. Nahaman Torrent's unit, probably the 4th Battalion (only an assumption as his number appears to indicate he came from Jamaica and 66% of the volunteers were Jamaican), was raised in May 1916 and landed in France in July 1916. Nahaman Torrent survived the war and who knows, he may well have been one of the mutineers.

The picture below was taken in Albert, on the Amien Road in September 1916. See this site http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bri...jpg#filehistory

Edited June 11, 2009 by Tony

[Tony]

This photo came from

http://pub26.bravenet.com/photocenter/albu...2098292/9896/1/

[Tony]

I've just noticed there seems to be a lack or cap badges being worn.

From http://website.lineone.net/~bwir/bwi_regt.htm

A total of 397 officers and 15,204 other ranks served in the BWIR.

185 killed or died of wounds, 697 wounded and 1,071 died due to sickness. Many of the wounded were moved back to Military Hospitals in Britain for treatment.

The site doesn't have a great deal of information regarding the Great War, in spite of this, it makes an interesting read with some details regarding the poor treatment of coloured soldiers and their post armistice mutiny.

If anyone has the book titled Jamaican Volunteers in the First World War and wants to 'give' it to me, I'd be very happy to take it ;)

Edited June 11, 2009 by Tony

[Tony]

Can anyone work out the remarks on the MIC?

Tony

[Ulsterman]

Good Lord! That is interesting. I can only decipher parts of the card (name rank,#, 35th Infantry????) etc. and really wonder what the 1947 remarks are.

Hmmmm....I do not know the answer, but I know where to go to ask. Have you tried the Great War Forum?

I'll wager Happy Botts, DCM will know.

[Graham Stewart]

One part of the MIC which reads "Ret'd(und'd) CRV/63/B - 2-8-24" indicates that the medals were returned undelivered on 2nd August 1924.

"35/Infy/5435" - Is a letter reference more commonly found at the end of an Army Council Instruction.

[Tony]

Thanks to you both for having a look. It's a great pity that service records to the BWIR were destroyed by the Luftwaffe.

I don't think this unit is very collectable but I find it interesting that blokes from the West Indies got up and volunteered for a war so far away from their home. I can only imagine they must have felt a strong allegiance to the Empire.

Tony

[peter monahan]

Thanks to you both for having a look. It's a great pity that service records to the BWIR were destroyed by the Luftwaffe.

I don't think this unit is very collectable but I find it interesting that blokes from the West Indies got up and volunteered for a war so far away from their home. I can only imagine they must have felt a strong allegiance to the Empire.

Tony

I have to agree - patriotism is a strange thing by times. In fact, I'm surprised that the Regiment lasted as long as it did, given that in it's earliest form it was composed largely of slaves who were 'bought into' service by the British. Nevertheless, the fought valiantly in many of the colonial scraps, especially in West Africa, and had, as a unit, nothing to be ashamed of.

Now, what was the reference to "mutiny" about?

Peter

[peter monahan]

I've just done some quick digging myself re the mutiny question and found a fascinating site: a book review of a book entitled "MUTINY". Here is some of the review:

The official preference for deploy the B.W.I.R. as labour battalions, rather than front-line troops, and the rising tide of discriminatory treatment could characterise the history of the regiment, in the words of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Wood-Hill, as a "heartbreaking tale of humiliation and disillusion." One of the B.W.I.R.'s pivotal advocates, whose lobbying contributed to the eventual front-line deployment in Palestine and Jordan, Wood-Hill was a long-serving officer of the West India Regiment6 before the war. He was appointed commanding officer of the first battalion B.W.I.R. and documented the regiments tribulations in a brief sketch circulated to the War Office, Colonial Office and West India Committee. Mutiny does not address the more ambiguous, reactionary side of Wood-Hill's character which resulted in his striking the men under his command (Cipriani 1940). It was an obsession with military honour and discipline, less a desire to redress racial discrimination, which drove his championing of the B.W.I.R. As he made clear in a letter to the West India Committee after the war, Wood Hill firmly hoped military discipline had made Jamaicans immune to political radicalisation.7

This was indeed a vain hope, for while West Indian soldiers were prepared to accept authority and endure hardship in exchange for post-war recognition, they were not prepared to suffer indignity and discrimination. On 6 December 1918, shortly after the Armistice, Lieutenant-Colonel Willis, commander of the ninth battalion B.W.I.R., based in the port of Taranto, Italy and notorious for his harsh approach to discipline, was surrounded by angry soldiers when he ordered them to clean latrines used by Italian labourers. The men dispersed quietly, but the following day, the ninth and tenth battalions refused to work. The men were disarmed, but not before unrest had spread to other battalions. War Office secret telegrams reveal a battalion of white troops with a machine company were requested to forestall any further unrest among the West Indies battalions.

On 17 December, 60 West Indian sergeants met to form the Caribbean League, which although short-lived due to internal divisions centred around island identities, marked a pivotal moment in the emergence of nationalist movements in the Anglophone Caribbean. Mutiny reports the memorable and oft-cited slogan emanating from a subsequent meeting of the League, "that the black man should have freedom and govern himself in the West Indies and that force must be used, and if necessary bloodshed to attain that object." These are the words that struck fear [End Page 228] into the Imperial establishment, and perhaps no wonder so shortly after the Soviet Revolution. But it is also important to recall the more modest aim, "the Promotion of all matters conducive to the General Welfare of the islands constituting the British West Indies and the British Territories adjacent thereto."8 This was a distinctly social democratic agenda, but one which British Imperialism and the West Indian plantocracy would find impossible to meet in the post-war economic crisis. Court martials of the alleged mutineers were held before the New Year with the apparent ringleader, Private Arthur Sanches receiving a death sentence commuted to twenty years imprisonment.9

The attitude of the British military hardened in the wake of the mutiny at Taranto. Culminating in the "Reign of Terror" (Cipriani 1940) instituted when the base commandant at Taranto was replaced by the South African, Brigadier General Carey Barnard. Eugent Clarke recalled how the men were barred from recreational facilities, "You couldn't even go to the gate, let alone into town ? he was a rough man." In general, the attitude of the West Indians' erstwhile white comrades changed. Gershom Browne reported how "they didn't seem to want any attachment with us ? we had always seemed to get on good together in Egypt." An anonymous black sergeant complained to the Colonial Office that the men were treated "neither as Christians nor as British citizens, but as West Indian niggers."

The military and colonial authorities were anxious the B.W.I.R. should be demobilised as rapidly as possible and most of the regiment "never saw Blighty," nor attended victory parades. On their return home, the authorities dispersed the veterans to their parishes so quickly that, as Eugent Clarke remembers, "they never gave us a welcome."

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/caribbean_studies/v036/36.1.smith.html

Also, a site for the "West Indian Returned Servicemen's Assoc.":

http://westindiaregiment.org/history.html

[Tony]

I have to agree - patriotism is a strange thing by times. In fact, I'm surprised that the Regiment lasted as long as it did, given that in it's earliest form it was composed largely of slaves who were 'bought into' service by the British. Nevertheless, the fought valiantly in many of the colonial scraps, especially in West Africa, and had, as a unit, nothing to be ashamed of.

Now, what was the reference to "mutiny" about?

Peter

Peter,

It makes a simple named medal very interesting doesn't it.

Towards the end of the war British Troops were given a 50% pay rise but the War Office denied the West Indian troops this payment. This was latter reversed by the Colonial Office who feared the resentment it caused would result in violence on their return home after demobilisation. Another policy was that black troops had to have white Officers, this limited the promotion prospects of West Indians to the rank of sergeant.

After the war, the battalions who were serving in France and Egypt were moved to Taranto, Italy, to join their comrades already there. Again they were used as "labour" battalions. On the 6th December 1918 members of the 9th Battalion attacked there officers due to their poor treatment. More incidents of of insubordination followed as the troops refused to carry out duties that were assigned to them.

On 17th December 1918, about 60 sergeants formed the "Caribbean League" and one of their demands was that "the black man should have freedom to govern himself". The league was betrayed to Officers and it was disbanded early in 1919. Some soldiers were accused of mutiny and received sentences of between 3 and 5 years in prison. One man was sentenced to 20 years and another was executed by firing squad. The authorities then made the decision to disarm the the soldiers and disband the BWIR as soon as possible.

The fear then was that the demobbed soldiers would promote disorder on return back to the West Indies. Some disturbances did take place and were lead by demobilised soldiers, but on the whole an uneasy truce had broken out.

Even the wounded and disabled.

Wounded BWIR soldiers were not spared prejudice and discrimination. In the Autumn of 1918 about 50 members of the B.W.I.R. were being treated at Belmont Road Military Auxiliary Hospital, Liverpool. All had been seriously injured and had suffered wounds which had resulted in foot or leg amputations. Relations between black and white soldiers were good at first until some South African causalities were brought in. They soon began to taunt and insult the B.W.I.R. soldiers. As relations deteriorated fighting broke out between the two groups.

Problems occurred after the war had ended with pensions. See the following example of Private Pte. A. Francis who had lost an arm during active service.

"Francis, a coloured man who worked in the shipyard at Liverpool, volunteered under the Derby Scheme and, because "great difficulty was found in posting men of colour to ordinary British units", he was posted to the B.W.I.R., which had been set up expressly to cater for his and similar cases. Upon his being invalided out after the loss of an arm, he was granted a pension considerably lower than that to which he would have been entitled had he been assigned to an ordinary British line regiment. The Treasury was unwilling to open the door to revising the principle of differential rates but it did give the department the "loophole" of granting him an alternative pension at the "European" rate."

Though living, working and fighting for Britain during the war he was not considered "British" by the army on volunteering or by government departments for a pension.

Ref: PRO document: T 1/12482

Graham,

The joys of remembering I have a copy of The Researchers Guide to the Great War were dampened by the fact I forgot I have it.

Could returned undelivered possibly be Retd. (uncl.) returned unclaimed? IVB 1084 of 27.8.47 being the Issue Voucher for the reissue.

Tony

[leigh kitchen]

The best I can work out:

COL/112B is the Record Office code for Colonial British West Indies Regiment.

BM/2168/47 is the disembarkation roll reference number, although a date that he entered a Theatre of War isn?t written down on the MIC.

Retd. (uncld.) CRV. 163/B ? 2 ? 8 ? 24 ? 35/ infy(?)/5435 ?

Returned unclaimed, Certified Receipt Voucher (which was issued when the records office took medals on charge) number 163/B, issued 2nd August 1924.

And that?s where I come to a halt on that entry.

There?s no reference for disposal of the medals that I can see - they were liable to be broken up 10 years after their return to the Records Office if unclaimed.

IVB .1084 of 27 ? 8 ? 47.

The ?IV? should stand for Issue Voucher, the numbered transmittal slip which was to be returned to the Records Office by the recipient, acknowledging receipt of his medals.

Belatedly claimed his WWI medals after serving again during WWII or as a result of renewed interest following WWII?

Records of Commonwelth servicemen were kept in duplicate or transferred to the relevant Commonwealth nations Record Office.

[Tony]

Nice one Leigh.

Tony

[Tony]

I bought another British War Medal to a member of the British West Indies Regiment recently, who, according to the CWGC died in Marseilles just two weeks before the armistice. I don't know how he died whether from illness, wounds, by accident etc. as ORs of the Br.W.I.R. don't appear on the soldiers died cd. His unit may have been at rest in Marseilles or possibly on the way to Italy where the BWIR was used for labouring duties.

I've not been able to find anything (online) on Pte. E. Sinclair apart from his MIC.

Elizah Sinclair was a member of the 3rd Infantry Battalion Br.W.I.R. The 3rd Battlion left for England in January 1916 and landed in France in July 1916, where, going by their battle honours alone, they spent the next couple of years in Belgium (Messines 1917, Ypres 1917, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Pursuit to Mons) although one of the photos posted above shows men from the regiment on the Somme. The British West Indies Regt. was also sent to East Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, France and Italy.

Does anyone have an idea of the value of medals to the Br.W.I.R.?

Tony