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The following text has been archived here from our sister site, the Border Regiment Forum, which is set to close in January 2018. A wiki-based copy of that original post has been preserved here for reference purposes. Note: only selected posts from the forum have been archived (find out why). |
 Posted by kerchi » 18 May 2008, 10:48
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 Field-Marshal Administrator Posts: 2160 In memory of John Bardgett (15309 L/Cpl.) 11th Border Regiment Who died 1st July 1916. |
| BORDER OFFICERS IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES REGIMENT
If you go to the internet site: http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/carib_web/gall_wwi_05.htm you see a War Diary of the 1st Bn The British West Indies Regiment. Inside it are listed the names of two Border Regiment Officers serving with the 1st British West Indies Battalion in the First World War. They are Lieutenants Whitelegg and E.B. Connell. When the Great War commenced there was only one British regiment recruited locally in the Caribbean, The West India Regiment. This Regiment had two regular battalions, one of which was posted to West Africa. About three quarters of the soldiers in the West India Regiment had been recruited in Jamaica. Many men throughout the British Caribbean territories wished to enlist to fight in the war, but they had strong reservations about enlisting in the West India Regiment, as it suffered from a poor social reputation. The British authorities decided to raise another regiment for war service volunteers and named it the British West Indies Regiment. This new unit recruited men from Jamaica, British Guiana (now Guyana), Trinidad, St. Vincent, Grenada, Barbados, Bahamas, British Honduras (now Belize), St. Lucia and the Leeward Islands. Over 15,000 men were enlisted and formed into 12 battalions. The soldiers were black but the 397 officers were white, some being recruited in the West Indies and others, like Lieutenants Whitelegg and Connell, being seconded from British infantry regiments. British West Indies Regiment Machine-Gunners Battalions of the British West Indies Regiment were deployed in France, Italy, the Middle East and East Africa. As contemporary British military thought was prejudiced against blacks fighting whites most of the battalions were employed on military labour duties rather than on infantry tasks. The ability of a West Indian soldier to manually move up to 50% more weight than a white man could during a shift meant that these units were heavily involved in port unloading and ammunition resupply duties, often working in areas targeted by enemy artillery. However in East Africa and the Middle East some British West India Regiment battalions were employed in the infantry role. The 1st Battalion in Palestine, in which Lieutenants Whitelegg and Connell served, and the 2nd Battalion were involved in the fighting for the River Jordan crossings in September 1918 as part of Chaytor's Force. Both battalions marched hard and fought well, helping to decimate the withdrawing Turkish forces. The regiment lost 1,056 men on various battlefields or to sickness. Battle Honours granted to the regiment were: Messines 1917, Ypres 1917, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Pursuit to Mons, France and Flanders 1916-18, Italy 1918, Rumani, Egypt 1916-17, Battles of Gaza, El Mughar, Nebi Samwil, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Megiddo, Nablus, Palestine 1917-18. Reference to the 1st Battalion War Diary shows the awards received by that unit, but the regiment as a whole was not always well treated. Some wounded West Indian soldiers in British hospitals were taunted by white South Africans until fights broke out, and a British Army pay-rise (Army Order No 1 of 1918) was denied to the Regiment until a mutiny within the 9th Battalion at Taranto, Italy in December 1918 influenced the Colonial Office to have this decision reversed.By 1921 all the battalions of the British West India Regiment had been disbanded and since then the unit and its achievements have been rarely discussed in military forums. The men of the Caribbean responded to the patriotic call-to-arms that swept through the Empire, but the British military authorities rarely used the regiment in its combat infantry role. When the regiment did fight the results were impressive. Harry Fecitt. May 2008. |