Putting the 'story' into 'history'
We celebrate International Women’s Day 2021 by publishing a new page on our website about Amanda Aldridge. Amanda was born on 10th March and died on the 9th of that month so celebrating her life today is particularly timely.
Some may know Amanda’s story, for others her surname may ring a bell. Whether it is just to refresh your memory or to learn about her from scratch, you can read about her here http://historycalroots.com/amanda-aldridge-10th-march-1866-to-9th-march-1956
Although the core of it remains unchanged, Audrey Dewjee has updated her article about Nadia Cattouse, adding some additional material and several new photos.
Nadia was thrilled when Audrey told her how much interest the original article generated (well over 2,500 views, including many from Belize, the land of her birth). She was also pleasantly surprised by the larger than usual number of birthday cards she received last November when she celebrated her 96th birthday!
You can find the updated article here: http://historycalroots.com/nadia-cattouse.
Audrey Dewjee shares her thoughts.
This year’s Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph has been like no other because of covid-19. It has set me thinking about previous Remembrance Sunday commemorations – and omissions – which, to some extent, have been corrected in the very recent past.
For years and years, the BBC presenter of the Remembrance Sunday programme recited the same old script in a solemn pompous voice – while simultaneously revealing either his ignorance or his racism. For years and years the virtues of “Commonwealth” participation in the two World Wars were extolled and tribute was paid to the contribution of people from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, but there was little or no mention of the sacrifices made by people of colour, whether from the Indian subcontinent, Africa, the Caribbean or any other part of the former British Empire from which they came. I used to watch in fury, every year, and many times wrote to the BBC to tell them that they must acknowledge these contributions. Colleagues at the time did the same, but perhaps none did so for as many years as my friend Kusoom Vadgama. Our protests fell on deaf ears.
I was especially infuriated when the commentator, usually David Dimbleby, would mention the countries from which the various High Commissioners came, without ever mentioning that the people of those countries had fought and died side by side with their comrades from the British Isles. The insult was even greater when you knew that two of the High Commissioners themselves had fought in the war – Arthur Wint (Jamaican High Commissioner from 1974-1978) and Ulric Cross (High Commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago from 1990-1993). Arthur Wint was a pilot and Ulric Cross a navigator in the RAF.
Something else that has never been commented on – the shape of the Cenotaph itself. Many war memorials in British towns and cities include a cross, but a cross is significantly absent from the Cenotaph. As Mary Lutyens pointed out in an article in Ms London (16 November, 1981), her father, the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens who designed the monument, “refused to put a cross on it, because he said the troops marching past were of many different religions.” Good for you Sir Edwin! – at least someone had awareness and integrity.
Gradually, and possibly grudgingly, over recent years, things changed a little and Britons began to hear stories in the media about those who had been omitted for so long. However, the Black Lives Matter movement, the 75th anniversary of the ending of World War 2 and, in particular the VJ day anniversary this year, have resulted in a sea-change in reporting and suddenly the stories of veterans from all over the world are starting to be told – too late for many of those who would have appreciated this recognition.
I watched the 2020 Remembrance Sunday Ceremony on TV and noted with pleasure that the Queen’s equerry, Ghanaian-born Lieutenant Colonel Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah, was in attendance, as he was at the private ceremony earlier in the week, when the Queen laid a bouquet on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. [Find out more about Lt. Col. Twumasi-Ankrah on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqRUjE2MAV8 ]
On Wednesday 11th November, the actual Remembrance Day – I will be thinking, among others, of the following:
Adolphus Meheux a Sierra Leone-born merchant seaman from Hull who lost his life off the Netherlands when his ship the SS Cito was attacked by German destroyers on 17 May, 1917. His name appears on the memorial boards at the entrance to Hull Station. https://www.africansinyorkshireproject.com/adolphus-meheux.html
James Bailey, brother of Lilian Bader, a merchant seaman who along with 21 of his shipmates on board the SS Western Chief went down in the Atlantic on 14 March, 1941, after being torpedoed by an Italian submarine. He is commemorated on the Trinity House Memorial at Tower Hill in London.
The following who all died in World War 2 and are buried or commemorated in Stonefall Cemetery, North Yorkshire:
Private Selemani Shabani of the African Pioneer Corps [East Africa]
Sgt. Pilot Isikeli Doviverata Komaisavai of Fiji served with 234 Squadron. He died on 19th October 1944 at the age of 24.
Flying Officer Ulric Leslie Look Yan of Trinidad, aged 21.
Flying Officer Edward Fred Hutchinson Haly DFC of British Guiana [now Guyana], aged 23.
This site https://www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com/ is an unparalleled source of information about Caribbean aircrew. It contains information about the Caribbean aircrew mentioned above and many more besides.
Leading Aircraftman Isaac Roland Bryan of Jamaica, aged 21.
AC2 Ivan Copeland Ashman of Jamaica.
AC2 Wilfred Octavius Dawns of Jamaica, aged 24.
AC2 Patrick Constantine Marshall of Jamaica, aged 19
AC2 Byron Martin of Jamaica, aged 19.
The last five were ground crew members of the RAF. Just because you didn’t go into battle, didn’t mean you were safe from accident or illness. A number of non-combatants never returned to their families.
The hundreds of thousands of East Africans killed in World War 1 who don’t have individual marked graves, but who are commemorated on three memorials: one in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the others in Mombasa and Nairobi in Kenya.
The inscription (in English, Kiswahili and Arabic) on both monuments reads as follows:
This is to the memory of the native African troops who fought: to the carriers who were the feet and hands of the army: and to all other men who served and died for their King and Country in Eastern Africa in the Great War 1914-1918.
If you fight for your Country even if you die your sons will remember your name.
Wing Commander Karun Krishna Majumdar, who flew and survived the war in Europe, only to die fighting in Burma in February, 1945.
Flying Officer Man Mohan Singh, who came to Britain in 1939 and was eventually stationed in Australia where he was killed in a Japanese air raid.
http://www.australiansikhheritage.com/flying-officer-manmohan-singh
Pilot Officer Gurbachan Singh, who was killed in an accident when his plane hit a telephone wire in Wiltshire and crashed on 12 April, 1941, aged 21.
Pilot Officer Hukum Chand Mehta, who died when his Hurricane IIB flew into the ground at Kielder in Northumberland, during a formation practice on 3 November 1941, aged 24.
Warrant Officer James Hyde
a Spitfire pilot from Trinidad (featured on this film around minute 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGwxJloI70 ), who was killed in a dogfight over Nijmegen in the Battle of Arnhem on 25 September, 1944, aged 27.
Sergeant Osmund William St. Clair Alleyne, Wireless Operator/Gunner, from Dominica, killed in action on 5 August, 1943.
Pilot Officer Victor Emmanuel Tucker from Jamaica, he was shot down 4 May 1941 and crashed into the Channel, aged 25.
These are just a handful of stories of the people who were lost in two World Wars. Their stories are important: we need to tell them, especially to our children, and we need to ensure that they become part of mainstream British history.
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM
By Audrey Dewjee
V-J Day on Saturday 15 August 2020 marked the 75th Anniversary of the ending of the Second World War.
On V-E Day, 8 May 1945, when people celebrated the end of the war in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the war in the Far East was still raging. While most of Europe went wild with joy at the ending of so much death and suffering, those who had loved ones fighting in the deadly jungles of Burma or who were prisoners of war of the Japanese were still full of fear for their safety and well-being.
War in the Far East actually began in 1937 when Japan invaded China. Because Japan was an island nation it was without many of the resources it needed to wage war, such as oil, tin, rubber and bauxite. According to Wikipedia, Japan entered World War 2 “primarily to obtain raw materials, especially oil, from European (particularly Dutch) possessions in South East Asia which were weakly defended because of the war in Europe. Their plans involved an attack on Burma partly because of Burma’s own natural resources (which included some oil from fields around Yenangyaung, but also minerals such as cobalt and large surpluses of rice), but also to protect the flank of their main attack against Malaya and Singapore and provide a buffer zone to protect the territories they intended to occupy.”
Wikipedia continues, “An additional factor was the Burma Road completed in 1938, which linked Lashio, at the end of a railway from the port of Rangoon, with the Chinese province of Yunnan. This newly completed link was being used to move aid and munitions to the Chinese Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek which had been fighting the Japanese for several years. The Japanese naturally wished to cut this link.”
On 7 December 1941, the Japanese simultaneously attacked Malaya, the Philippines, Borneo and the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Far East then became another theatre of World War 2. The United States entered the war and China became one of the Allies.
The Crown Colonist, November 1942, praising “China – Our Ally.”
(© IWM IND 2332)
British “possessions” in the region were systematically attacked – Hong Kong on 18 December and Singapore in the following February. The invasions were successful and the Japanese quickly occupied these territories. British forces retreated or were captured, and before long the Japanese were threatening India, the “Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire.
The Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General William Slim was set the task of ridding North East India and Burma of the Japanese.
The fighting in Burma was some of the most brutal in the war, probably the most brutal. The terrain was certainly the most difficult that any soldiers in the British army ever had to overcome in any theatre of World War 2, and their Japanese adversaries, who believed in fighting to the death, had never yet been defeated in any of their campaigns.
Against these tremendous odds General Slim’s troops, assisted by Eastern Air Command, halted the enemy’s triumphant advance into India and then inflicted on him the greatest land defeat that the Imperial Army of Japan ever suffered.
I am not a military historian, so I cannot adequately detail the Burma campaign. I have listed a selection of book titles at the end of this article as well as links to various websites which have further information. My aim in this article is to honour those who achieved this magnificent result and to rescue from oblivion details of some of these soldiers and where they came from.
Men from the ends of the earth
Often referred to as the “Forgotten Army”, the Fourteenth was an incredibly multi-cultural, multi-racial force. As Dr. Robert Lyman, speaking on VJ Day 75: The Nation Remembers (BBC 1, 15 August, 2020) pointed out, its 606,000 men came from 20 countries and spoke 40 different languages. Only 10% of the troops were white British. The majority, 87% of the men, were from India and the remaining 3% came from East and West Africa.
The Fourteenth Army was made up of 13 Divisions – two British Divisions consisting of British personnel from the “mother country”; eight Indian Divisions consisting of about 70% Indian and Gurkha troops and 30% British; the 11th Division from East Africa and the 81st and 82nd Divisions from West Africa, all of which had British officers and a high proportion of British NCOs.
The 11th East African Division
The 11th East African Division was composed of troops from Kenya, Uganda, Nyasaland (now Malawi) Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and from the former Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The Division set sail for India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in October 1943 and in the beginning of 1944 they were sent in to the Arakan in Burma.
The 81st West African Division
The 81st Division was made up of troops from the Gold Coast (now Ghana), the Gambia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, some of whom had already been fighting the Italians in East Africa. It was sent to India in August 1943. One brigade was sent to help form the legendary Chindits, special operations units under Brigadier Wingate which carried out operations deep behind enemy lines. The rest were sent into the Arakan.
The 82nd West African Division
In 2013, Griff Rhys-Jones presented a wonderfully informative programme about the 82nd West African Division on BBC TV, which is still available on YouTube and I urge you to watch it. Griff’s father was a doctor with the Gold Coast Regiment which, along with the Nigerian Regiment, became part of the 82nd Division that arrived in India in January 1944. The video retraces the route the soldiers took while fighting their way into the Arakan in 1944 and it includes many interviews with African veterans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mPCDFHD3Fk
There is more information on the 82nd West African Division on this link: https://www.burmastar.org.uk/stories/82nd-west-african-division/
Some men in the African divisions remained in Burma for a year after the war ended, “mopping up” pockets of Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender.
The Indian Divisions
Many medals were awarded during the Burma Campaign. The following images are of three of the Indian soldiers who were awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest British award for gallantry. Gian Singh and Bhandari Ram survived the war; Naik Fazal Din’s VC was awarded posthumously.
It is unsurprising that there were so many Indian Divisions in the Fourteenth Army, given India’s proximity to the location of the fighting. It must be remembered that, at the time, these soldiers came from the old, undivided India, which is now separated into the three countries of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The men in these divisions came from many different Indian communities and regions and followed many different faiths and religions. Today, perhaps, people remember that Gurkhas and maybe Sikhs, and perhaps even that Muslims fought in World War 2, but the ethnic mix of the Indian army was much wider than that.
Before going to Burma, many of these divisions had already been fighting in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. To give but one example – the 5th Indian Division had already fought the Italians and Germans in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt, Cyprus, Syria, Iraq and in the First Battle of El Alamein in the Western Desert of North Africa, before being shipped back to India to fight against the Japanese. The Division fought in Burma from December 1943 until the victory in 1945, taking part in fighting in Arakan and in the battles of Imphal and Kohima.
The British Divisions
Even in the two British Divisions there were men from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Sergeant Benjamin Macrae, the son of a Londoner and an African who had fought in the First World War, was awarded the Military Medal for his bravery in battle. Benjamin’s oral history about his service in the 2nd Infantry Division is available from the archives of the Imperial War Museum. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80010403
York-born Charles Henry Cheong, known as Harry, had tried to join up early in the war, but he wasn’t accepted until after China became one of the Allies in 1941. Captain Harry Cheong’s bravery was subsequently “mentioned in dispatches.” When he tried to find employment after war ended, he found that his surname prevented him getting positions. He therefore changed his name in 1945 to Dewar and went on to have a successful teaching career, eventually becoming a headmaster. These are just two examples – no doubt there were others.
The Fourteenth’s courage, skill and tenacity on the ground was facilitated and sustained by air support which not only fought the Japanese but, crucially, dropped essential supplies of food, medicines and ammunition, which could not have reached the men in any other way because of the density of the jungle. Small planes, using improvised airstrips, also evacuated some of the most severely wounded to base hospitals in India.
The Fourteenth Army succeeded in its mission. It won major battles against much larger forces in Arakan and the two epic battles of Imphal and Kohima, and it drove the Japanese invaders out of Burma.
John Masters in his book The Road Past Mandalay paid this fitting tribute to the “forgotten” army:
“Below the generals, below the staff….and above them all, were the soldiers. The theatre, and this campaign, gathered to itself like a whirlpool, men from the ends of the earth. There were English, Irish, Welsh and Scots, and in the RAF Newfoundlanders, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders and South Africans. There were Chinese; there were tall slender Negroes from East Africa, and darker, more heavily built Negroes from West Africa, with the tribal slits slashed deeply into their cheeks – an infantry division of each. There were Chins, Kachins, Karens, and Burmans, mostly light brown, small-boned men in worn jungle green, doubly heroic because the Japanese held possession of their homes, often of their families too; and, until about now, how could they be sure which side was going to win?….Lastly, and in by far the greatest numbers, there were the men of the Indian Army, the largest volunteer army the world has ever known. There were men from every caste and race – Sikhs, Dogras, Pathans, Madrassis, Mahrattas, Rajputs, Assamese, Kumaonis, Punjabis, Garhwalis, Naga head-hunters – and, from Nepal, the Gurkhas in all their tribes and sub-tribes, of Limbu and Rai, Thakur and Chhetri, Magar and Gurung. These men wore turbans, and steel helmets, and slouch hats, and berets, and tank helmets and khaki shakos inherited from the eighteenth century. There were companies that averaged five feet one inch in height and companies that averaged six feet three inches. There were men as purple black as the West Africans, and men as pale and gold-wheat of skin as a lightly sun-tanned blonde. They worshipped God according to the rites of the Mahayana and Hinayana, of Sunni and of Shiah, of Rome and Canterbury and Geneva, of the Vedas and the sages and Mahabharatas, of the ten Gurus, of the secret shrines of the jungle. There were vegetarians and meat-eaters and fish-eaters, and men who had four wives, men who shared one wife with four brothers, and men who openly practised sodomy. There were men who had never seen snow and men who seldom saw anything else. And Brahmins and Untouchables, both with rifle and tommy gun. No one who saw the XIVth Army in action, above all, no one who saw its dead on the field of battle, the black and the white and the brown and the yellow lying together in their indistinguishable blood on the rich soil of Burma, can ever doubt that there is a brotherhood of man; or fail to cry:
What is Man, that he can give so much for war, so little for peace?”
WHEN YOU GO HOME, TELL THEM OF US AND SAY
FOR YOUR TOMORROW WE GAVE OUR TODAY
(Epitaph on the Kohima 2nd Division War Memorial)
Further information
Films:
A wonderful short film of interviews with African veterans of the war in Burma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWIHOIZVZtE
Film of the Victory Parade which took place in London on 8 June, 1946. Veterans of the 11th East Africa, 81st West Africa and 82nd West Africa Divisions are featured in it: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-victory-parade-1946-online
Books:
Fighting for Britain: African Soldiers in the Second World War, David Killingray with Martin Plaut, Boydell & Brewer, 2017: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fighting-Britain-African-Soldiers-Second/dp/1847010474
Fighting with the Fourteenth Army in Burma, James Luto, Pen & Sword, 2013:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fighting-Fourteenth-Army-Burma-Summaries/dp/1783030313
Burma ’44: The Battle That Turned Britain’s War in the East, James Holland, Corgi, 2017: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burma-44-Battle-Turned-Britains/dp/B083WMY2R9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2555B4XE8GAHZ&dchild=1&keywords=burma+44+james+holland&qid=1600354766&sprefix=burma+%2744%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-1
Japan’s Last Bid for Victory, Robert Lyman, Pen and Sword, 2011: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Japans-Last-Bid-for-Victory-Paperback/p/18662 [A paperback reissue of this book is due for publication on 30 October, 2020.]
14th Army at War, George Forty, Littlehampton Book Service, 1982: https://www.amazon.co.uk/14th-Army-War-George-Forty/dp/0711011613/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=14th+army+at+war&qid=1600355136&s=audible&sr=1-1
Articles:
https://memorialgates.org/history/ww2/campaigns/burma-india.html
https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/far-east-campaign
https://www.burmastar.org.uk/stories/how-admin-troops-backed-up-the-fighting-men/
The Battles of Imphal and Kohima: https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-imphal
Burmese veterans: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-44582731
Nagaland’s unknown World War II heroes: https://rediscoveryproject.com/2017/06/16/nagaland-world-war-ii/
I wonder how many remember a series of monologues shown on the BBC in 2019? ‘Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle’ followed the stories of succeeding generations of a family of the Windrush generation. The first story featured Eunice, who, speaking directly to camera, describes what it was like when she first arrived as a passenger on the Empire Windrush in 1948. Set in 1949, a year after her arrival, the synopsis for this first episode describes her experience: ‘the year has not been easy: her aspirations and confidence have been battered by the reality of employment and living conditions in London.’
Subsequent episodes feature different characters from succeeding generations including marriages both within the growing black community and also with the white community. By the time we get to the eighth monologue Michaela takes up the story. Michaela self identifies as black but in appearance she is white. She remembers fondly her great grandmother Eunice and, holding up a photo of Eunice, says ‘most people don’t even realise that we are family.’ The monologues were fictional but they vividly illustrated the experiences of the Windrush generation, the aspirations, the hopes, the disappointments, the compromises and the struggles. Of course there are many real life examples that mirror the fictional ones portrayed.
Some of the early post-War arrivals were already married, men left their wives at home in the Caribbean and set off for the Mother Country in order to establish a foothold and then bring their wife to join them. Lucilda Harris, passenger number 127 on the Windrush passenger list, was one such wife. Lucilda and her husband would go on to become established as elders in the black community in Brixton. A little over six years later Audley Anderson disembarked at Plymouth from the SS Auriga on 12th October 1954 and made his way to Nottingham where his sister-in-law was already living. Audley’s wife, Myrtle, joined him five months later having also sailed to Plymouth on the Auriga. One of the Anderson’s children, Vivian Alexander Anderson, would go on to be England’s first black football full international.
Others had sweethearts in the Caribbean who came to join them in England. Pearl Mogotsi disembarked from the SS Ariguani at Avonmouth on 14th April 1948 (two months before the Windrush arrived at Tilbury). She was unmarried but that changed when she tied the knot with fellow Trinidadian, Edric Connor at Paddington Register Office on 26th June 1948. Pearl and Edric became important figures in black Britain’s cultural life (Edric, for instance, became the first black actor to perform for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford when he appeared in a 1958 production of Pericles).
But the majority of new arrivals did not have wives or sweethearts to bring over and had to look beyond their own community where there were few eligible women of colour. A calypsonian, Lord Beginner, addressed the issue directly in ‘Mix Up Matrimony’. Beginner, travelling under his real name of Egbert Moore, was passenger number 762 on the Windrush passenger list. Several of Lord Beginner’s calypsos captured the zeitgeist in memorable style, ‘Cricket Lovely Cricket’, celebrating the West Indies first ever victory over England in a test match at Lords in 1950, is one of his best known. But it is ‘Mix Up Matrimony’ that we feature here:
The song takes a very optimistic, ‘rose tinted spectacles’, view of the situation, in reality mixed couple were usually viewed with hostility, particularly by the white community. One of the black footballers we interviewed for our forthcoming book ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’, Lloyd Maitland, described how his, white, mother scarcely ever left the house because of the hostility she faced in Birmingham, and Lloyd himself was subjected to bullying on account of his colour.
In researching the book we came across a classic illustration of the ‘soon gone’ storyline. We wanted to identify the first black player at each of the 92 English Football League clubs. We thought we had identified Tranmere Rover’s first black player when we found that a Nigerian, Elkanah Onyeali, had played for them in 1960, however, our friend, the Liverpool historian, Ray Costello, alerted us to a black goalkeeper who played for Rovers at least a decade earlier. The goalkeeper in question turned out to be George Payne but, in fact, we discovered an even earlier black player for Tranmere.
The player we identified was Albert Charles Payne who made his debut for Rovers on 31st August 1946. We met Albert’s son, David, who, unlike the fictional Michaela at the start of this article, has never considered himself to be black. But David is a direct descendent of this man:
On 1st November 1853, on the Caribbean island of Barbados, Joseph Stanley Payne (pictured above) was born. As a young man Joseph took to the sea and, as so many seamen did, eventually made Liverpool his home port. It was here that he married a local white girl, Sarah Ann Mansfield, in 1880. On 28th June 1884 Joseph and Sarah had a son, Albert Ernest, who joined the growing ranks of Liverpool’s mixed heritage community.
On 12th February 1920, Albert Ernest married Lilian May Tranter and Tranmere’s first black player, Albert Charles Payne, was born three years later in Liverpool on 11th November 1923.
Albert made only ten appearances in the Football League (more than enough to earn him a place in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’), but his cousin, George Payne, the man Ray Costello originally drew to our attention, made a total of 467 in goal for Rovers in a career that started in 1947 and ended in 1961. Albert and George were cousins who could both claim the distinguished looking gentleman in the picture as their grandfather.
We don’t have a photo of Albert in his playing days but his cousin George is seen here (back row, third from the left).
You may think that George ‘doesn’t look black’ but, as we have seen, he and Albert had a black grandparent. This illustrates the point that the black contribution to British history is not always readily apparent, all the more reason to explore this hidden history.
‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ can be ordered from the publishers: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/product/footballs-black-pioneers-subscriber-copies-for-pre-order/, or from Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops.