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From: "Dorothy Kew" <>
Subject: Re: [CARIBBEAN] Re: British West Indian Regiment
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:26:34 -0400


Edward:

I've read Frank Cundall's book "Jamaica's Part in the Great War". It's
available on fiche from the LDS. My uncle, Victor Dey Smedmore, joined the
1st Life Guards in 1915, was sent to France, and was killed in action in
January 1918. I had hoped to find something about him in Cundall's book,
but it was specifically about the officers and soldiers of the B.W.I.R.
(Fortunately, I was able to get my uncle's attestation and service papers
from the Household Cavalry Museum at Windsor).

Jacob Andrade, "A Record of the Jews in Jamaica", names several Jamaican
officers and non-commissioned officers in the B.W.I.R. who served in WWI in
France, e.g.:
-- Lieut. Aubrey H. Spyer, 3rd Service Battalion, B.W.I.R. in France.
-- 2nd Lieut. Caryll Deyncourt DePass, B.W.I.R.
-- Lieut. Geo. Heathcote Errington Lyons, B.W.I.R.; served in France during
1917-1919.
-- 2nd Lieut. Leopold George Silvera, B.W.I.R., who died April 26, 1917, at
the 12th Stationary Hospital in France, and is buried in St. Pol Communal
Cemetery.
-- Sergt. Alan F. Sampson,3rd Jamiaca Contingent, B.W.I.R., died of
pneumonia in France in 1917.

The B.W.I.R. also served in Italy. According to Madeleine Mitchell's book,
"Jamaican Ancestry", there is an article, "Revolt of the British West Indian
Reiment", by W. F. Elkins (Jamaica Journal, vol. 11, nos. 3 & 4, pp. 763-75,
1977), which took place in Italy.

Dorothy

Dorothy Kew
Brampton, ON
Canada


-----Original Message-----
From: Edward Crawford <>
To: Dorothy Kew <>;
<>
Date: September 2, 1999 10:40 AM
Subject: Re: [CARIBBEAN] Re: British West Indian Regiment


>I am not entirely sure about this Dorothy but most of the colonial troops,
>including the Indian Army were used either in colonial theatres of war,
>German Cameroons, East Africa and Egypt/Palestine against the Turks. The
>only forces used in Europe was one Indian division perhaps a corps, in
>France in the winter of 1914-1915 and they suffered terribly from the cold
>and had heavy causualties. The Germans made a lot of propaganda about
Muslim
>imans and Hindu holy men (their chaplains) being allowed into Europe. They
>were then sent to Egypt. There was also the recruitment of "Labour
>battalions" for doing the dirty work behind the lines in Europe. (They did
>not, it is fair to say, suffer the dreadful casualties of trench warfare
>even if often badly treated but they may have got a campaign medal.) There
>were also units of white settlers raised in the tropical colonies which
were
>allowed in the front line.
>
>The French used Algerian (Turcos) and Senegalese in large quantities and
>they were massacred in heaps in the front line. What is more they imposed
>conscription on their colonial territories which the British did not do.
>
>In the WW2 the African troops were used in East Africa and Burma, not
>Europe. After Japan entered the war I think nearly all the Indian Army
>except a token force in Italy went back to India to the Burma front. They
>were prominent in the fighting in North Africa before that though. That is
>all from memory. About the West Indian forces I do not know.
>
>Edward Crawford

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