(The following article is from the November 1-15, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Norman Faria

Last September 3rd marked the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II which pitted the world's liberal-democratic nations (the "Allies") against the fascist regime of Adolf Hitler and other countries (the "Axis"). It lasted until August 1945 when Japan's militarist rulers finally capitulated.

     Traditionally, Remembrance Day ceremonies are held world wide in November to remember the ultimate sacrifice of enlisted Allied servicemen and women.

     In recent years, the contribution of merchant mariners, including those from Canada, have also been recognised. Those are the mainly men who served in freighters (or "cargo boats" as they are sometimes called) bringing vital war materials and basic necessities like food and medicine across the oceans.

     I was deeply honoured to be invited to the unveiling of the  Seamen's Monument in the Military Cemetery on the shores of Carlisle Bay, just outside the Barbados capital Bridgetown. Among the names of the Barbadian seafarers inscribed thereon is the father of one of Barbados' national heroes, Sir Garfield Sobers. Another name is de Wever, who was an immigrant to the island from then British Guiana.

     Among those at the ceremony was Lt.Col. Florence Gittens (now retired) of the Barbados Defence Force.

     "The merchant marine seafarers during the war faced just as much danger as the enlisted forces. Indeed, if you compare names of Barbadian seamen with the enlisted you will find more of them died..." said Lt.Col. Gittens when I phoned her to be appraised of preparations for this year's services.

     When the war broke out, Britain had a relatively large merchant marine navy. A total of 2,524 British registered freighters and tankers were sunk by enemy action during the war. Some 30,248 seafarers died, 4,654 went missing and 4,707 were wounded.

     The maritime battlefront was an important one. Noted shipping historian Richard Woodman in the September 2009 edition of the Telegraph newspaper of the Nautilus British seaman's trade union: "Victory for the Allies hinged entirely on command of the seas, and the shipping of supplies either across the Atlantic to Britain by convoy or across the Pacific to the Allied battlefield by the Fleet Train."

     Tony Lane, the author of the book The Merchant's Seaman's War, was also quoted: "Without an unbroken flow of imported food, raw materials and armaments, the British government would have been obliged to accept a humiliating peace settlement of the kind imposed on the French."

     Aside from Britain, this reliance on shipping was also true of other countries including then British Guiana and colonies in the Caribbean. The peoples there assisted in the war against German and Italian fascist dictatorship and Japanese militarism in several ways. One was enlisting in the Home Guard and the South Caribbean Force, and giving assistance to servicemen brought in from Allied countries. (There were about 30,000 US servicemen in Trinidad at one time.)

     Secondly, Caribbean men and women enlisted in Allied armies. One of Barbados' Prime Ministers, Errol Barrow, was a navigator on a Royal Air Force (RAF) bomber.

     Caribbean (and Guyanese) people also served on some of the merchant ships carrying vital supplies to North America or Europe. Ship captains or owners agents must have signed on some local seafarers as crew while the vessels visited the Caribbean and Guiana, even if it meant they were hired as stewards or cooks because of the companies' discriminatory practices at the time. The Allied war effort needed, for example, large quantities of aluminum to build airplanes and other items. Among the countries from which the ore was sourced was Guiana (as was rice and sugar). Tellingly, German submarines (the "U-boats") were sent to patrol places like the Guyanese coast to sink freighters leaving the Demerara River with the alumina ore. Tankers bringing oil and gas from Trinidad and Aruba and Caracao were also targeted. The actual ships were from several countries. At the time, the US and Canada also had sizeable merchant marine fleets and their vessels were also U-boat victims.

     Even on the wider front of ships bringing supplies across the Atlantic, not all had crews from the country of the ship's registration. In the case of Britain, by 1939, some 27 per cent of seafarers on British ships travelling to foreign ports were from other countries. Most non-British crew were from China or India, then a British colony. Significantly, five per cent were "Arabs, Indians, Chinese, West Africans or West Indians domiciled (resident) in such British ports as Cardiff, Liverpool and South Shields" (quote from Tony Lane in Telegraph newspaper). Among the shipwrecked sailors in lifeboats drifting onto Trinidad shores and other islands were Chinese and Indian sailors.

     We must also take into account those who served on the inter-island wooden schooners. They brought food and other necessities to smaller islands and hard to reach communities. Some U-boat logs mention the shelling of such schooners (after crews took to lifeboats).

     One of the schooners which traded in the early part of the war was the Gloria Colita, a big 178 tonne three-master. Among its tramping routes was carrying rice from Guiana to Cuba and then lumber to the US. It was owned and skippered by the father of Sir James Mitchell, former prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

     In May 1941, the Gloria Colita was found adrift and abandoned in the Gulf Stream near New Orleans. Neither Captain Mitchell or any of the crew were ever found. One theory is that Captain Mitchell was kidnapped and forced into service on German U-boats as a pilot. This is hardly likely - the first U-boat didn't come to the Caribbean until the following year.

     We must continue to honour those enlisted servicemen and women who died. The ceremonies should be taken seriously by all citizenry to remind us of the necessity of people of all races and religions to always stand up to those who would try to conquer democratic minded people and impose a fascist dictatorship.

     All glory to those brave Allied soldiers and air and naval personnel from several countries (including the Americans and the Soviet Union, without whose mighty Red Army Hitler's forces would never have been defeated) who gave their lives so that future generations can continue to deepen our democratic way of life. Glory too to members of the Resistance movements such as in France and even in Germany itself under Hitler's brutal repression. The sacrifice of those from many lands who gave their lives serving in the merchant marine must also be remembered.

     (Norman Faria is Guyana's Honorary Consul in Barbados, nfaria@caribsurf.com)