125+ web files in a constantly updated Gazetteer on Bermuda's accommodation, activities, airlines, apartments, areas, art, artists, attractions, airport, aviation pioneers, banks, banking, beaches, Bermuda Status and citizenship, books and publications, British Army, businesses, calypso, Canadian military, causeway, churches, city of Hamilton, commerce, community, cruise ships, culture, cuisine, customs, Devonshire Parish, disability accessibility, districts, Dockyard, economy, education and universities abroad, employers, employment, entertainment, environment, executorships and estates, fauna, ferries, flora, food, forts, gardens, geography, getting around, golf, government, guest houses, history, Hamilton Parish, homes and housing, hotels, internet access, islands, laws and legal system, local groups and organizations, location, media, motor vehicle options, music, municipalities, Paget Parish, parishes, parks, Pembroke Parish, politics, postage stamps, public holidays, public transport, railway trail, religions, Royal Navy, Sandy's Parish, St. David's, St. George's Parish, shopping, Smith's Parish, Somerset, Southampton Parish, Spanish Point, Spittal Pond, sports, stores, telecommunications, traditions, time zone, town of St. George, United States armed forces, tourism, vacation planning, villages, vital statistics, water sports, weather, Warwick Parish, wildlife, work permits, etc. For tourists, business visitors, employers, employees, newcomers, researchers, retirees, scholars.

Bermuda's War Veterans

Always honored especially on Remembrance Day at eleventh hour of eleventh day of eleventh month

By Keith Archibald Forbes (see About Us) exclusively for Bermuda Online

To refer to this file use "bermuda-online.org/war veterans.htm" as your Subject. 

The author also writes other military files relating to Bermuda, namely 

• American Military Bases in Bermuda until 1995

• American Military Personnel Based in Bermuda 1941-1995 (several files) 

• British Army Units in Bermuda until 1953

• Canadian Forces in Bermuda until 1995

• Royal Navy Dockyard in Bermuda until 1953

Royal Gazette photo of new (2010) Bermuda War Memorial showing all from Bermuda who fell in the Great War (1914-1918) and World War 2. Bermuda Regiment bandsmen played at the Memorial's formal opening.

Introduction

Royal Gazette 2011 photo of Bermuda's Governor and a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) official viewing the War Memorial.

Here in Bermuda, Canada, United Kingdom and elsewhere in the British Commonwealth of Nations, Remembrance Day, at the Cenotaph on Front Street  in the city of Hamilton every November 11 is a very solemn day. For Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC, 1894-1946) Association Members, Friends, Families and Community members who are interested, it normally begins with an appearance at the BVRC War Memorial at Victoria Park, Hamilton, for a Parade and Service of Remembrance, with laying of wreaths and roll of honour. Then  at 11 am, it is a parade for all surviving Bermuda veterans of World Wars and Korean War (none served in the more recent Gulf Wars or in Afghanistan or Iraq), in both the BVRC and other Bermuda military units such as the Bermuda Militia Artillery, etc. at that time. Bermuda veterans of World Wars 1 and 2 and Korean War of the 1950s were mostly in the Bermuda Home Guard or serving abroad in the British Army (Mostly Caribbean Regiment or Lincolnshire Regiment), Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Merchant Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian  Air Force, Royal Canadian Navy and, as was the case of a few, the US Armed Forces.

If well enough to appear, they do so wearing their medals and march down part of Front Street.

Accompanied by the Bermuda Regiment Band and Corps of Drums, the Salvation Army, North Village and Somerset Brigade Bands, and the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band, veterans and officials reflect on their comrades who fought for freedom. At 11 a.m. guns fire at Fort Hamilton and Ordnance Island, St. George's, to signal the two-minute silence, held every year on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to commemorate the end of the First World War. Wreaths are laid by the Governor, Premier, Hamilton Mayor, Opposition Leader, the president of the War Veterans' Association, the Defence Board chairman, the Regiment's commanding officer, the Commissioner of Police and the Chief Fire Officer. They are followed by former members or on behalf of the Bermuda Home Guard and Bermuda Contingent of the Caribbean Regiment.  A service takes place in the Bermuda Cathedral in the event of wet weather.

Among those present in 2010 were Governor Sir Richard Gozney, Premier Paula Cox, United Bermuda Party Leader Kim Swan and war veterans. The crowd join in singing hymns, and a two-minute silence is done every year on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month commemorated the end of the First Word War. An additional parade takes place in St. George's on November 14, 2010. It will be attended by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester, and Lt. Col. Brian Gonsalves of the Bermuda Regiment.

Remembrance Day is the culmination of the annual Bermuda Poppy Appeal conducted by the local branch of the Royal British Legion (RBL) led by caseworker Carol Everson that honors 2,776 men and women from the Island's armed forces who lost their lives during the two World Wars.

Poppies are available seasonally throughout the Appeal at places including the Cabinet Office, the Corporation of Hamilton and the Bermuda Regiment, as well as churches and participating businesses. Donations are appreciated.

In conjunction with the RBL, a separate unit for war veterans' families is normally led through the streets by an officer from the Bermuda Regiment. All relatives or descendants of a World War veterans are invited to take part. Participants are welcome to wear the medals or awards of the person they are representing. It was stressed they must wear the decorations on the right arm rather than the left. The RBL is a registered charity that works to assist war veterans and their widows. RBL Bermuda belongs to a worldwide organization that can provide a wide range of assistance. Some of the services include assistance with medical bills, assistance with urgent loans and assistance with Christmas presents. RBL Bermuda call also upon the Royal British Legion's head office in London for larger capital funds and grants.

Bermuda's new war memorial, announced on November 10, 2009, was completed in November 2010 by the Ministry of Public Works..

It sits on the Cabinet Grounds just east of the Cenotaph and contains the names of almost 3,000 Bermudian men and women who served in the two World Wars. Names are inscribed on seven highly polished black granite slabs and a diamond emblem in gold leaf beside a name indicates that the serviceman or servicewoman is on the roll of honour and lost their lives in wartime service. A fountain in front of the memorial is made of a granite base and a highly-polished pink granite ball which is the same stone used in the Anglican Cathedral in Hamilton. Seating is provided at the memorial and it is a serene place where surviving War Veterans, their children or grandchildren other other relatives, members of an appreciative public and visitors may gather to reflect upon and pay respect to those who served our Island so heroically during the Great Wars.

Remembrance Day events are also broadcast on the Government TV station CITV from 10.30 a.m plus CableVision Ch. 2 and WOW Ch 102.

The town of St. George's also remembers the Island's war heroes, at a Remembrance Day Parade in the Town Square opposite the War Memorial. Those present include the Mayor, The Royal Artillery and Ex-Artillerymen's Association, Bermuda Island Pipe Band, The Bermuda Regiment Band & Corp of Drums, Bermuda Sea Cadets, St. George's Girl Guides, Bermuda Fire Service, Bermuda Regiment Wreath Bearers, Bermuda Regiment Gun Troop, and the Boy Scouts all participate in the ceremony.

At the HMS Jervis Bay memorial at Albouy's Point, The Bermuda Sea Cadets host a Remembrance Day service. It is one of a number of memorial events around the world to honour those who served on the HMS Jervis Bay, a 50,000 ton container ship that visited Bermuda during the war years before it was sunk as it confronted the superior firepower of a German warship in 1940 while escorting a convoy from Canada to the UK.

If veterans served with a British unit - as most of them did - they also get the HM Armed Forces Veterans Badge, and a War Pension from the United Kingdom. Eligibility to this prestigious badge was widened following Remembrance Day 2005 to include all those who served between the end of the Second World War and December, 1954, thus encompassing the Korean War and military campaigns in Malaya undertaken by British forces. Another local veteran, also honored, served in Korea with the  US Army. Unlike in the UK, USA, Canada, etc. there are no retirement homes or hospitals specifically for World War veterans. Some Bermuda veterans have had to pay more than $100,000 out of their own money if they have it to overseas hospitals for operations, owing to a lack of affordable medical insurance and no social conscience in Bermuda from taxpayers' resources. If they don't have the funds, they don't get treated overseas.

However, in Bermuda, registered veterans and their widows get a Bermuda War Pensions benefit of $800 a month, plus full coverage on all prescription drugs, medical tests at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and partial coverage for medical visits to local medical general practitioners and specialists.

In England, on every Sunday before Remembrance Day in London, the Foreign Secretary, on behalf of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London, England, which administers Bermuda, lays before the Cenotaph (later copied by Bermuda) in London a wreath to the fallen who died in the wars from the British Overseas Territories. He is accompanied by the UK's Prime Minister, and leaders of the Opposition - those from the main Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. 

The wreath is supplied to the FCO by the Directors and Staff of, and hand-made at, Kew Gardens, Britain's finest gardens, from flowers and botanicals in its collection from all the Overseas Territories including some prized Bermudiana. It always includes sprigs of two endemic Bermuda species, the Juniperus bermudiana (Bermuda Cedar) tree and Chiococca bermudiana (Bermuda snowberry) shrub.

Organizations involved

Poppy Poem

Since the Great War of 1914-1918 poppies have been since World War 1 the national and international symbol for British airmen, soldiers, sailors and marines who perished while serving their country in world wars and the Korean conflict.  When we mourn Bermuda's dead in Remembrance Day ceremonies each November, we think of a flower - a poppy. Why? Because of the following immortal lines from a poem: "If ye break faith with us who die, we will not sleep, though poppies grow in Flander's fields." 

The author of this famous "poppy" poem was Colonel John McCrae, who was a distinguished professor of Medicine at McGill University after he served in the Boer War. On the outbreak of war in 1914, he at once enlisted in the Canadian Army, 1st Brigade Artillery, which was sent to fight in Belgium. 

Soon after landing in Europe, he was made Medical Officer. During the second battle of Ypres in 1915 he was so horrified, appalled and heart-sick over the senseless slaughter of so many hundreds of thousands of men that he penned the following words, used to this day on 11th November. 

These verses were sent anonymously to the British magazine Punch, which published them in December 1915 under the title "In Flanders' Fields." 

Colonel McCrae died from his battle wounds in 1918.

The poem expressed McCrae's grief over the "row on row" of graves of soldiers who had died on Flanders' battlefields, located in a region of western Belgium and northern France. The poem presented a striking image of the bright red flowers blooming among the rows of white crosses and became a rallying cry to all who fought in the First World War. McCrae's poem had a huge impact on two women, Anna E. Guerin of France and Georgia native Moina Michael. Both worked hard to initiate the sale of artificial poppies to help orphans and others left destitute by the war. By the time Guerin established the first sale in the U.S., in 1920 with the help of The American Legion, the poppy was well known in the allied countries — America, Britain, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — as the "Flower of Remembrance." Proceeds from that first sale went to the American and French Children's League. Guerin had difficulty with the distribution of the poppies in early 1922 and sought out Michael for help. Michael had started a smaller-scaled Poppy Day during a YMCA conference she was attending in New York and wanted to use the poppies as a symbol of remembrance of the war. Guerin, called the "Poppy Lady of France" in her homeland, and Michael, later dubbed "The Poppy Princess" by the Georgia legislature, went to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) for help. Following its first nationwide distribution of poppies in 1922, the VFW adopted the poppy as its official memorial flower. However, a shortage of poppies from French manufacturers led to the idea of using unemployed and disabled veterans to produce the artificial flowers.

Bermuda's Roll of Honour 

1. Great War of 1914 to 1918

Bermuda lost 80 men in overseas service in the Great War. They served in (a) the Bermuda Militia Artillery, one of the units that served and fought with the gunners of the Royal Garrison Artillery; (b) the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps. They matched up with foot soldiers of British army regiments, and (c) others who had signed up for the Royal Flying Corps (later, the Royal Air Force) and other units.

They died fighting for Bermuda and the UK. Input will be welcomed from any surviving relatives and will be added here. For Bermuda soldiers killed in this Great War and buried overseas in a British Commonwealth War Graves-registered plot, they can be researched at http://www.cwgc.org/. 

Officers and NCOs of Bermuda Contingent, Royal Garrison Artillery, who served in France in World War 1. Photographed in England prior to their departure to the front. One of those was William (Lanky) Furbert.

Bermudians en route by ship to France in World War 1.

Philip Tatem, BVRC, 1st Bn. Lincolnshire Regiment, killed September 25, 1916 at Battle of the Somme. One of those who went by sea to France on the ship above.  He was the great-uncle of Sherri Panchaud Onorati who kindly sent this photo. 

2. World War 2 1939-1945

They died fighting for Bermuda and the Allies. For Bermuda airmen, soldiers, sailors and marines  killed in World War 2 and Korean War and buried overseas in a British Commonwealth War Graves-registered plot, they can be researched at http://www.cwgc.org/.