Bermuda Militia Artillery
The Bermuda Militia Artillery | |
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Bermuda Regiment ) |
The Bermuda Militia Artillery was a unit of part-time soldiers organised in 1895[1] as a reserve for the Royal Garrison Artillery detachment of the Regular Army garrison in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda. Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies were intended to man coastal batteries in times of war, which were manned by under-strength numbers of regular army gunners in peace time.[2] The unit was embodied during both world wars, fulfilling its role within the garrison, and also sending contingents overseas to more active theatres of the wars.
History
Bermuda had maintained
Major General Sir William Reid, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda from 1839 to 1846, was forced to raise a body of voluntary reservists without the assistance of the local government, which recruited part-time soldiers into the regular army and the Board of Ordnance military corps without racial discrimination, although relatively few white Bermudians enlisted. Those serving in the army were trained as light infantry, with an emphasis on amphibious operations.[3][4]
Although this unit was short-lived, other Bermudians appear to have continued to serve on a local-service, and presumably part-time, basis (many others simply enlisted as regular full-time soldiers) with the regular detachments in Bermuda (note First Sergeant
In Britain, too, many citizens felt the government was neglecting the defence of that island by deploying much of the army around the World on garrison duty. The Militia and the Yeomanry (which could no longer rely on compulsory service), together with the regular army units that did remain in Britain, were unable to field forces thought adequate for the defence of the island against a large, modern continental army. Following the Crimean War, when reserve forces had to be dispatched to the war zone, it was realised that the British Army's Imperial garrison obligations not only left Britain vulnerable, but also did not leave aside sufficient uncommitted forces to compose an effective expeditionary force such as had been required in the Crimea. Britain's primary motivation in supporting the Ottoman Empire against Russia was to prevent the border of the Russian Empire advancing to meet that of British India. Potential Russian interference with Britain's East Asian trade was also a concern. Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857, it was feared that Indian units might be encouraged to mutiny should there be a Russian invasion, and might mutiny in any case were British units in India reduced in number.[7]
As funds for the increase of the British Army were not forthcoming, and with the threat of invasion by France, the government tackled these issues by raising a
In addition to creating these part-time reserve forces, the British Government sought to redeploy regular army units from imperial garrisons back to Britain, where they could be used for defence or to compose expeditionary forces to be sent overseas to war zones, and replacing them with full-time or part-time units raised locally. This proved difficult to accomplish. In some parts of the Empire, removing British Army regiments would invite insurrection, insurgency, or invasion (such as India, ever under threat from the Russian Empire, and which suffered the Great Mutiny of native regiments in 1857). Bermuda, while less likely to suffer insurrection, was an inviting target to Britain's potential enemies, notably the United States of America, thanks to its strategic location and the important Imperial defence assets located there, such as the Royal Naval Dockyard. Regular units could not be removed, therefore, 'til local reserves had been raised to replace them. As neither the London nor the Hamilton government was keen to pay for these units, decades more would pass before the regular army garrison in Bermuda began to be drawn down.
Bermuda's new tourism industry, pioneered in the latter 19th century by
Foundation
The Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA), however, was raised in 1895. Although it was titled as a militia, it was in practice a voluntary organisation, akin to those of the Volunteer Force, except that volunteers for the Militia were enlisted for a term of service whereas members of the Volunteer Force could resign with fourteen days notice (except while embodied for training or active service).
The old militia, in England and Wales, as well as in Bermuda, had been a body of men who gathered annually to train, and could be called out and embodied in times of emergency. All males of military age who were fit to serve were required to do so. By the early 19th century, the militia in Britain had become a smaller, voluntary force, from which the British Army often recruited trained soldiers. In Bermuda, which had seen the buildup of a regular army garrison, the militia had been allowed to lapse, but the American War of 1812 led to its resurrection. After the war, however, no further Militia Acts were passed and it ceased to exist.
Historically, the Militia Artillery (in Britain and in Bermuda) had been seen as the most critical component. Whereas the Militia infantry and the mounted units had embodied only for annual training, or during times or war or emergency (which included quelling the Privateer Riots in Bermuda), a standing force of the Militia Artillery had been required to maintain the coastal artillery defences in Britain and Bermuda, guarding against attacks that might come at any time. Also, the skills of the artilleryman required more training to acquire and maintain, and annual training camps were not sufficient, which led to more emphasis being placed on the requirements of the artillery. Advances in artillery and tactics, by the mid-19th century, had actually increased the importance of the militia gunners in Britain. In Bermuda, roughly five hundred artillery pieces were emplaced by mid-century, but without the support of a militia, the regular gunners were sufficient to man only a fraction of them.
Although not a continuation of the original militia, the titling of the new Bermudian artillery reserve as the Bermuda Militia Artillery, rather than as the Bermuda Volunteer Artillery, followed the practice then current in Britain for similar units, which, though voluntary, were a continuation of the old militia.
The other volunteer unit raised at the same time as the BMA, the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps BVRC),[1] restricted its recruitment to whites, and the BMA was made up almost entirely of blacks, although its officers were white. Although BVRC recruits, originally, could quit their corps with fourteen days notice, as with UK volunteer rifle regiments, BMA recruits enlisted for six years. After 27 days of basic training, they were liable only to attend annual camp. While in camp, they were subject to the Army Act, and military law. The BMA wore the standard Royal Artillery uniform, and cap badge.
Soldiers were originally recruited on a voluntary basis, though conscription was introduced during the
The First World War
During the First World War, two contingents served as part of the larger Royal Garrison Artillery detachment to the Western Front. The first, 201 officers and men, under the command of Major Thomas Melville Dill, left for France on 31 May 1916. A second contingent, of two officers and sixty other ranks, left Bermuda on 6 May 1917, and was merged with the first contingent in France. The contingent, titled the Bermuda Contingent, Royal Garrison Artillery, served primarily in ammunition supply, at dumps, and in delivering ammunition to batteries in the field. The Contingent served at the Somme from June to December 1916. They were then moved away from the Front, serving on docks until April, 1917, when they were attached to the Canadian Corps, serving in the Battle of Vimy Ridge. They took part in the Battle of Passchendaele (or the Third Battle of Ypres), from 24 June until 22 October, where three men were killed, and several wounded. Two men received the Military Medal.[10] A total of 10 Gunners are commemorated on the CWGC Website.[11] In Bermuda, the BMA was demobilised on 31 December 1918, and when the overseas contingent returned in July, 1919, it was to no unit. Thirty men who chose to remain on temporarily re-enlisted in the RGA, and the rest were demobilised. Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig commended the contingent, writing:
They were employed on heavy ammunition dumps, and great satisfaction was expressed with their work. Though called upon to perform labour of the most arduous and exacting nature at all times of the day and night, they were not only willing and efficient but also conspicuous for their cheeriness under all conditions. On more than one occasion the dumps at which they were employed were ignited by hostile shellfire and much of their work was done under shellfire. Their behaviour on all these occasions was excellent, and commanded the admiration of those with whom they were serving.
— Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig
Between the wars
This was not the end for the BMA, however, as it was re-constituted for the annual camp of 1920, when fifty new recruits joined six officers and 154 other ranks who had enlisted before or during the war. In 1921, one company was tasked with providing mobile detachments, and the other for serving at fixed batteries.
In 1924, the Royal Garrison Artillery was amalgamated again with the Royal Field Artillery as the Royal Artillery, although the Royal Horse Artillery remained as a separate arm within the Royal Regiment of Artillery. In 1928, the last of the regular army Royal Artillery detachments, along with the Royal Engineers Fortress Company which manned searchlights at the batteries, were withdrawn from Bermuda due to post-war reductions in expenditure. By 1935, all of the batteries in Bermuda became inactive, except the
With re-organisation as a territorial unit, training requirements became a weekly drill night, plus an annual two week camp. All of its enlisted men were discharged, and the unit slowly began to rebuild its strength through new recruitment. In 1930, the War Office also ceased funding annual camps outside of the British Isles, citing a lack of funds, and the Bermuda government began funding training.[12] Although the colonial government began paying a contribution towards the costs of the BVRC during this period, the Imperia government remained completely responsible for funding the BMA until its re-organisation in 1951. In 1931, a new territorial unit, the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (BVE), was raised[12] to take up the role of manning the search light detachment at Saint David's Battery (and in 1940 it also absorbed the BVRC signals element, providing wireless communications for the garrison).
In 1936, on the occasion of the death of
The Second World War
In 1939, a new battery of two 6" guns was constructed at Warwick Camp. Despite this, the manpower requirements of the BMA simply did not make full use of the number of black males available for military service when the war began. Rather than integrate the BVRC or the BVE, it was decided to raise a second infantry unit, the Bermuda Militia Infantry, to recruit blacks, and this was grouped administratively with the BMA. Forces throughout the Empire were mobilised on 3 September 1939, in anticipation of the declaration of war. Unlike in the Great War, when the two local units relied entirely on volunteers, conscription was introduced soon after the outbreak of hostilities, with blacks directed into the BMA or BMI, and whites into the BVRC. Volunteers and conscripts served full-time for the duration of the War.
In June, 1940, the BVRC sent a small contingent of volunteers to the Lincolnshire Regiment depot in England. A handful of volunteers from the BMA and the BVE travelled with them, separating in England to join the regular artillery or engineers. The BMA contribution to that contingent consisted of a single officer, Lieutenant Patrick Lynn Purcell, who, like most of the BMA's white officers, had begun his service in the ranks of the BVRC. Purcell would serve with the a coastal artillery detachment of the Royal Artillery in Sierra Leone, due to his similar experience with the BMA. He eventually transferred to the Lincolnshire Regiment, serving in North West Europe, and, having reached the rank of Major, being appointed Press Officer of the British Area of Occupation in Germany, following victory in Europe.
The 1940 contingent was to be the last from Bermuda for nearly four years. Some members of the Bermuda Militia were selected for pilot training at the Bermuda Flying School, and sent on to the Royal Air Force. After the school closed in 1942 (due to a surplus of trained pilots), the organisation overseeing it was converted into a recruiting and selection arm of the Royal Canadian Air Force, sending 60 volunteers, primarily from the various local military units, to that service for aircrew training before the end of the War.
Second-Lieutenant
Despite that steady outward trickle, however, fears of weakening the garrison meant that a moratorium on further drafts from the island was in force until 1943. By then, the likelihood of a German attack, or sabotage, had greatly diminished, and American forces, including artillery detachments, had been built-up on the island. This meant that local forces could be spared for service overseas, and both the BVRC and the Bermuda Militia detached companies to send across the Atlantic. The Bermuda Militia force, composed of members of the BMA and the BMI, trained with the BVRC contingent as an infantry force at Prospect Camp. The BVRC contingent was sent to the Lincolns in 1944. The Bermuda Militia contingent, however, proceeded to North Carolina, where it formed the training cadre of a new regiment, the Caribbean Regiment, being formed on a US Army base in North Carolina. Contingents, mostly of new recruits, were sent from various West Indian territories. In North Carolina, they were assessed for fitness, then trained as infantry. The unit was then posted to Italy in 1944. After serving briefly in the field, the Regiment escorted a shipment of Axis prisoners to Egypt, then remained there as prisoner-of-war (POW) camp guards until the end of hostilities. The Caribbean Regiment was disbanded after the war, and the Bermuda Militia contingent members returned to their original units in Bermuda. The BMI, along with the BVE, was disbanded in 1946. The BMA and the BVRC were both reduced to a skeleton command structure before recruitment for both units began again in 1951. The two were then grouped together, by the Defence (Local Forces) Act, 1949, under the command of Headquarters, Local Forces.
Post war
The military garrison existed primarily to defend the
In 1965, with racial segregation rapidly becoming politically inexpedient, it was decided to end the unnecessary duplication of effort and the BMA was amalgamated with the Bermuda Rifles (as the BVRC had been renamed) on 1 September, to create the
Originally, the part-time reserve units in
See also
- Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies
- Bermuda Garrison
- Royal Bermuda Regiment
- Royal Artillery
- British Army
- Territorial Army (United Kingdom)
References
- ^ a b "bma". Archived from the original on 8 August 2009. Retrieved 22 February 2007.
- ^ History of The Coast Artillery in the British Army, by Colonel KW Maurice-Jones, DSO, RA. Royal Artillery Institution. 1959
- ^ The Bermudian: The Good Governor, by Lieutenant Colonel Gavin Shorto, OBE, ED, JP
- ISBN 0-19-215932-1
- ^ "Fighting to save America's soul". The Royal Gazette. 9 August 2008. Archived from the original on 19 July 2009. Retrieved 10 August 2008.
- ISBN 978-0-8214-1528-3.
- ISBN 9780521302081
- ^ The Militia Artillery, 1852–1909: Their Lineage, Uniforms and Badges, by Norman E. H. Litchfield.
- Bermuda Maritime Museum.
- ^ The Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Great War in France, by Dr. Edward Harris. The Royal Gazette. 2 August 2014
- ^ "Search Results | CWGC". www.cwgc.org. Archived from the original on 19 January 2022.
- ^ a b c "bma-b". Archived from the original on 8 August 2009. Retrieved 22 February 2007.
- ^ "Armada Nacional República de Colombia: Aniversario No.26 del ARC "Antioquia"". Archived from the original on 1 November 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
- ^ [Colonel Sir Richard M. Gorham, DFC. Article by Peter Bonete, published in the Mid-Ocean News, 11 March 1972.]
- ^ Bonete, Peter (11 March 1972). "Colonel Sir Richard M. Gorham, DFC". Mid-Ocean News. Pembroke, Bermuda.
- ^ "Deaths: GORHAM; Sir Richard Masters Colonel, CBE, DFC, JP, (Capt. Late RA". The Telegraph. Chatham, Kent, England, UK. July 2006. Retrieved 20 August 2021.
Sir Richard Masters Colonel, CBE, DFC, JP, (Capt. Late RA), beloved husband of Barbara, of "Westmorland", Fairylands, Pembroke. Funeral will be held at St. John's Church, St. John's Road, Pembroke Parish on Thursday July 13, 2006, at 4 p.m. Interment will follow the service in St. John's Churchyard, St. John's Road, Pembroke. Also surviving are children: Robin Gorham Sedgwick, Christine Gorham Cox, Tredick R. T. Gorham, Arthur J. Gorham, Anthony M. M. Gorham; 7 grandchildren; 4 step grandchildren; 3 great grandchildren; 7 step great grandchildren; sons-in-law Harry Sedgwick, Robert Cox; daughter-in-law Robin Gorham; sisters Betty Kitson and Joan Wilkie, other relatives and many friends. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Royal Artillery Association, Bermuda Branch, or the Bermuda Regiment at PO Box HM1006 Hamilton HM DX.
- ^ "The Quarterly Army List, DECEMBER, 1946. Corrected generally to 8th October, 1946". Volume 1. Page 14. ORDER OF PRECEDENCE OF REGIMENTS, ETC., IN THE ARMY. His Majesty's Stationery Office, London.