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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Commonwealth Forces from the Caribbean?


At Home Dad

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Hallo all,

in an effort to perhaps pique some interest from Working Mum re:The Great War,

I wonder if anyone has information regarding volunteers or forces from the island

Commonwealth of Dominica?

Many thanks

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Dominicans did serve in WW1, and there is a war memorial in Victoria St, Roseau. As has already been mentioned, most joined the British West Indies Regiment, although some UK born men were commissioned into other regiments and corps. I spent a few months there in the early 1980's.

Terry Reeves

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many thanks, all

Dave - sadly, I got a VBS/Psyme trojan virus warning when I went on that link

Terry - We hope to get out there later in the year, so I'll look up the memorial and take some pics

Kind regards

Hallo all,

in an effort to perhaps pique some interest from Working Mum re:The Great War,

I wonder if anyone has information regarding volunteers or forces from the island

Commonwealth of Dominica?

Many thanks

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If you head to Geoff's Amazing Search Engine - http://www.hut-six.co.uk/cgi-bin/search2.php

and put Dominica into the "including" box it will bring up 7 fellows for you to have a look at - 1 is from Dominican Republic - and the other 6 are as Malcolm says MM or BWIR - but then you have some names/next of kin info/addresses etc

Good Luck - hope your ploy works!!

Cheers

Sue

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Thanks Terry, that's great!

Looks like I should take some RBL wreaths

with us when we get down there, just to

make it look a bit more... memorial.

Thanks all

Kind regards

PS, Sue - it's not a ploy to get to the Hot Tropics,

honest! It's where Working Mum is from ;)

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  • 3 months later...

Dave

Aside from service in the West India and British West India Regiments (over 700 Dominicans volunteered), men served at home in the Dominica Defence Force, which was raised in 1914 from the pre-war Defence Reserve Force (a volunteer shooting club).

In September 1917 the Royal Navy supplied a shore defence QF gun that the Colonial Engineer mounted on a bluff 300 feet above sea level.

A skeleton gun crew from the Royal Marine Light Infantry and 12 men of the Defence Force, under Captain Harry Walker, completed the crew.

The gun does not appear to have been fired in anger, and the Defence Force was demobilized on 25th January 1919.

Harry

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