THE WINDRUSH LIFESAVER

Although Britain’s Caribbean colonies were far away from the United Kingdom, their men and women made a distinguished contribution during World War II. Thousands volunteered to come to Britain’s aid and serve in the armed forces during its greatest crisis, including a teenage Jamaican called Allan Wilmot.

“THE EMPIRE WAS IN TROUBLE. MOST OF US HAD JUST LEFT COLLEGE AND WE THOUGHT THAT IF WE SERVED AND SURVIVED THEN WE’D BE ABLE TO HAVE A START IN LIFE. THAT WAS THE MAIN OBJECTIVE”

In a war characterised by dreadful killing, Wilmot spent the conflict saving lives in seaborne rescue capacities for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Despite the heroic nature of his work, he also experienced institutionalised discrimination and outright racism from British civilians and American servicemen. Nevertheless, Wilmot persevered and later thrived as a successful entertainer who sang with the stars of post-war Britain. This is his remarkable story.

Pre-war Jamaica

Born in Kingston in 1925, Wilmot grew up in a middle-class household where he was proud of his seafaring father. “When I was growing up my ambitions were towards the sea because my father was the first Jamaican inter-island cargo boat skipper who wasn’t European. When I saw his uniform and the adulation he received, I thought, “Well, that’s for me!” However, my father said no because he didn’t want me to go through what he had been through to reach where he was.”

Jamaican life was dominated by British rule, and the island’s black-majority population lived under a discriminatory regime. “You had to accept the colonial system. For example, in the police force, Jamaicans could never get higher than a sergeant and there were no black faces in government or banks, they were all white. You had to accept it – what could you do? Of course, you had black politicians who started the independence movement, but at the time it seemed like an impossible dream.”

Despite the discrimination, loyalty to the British Empire was strong. “It was all mixed up. We were very familiar with Rule Britannia and all those songs, and you were more or less proud to be British. You were part of the empire, and if anybody said, ‘We’re going to kick the British out’ you looked at them as if they were mad.”

When war broke out in 1939, Jamaica and other British colonies became immediately involved in the fight against Germany. Wilmot remembers the conflict’s immediate impact when war was declared: “The German cruiser