Bermuda Volunteer/Territorial Army Units 1895-1965 - The Great War

The Great War

Both units were embodied, and fulfilled their obligations to the Garrison during the Great War (the First World War). Additionally, each sent two contingents of volunteers for service on the Western Front- the BVRC contingents being attached to the Lincolnshire Regiment, and the BMA serving as part of the larger RGA detachment to the field. Although both units prepared to send detachments to Europe soon after the start of hostilities, the BMA was stymied in its first attempt.

The BVRC raised its First Contingent in December 1914, both from existing soldiers and from new recruits. The contingent was embodied, and trained at Warwick Camp over the winter of 1914-1915, and was then despatched to the Canadian Maritimes, where they joined a larger Canadian detachment for the trans-Atlantic crossing. Becoming an extra company of 1 Lincolns, they reached the Western Front in France in July 1914 - the first colonial volunteer unit to reach the Front. By the following summer, the First Contingent's strength had been too reduced by casualties to compose a full company, having lost 50% of what had then remained of its strength at Gueudecourt on 25 September 1916. The survivors were merged with the newly arrived Second Contingent and re-trained as Light-machinegunners, providing twelve Lewis gun teams to 1 Lincolns headquarters. By the War's end, the two contingents had lost over 75% of their combined strength. Forty had died on active service, one received the O.B.E, and six the Military Medal. Sixteen members of the two contingents were commissioned, including the Sergeant Major of the First Contingent, Colour-Sergeant R.C. Earl, who would become Commanding Officer of the BVRC after the War. Some of those commissioned moved to other units in the process, including to the Royal Flying Corps. In 1918, 1 Lincolns was withdrawn from France and sent to Ireland to combat the army of the Irish Republic, declared in 1916.

The two BMA 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, smaller, contingent left Bermuda on 6 May 1917, and was merged with the first contingent in France. Titled the Bermuda Contingent, Royal Garrison Artillery, it 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 at Vimy Ridge, serving in the battle for Vimy Ridge. They were at Ypres from 24 June, until 22 October, where three men were killed, and several wounded. Two men received the Military Medal. In 1917, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, the Commander-in-Chief in France, wrote his own commendation of the Contingents', praising their gallantry and devotion to duty. 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.