The Tribune

JOHN McPhee dropped out of school in 1942 to enlist in the British Army during the Second World War. He tells Rashad Rolle his story, as The Tribune continues its spotlight on war stories and The Bahamas in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday this weekend.

“THEY took us out of school because we had nothing to do and they put us on a sailing boat and sent us to camp,” says 84-year-old John McPhee, who was raised in Exuma, and is recalling the moment he dropped out of school to enlist in the British Army.

“Our parents didn’t know where we were so they came looking for us in the Army. They wanted to take us back,” he said.

For John McPhee, whose prospects were furthering his education, or joining the Army, the choice was easy.

“We could’ve gone to school and learned a trade but we didn’t accept that. We wanted adventure.”

With six other young men, he left Rolleville All-Age School in Exuma for New Providence “with no shoes and a little paper bag with pants and shirts in them”.

“In those days money was short,” he said. “We cut a car tyre, put a string between the toe and used that as a shoe.”

The Second World War had begun on September 1, 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.

From late 1939 to early 1941, Germany formed an ‘Axis’ alliance with Italy conquering or subduing much of Europe.

Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories between themselves of their European neighbours, including Poland and the Baltic states.

The United Kingdom and other members of the Commonwealth, the Allied forces, fought against the Axis powers, with battles taking place in North Africa and the Atlantic.

In June 1941, the European Axis invaded the Soviet Union. In December, Japan joined the Axis, attacked the United States and European territories in the Pacific Ocean, and conquered much of the Western Pacific.

The Axis advance was stopped in 1942.

Japan lost the battle of Midway, near Hawaii, and never regained its earlier momentum. Germany was defeated in North Africa and, decisively, at Stalingrad in Russia.

Mr McPhee, who signed up in 1942, served in the Bahamas Battalion - his Army number was 15427.

He survived, he says, because he was “tough,” so tough he said he was made a corporal in 11 weeks after his training programme began.

He was stationed to guard the entry points to forts and utility stations in New Providence, including BEC, BaTelCo and the Water Works (now the Water and Sewage Corporation).

In 1943, with a series of German defeats in Eastern Europe, the Allied invasion of Italy which brought about Italy’s surrender, and American victories in the Pacific, the Axis powers retreated on all fronts.

In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies.

During 1944 and 1945, the United States defeated the Japanese navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.

The war in Europe ended with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945.

The United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945.

With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, and the Soviet Union having declared war on Japan, Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, ending the war in Asia and cementing the Allies’ victory.

Many Bahamian soldiers didn’t see combat, said Mr McPhee.

“The war ended before we got to fight; thank God we didn’t have to fight.”

That didn’t mean his three year experience as a soldier was uneventful.

“After training in Nassau, I went to Jamaica and then Africa in the desert to get the last set of training.

“That African desert was the hottest place man. I don’t want to go there no more. The training wasn’t hard, but it was helpful to get everything in my brain that I could get,” he said.

Mr McPhee came back to the Bahamas, and worked on “the contract”, the farm labour programme established on March 16, 1943 by the governments of the Bahamas and the United States.

The programme continued until 1966, with thousands of Bahamian men and women carrying out agricultural work in American states.

Mr McPhee married the love of his life and started a family.

He’s never forgotten his life in the Army and still identifies with the “younger version” of himself - the boy who left Exuma searching for adventure: “I loved the Army. I just loved going into action, to see what was happening. If I was still young, I would be there now.”