The Tribune

BAHAMAS high commissioner to Canada Dr Calsey Johnson attended Canada’s Remembrance Day Ceremony on November 11 and laid a wreath to commemorate those lost in battle in the First and Second World Wars.

Around 15,600 men of the British West Indies Regiment served with the Allied forces. Jamaica contributed two-thirds of these volunteers, while others came from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas, British Honduras, Grenada, British Guiana (now Guyana), the Leeward Islands, St Lucia and St Vincent.

Nearly 5,000 more subsequently volunteered to join up. Out of a population of 1,700,000 in the Caribbean Colonies of the British Empire, more than 1,200 were killed or died, while more than 2,500 were wounded.

Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty.

The occasion is also recognised in many non-Commonwealth countries.

Dr Johnson said that while laying the wreath, in addition to those killed in the World Wars, his thoughts were also with the four young Defence Force marines killed in the sinking of the HMBS Flamingo by Cuban fighter pilots in 1980.