commissioned into the Lincolnshire Regiment at the start of the Second World War. Glyn would also end the war a major, with a Military Cross earned in the crossing of the Escaut Canal - another Bermudian Major, 'Toby' Smith, was killed in the larger battle, at Venrai, along with other islanders. There were four Bermudian Majors in the Lincolns by 1945, but only Glyn Gilbert (and the unfortunate Maj Smith,) would make the Army his life. Entering the Parachute Regiment, he served in Palestine, and Malaya. He was the Commander of the School of Infantry at Warminister, and retired as a Major-Geeneral in 1974. He was actually beaten to General rank by a Bermudian marine named Harvey who became, at 39, the youngest ever (then,) Marine Brigadier on his promotion, following the battle of Anzio in 1944).
During the Great War-to resume- the Army grouped all its Vickers Guns into the Machine Gun Corps. The infantry battalions received Lewis light machine guns to replace them. The Second BVRC contingent, arriving in England, were stripped of their Vickers Guns -which had been payed for by the Colonial Assembly at two-hundred pounds apiece (Vickers were threatened with prosecution that year. It was claimed they were war-profiteering, and they were forced to lower the price of the Guns to eighty pounds apiece).
The Second Contingent was then merged with the Survivors of the First, and the whole trained as Lewis Gunners. They then provided twelve reserve gun-teams as a battalion asset of the 1Lincolns.
Although serving as an element of the Lincolns, the fact they maintained their own distinct identity meant the BVRC earned their own battle distinctions. These included Ypres (1915 & 1917), Neuve Chapelle, Loos, Somme (1916 & 1918), Lys, Hindenburg Line, Suvla, and Messines (1917 & 1918).
At the end of the war, the HQ Company of the 1Lincolns was sent to Ireland where war had been brewing since the Easter Uprising of 1916. Among the Battalion officers was R.C. Earl who had come over as a C/Sgt with the First Contingent, and been commissioned during the course of the war. Returning to Bermuda, he would become the Commanding Officer of the BVRC in the 'twenties.
Bermuda Contingent, Royal Garrison Artillery, 1916-1918
The BMA, also, raised two contingents, totalling more than two-hundred men, for France in the Great War. The first went over in 1916, shortly before the BVRC's Second. The BMA did not have a distinct badge or uniform, and in France these contingents served as part of the draft sent by the larger Royal Garrison Artillery to the Front. Although the RGA were responsible for the large siege guns used on the Western Front, most of their strength served to little use manning quiet coastal artillery around Britain and the world. Like other undertaxed elements, they sent large drafts to the Front where men were critically needed. (The Royal Navy did this, too, creating a division of infantry troops to fight in the trenches).
As with the BVRC contingents, the first RGA contingent went to France under one of its own officers- Captain Thomas Dill, later Major and OC BMA, but today probably better remembered for his daughter, actress Diana Dill, who appeared on the cover of Life magazine, currently is in the cast of a US soap opera, and who bore two sons with her first husband, US actor Kirk Douglas, and his grandson, actor and producer Michael Douglas!
The RGA detachments to the field, who were distinguishable from the other RA elements (Royal Artillery titles indicated supply and administrative troops. Other elements were distinguished by titles RFA-Royal Field Artillery, and RHA-Royal Horse Artillery,) by their dressing as dismounted men (as infantry,) and their RGA titles. They were used primarily to re-inforce the RA's ammunition stores and supply personnel, delivering ammunition to guns in the Front Line. Although technically a rear element, the RGA troops often found themselves under enemy aerial and artillery bombardment, and-in operating supply lines-under enemy small arms fire also. They were equipped with small arms only for defensive purposes, but the BMA Contingents' casualty-rate would prove to be far lower than the BVRC's.
BETWEEN THE WARS
After the Great War, the local volunteer units saw some re-organization. Some of this was in response to further changes in the regular garrison. The Colonial Assembly had begun assuming greater fiscal responsibility for their operations. At the outset, the units had been funded by annual stipends provided to the Colonial Government by the War Office. This was gradually supplemented by colonial funds, though the units would remain Imperially funded-and tasked under the Imperial Defense Plan 'til the closure of the Dockyard and the regular garrison after the Second World War. Another major change was to re-organize them in line with the changes that had been to the Volunteer Army in Britain when the government had finally taken it over and re-named it the Territorial Army in 1908.
The connection of the BVRC to the Lincolns was made permanent under the approval of His Majesty the King, and the Lincolns took the colonial unit under its wing as it had the Terretorial units of Lincolnshire. This meant that it supplied Officers and Warrant Officers to the part-time unit to lend it their professional experience. The same relationship continues today between the two regiments heirs-the Royal Anglian and the Bermuda Regiments (each formed by amalgamation with other regiments-in the Bermuda Regiment's case, between the BVRC and BMA in 1965). In 1997, for instance, the RAR were providing WO2s as Permanent Staff Instructors to the BR's three rifle companies, as well as the Second-in-Command, Staff Officer and the Adjutant to the Regimental Head Quarters.(It also, habitually, provides the loan of Senior NCO's to attach to each of the four Training Company Platoons for the two-week recruit camp run each January. The Canadian terretorial, the Lincoln and Welland also provides frequent loan of NCOs, though this is only as their civilian work schedules allow.)
The last major change between the wars was the creation of a new unit-the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers. This was an amalgamation of the extant Sappers and Miners with the BVRC's signals troop. Submarine mines were no longer their concern. They now provided signals and searchlight teams to both the military and the naval establishments. This unit was placed under the command of Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore, DFC, an islander who had served as a fighter pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War. He was still in this position when the Second World War began and also became CO of the Bermuda Flying School, training volunteers, already serving in the Terretorials, as pilots for the Air Ministry (most went to the RAF).
THE SECOND WORLD WAR