Trinidad and Tobago women veterans remembered

The first ever National Women’s Memorial to honour women who served in the military was erected in Trinidad on April 14, 1996 at the Chaguaramas Military History and Aviation Museum.

The project, unveiled by former PM Basdeo Panday, was the brainchild of Vietnam and South Korean war veteran Darryl O’Brien through his charity, the Darryl O’Brien Ex-Servicemen Foundation.

O’Brien said he realised in 1994 that there were no written records of the women who served in World War I (1914-1918) and WWII (1939-1945) in TT. So he began a project to find out how many women had served and who they were. He said the women would have served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS), the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS), the Red Cross, the St John’s Brigade and other services.

Speaking to WMN on October 6, O’Brien described how the women were recruited.

“There were three levels of participation in WWI or WWII with the women from TT. It was socially directed recruitment. They were to put in a unit in Piarco to do clerical work. One of the main recruiting areas was those who had secretarial experience," he said, and the main secretarial schools were Ogles’ Commercial School and St Mary's Secretarial.

"That was the local African people. Another level was the privileged people who went to England, the Trestrails, Stollmeyers, the clear-skinned French Creoles. Then the local high-white girls like the Vuurbooms and others went to Canada and Washington.”

In 1995, which marked the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII and the International Year of the Woman, he honoured 25 women, at least one of whom was a WWI veteran, at a ceremony at the Holiday Inn on April 8. At the ceremony, the women were presented with commemorative medals by retired Justice Ulric Cross.

In an article in the Express on April 4, 1996 (by Newsday's current editor in chief Camille Moreno), O’Brien is quoted as saying,

“Women in the British Caribbean lobbied from early in the war (1939) to be able to allowed to serve in any capacity. These women received basic military training at the St James Barracks before they were sent to the US, Canada and Britain. Although they served with distinction, most of these women have never received the recognition they deserve.”

At the unveiling of the memorial, according to a Sunday Newsday article on April 21, 1996, Panday said, “Women from Trinidad were found serving in the Royal Air Force as aircraft plotters, as flight crew equipment specialists and as general ground crew. They were part of the military units which provided entertainment for the fighting troops.”

Panday said the memorial was erected for “those women who made valuable contributions to the British and local armed forces during the two World Wars and to the many who served in organisations engaged in activities to feed, clothe and support the men at the battlefront.”

The unveiling of the monument also featured an all-female honour guard, which Panday inspected.

O’Brien said he received pushback that usually men guided the prime minister, but insisted that the honour guard had to be all women.

Among the women who served was Toni Vuurboom, whom O’Brien interviewed about her experiences in his magazine, the Trinidad and Tobago Veteran. She said she served with the ATS for about a year, during which time the Germans and the Japanese surrendered.

Vuurboom described living in Washington, DC, in 1945 in a hotel near the White House, where President Roosevelt was living.

“I held the rank of private and served as a clerk and courier to the Pentagon. It was very interesting. With my locked briefcase I would be transported to the Pentagon in a chauffeur-driven limousine, where I would stroll through the corridors of power, often receiving unmerited salutes from the Allied bigwigs as we passed each other.

“Visiting the war wounded at the Walter Reed Military Hospital was a very rewarding experience for all the ATS who engaged in the exercise and of course a very lifting and enjoyable experience for the very young men who had been wounded fighting for their country.”

Vuurboom said she was saddened by the death of Roosevelt and described meeting President Truman and his wife Bess.

“The closest I came to dying for king and country was when General Dwight Eisenhower was being given a hero’s welcome and the keys to the city. A colleague and I used our lunch break to take a quick peek at the celebrations. We got caught up in the stampeding crowd and were transported uncontrollably over vast distances at a 45-degree angle. It was very frightening.”

Vuurboom returned home in 1945 and continued fighting for the rights of women to serve in the armed forces of TT.

In a Sunday Guardian article on April 28, Florrie Kelshall said her most enduring memory was becoming lost during a blackout while in England.

“I was groping around for two hours, completely lost in the blackness. It was horrible. I was scared stiff. I did not know where I was or where I was going. That was not like home. There was no full moon to save you.”

Nancy Jardine, who worked as a cypher officer in the Navy, sent and received messages and codes to the allies. Her most harrowing memory was the night a German submarine sent two torpedoes into the Port of Spain harbour.

“I thought this was it, they were going to land and take over Trinidad. We sent a signal to England, they sent back to say they could not understand the message. It was my ordeal, it was terrifying. The Germans wanted this island because we had oil, so the danger was real.”

Jardine also described her encounters with sexual harassment and being made to scrub the floor because “they felt I was a spoiled colonial.”

The article said Mairi Gooden-Chisholm tended to wounded Belgian soldiers hit in constant shellfire. Her efforts are described in the book The Cellar House of Pervyse by G E Mitton.

Grace Corder earned first-class Red Cross decorations as a naval nurse before returning to TT to be matron at the Colonial Hospital. Leila Russel was the only woman to be an adjudicator on the Objectors to Active Service committee.

Sisters Barbara, Ruth, Phyllis and Hilda Knaggs served in the war. Barbara worked as a factory munitions worker, while the others were nurses.

Kelshall was one of several women who did censorship duties for the mail service, along with dancer Thora Dumbell and musician Jessie Brash, according to the article. Melina Scott served in the performing arts.

Edith Dyer, a nurse stationed in Tobago, witnessed the German submarine attack on the British ship Kioto off the coast of Tobago. Her nephew, Lt Commander Gaylord Kelshall, who founded the Chaguaramas Museum, said his aunt was never the same after that day and spoke about it until the day she died.

As TT celebrates Remembrance Day on Sunday, O'Brien said he wanted to remind the nation of the brave women who served in the armed forces.