The Story of Three Siblings During WW1

This is the story of three Jamaicans during the First World War. Norman, Douglas and Vera Manley - my grandmother.?

Norman and Douglas were both studying at Oxford from 1914 - promising lawyers. However, (along with 80% of the students) in late 1915, they both enlisted in the army.?

Following just four months of training in early January 1916 they were both sent to France travelling on a slow train to the Ypres Front with the battle of the Somme looming.

In the Artillery, Norman (now a Corporal) and Douglas came up against violent prejudice. The rank and file disliked taking orders from a coloured NCO. Their attitude was mild compared to their fellow NCO’s who conspired to get him into trouble.? After making a slight fool of a Sergeant who had been spiteful to Norman, he managed to get himself and Douglas demoted and moved to a battery of guns. They were transferred to D battery of the 39th Division of the Royal Artillery.

Meanwhile, their sister Vera had made her way to Petrograd (now St Petersburg) in 1916 to fulfil her role as governess to a Russian family. I have the map she bought of Petrograd in 1916. She was a prolific letter writer to her family and insisted that all her letters were kept, hence we have both sides of the story - life in the trenches and life during the Russian Revolution.

Douglas and Norman both fought in the Somme, a bloody battle fought for four months with a limited advance of about six miles at a cost of half a million casualties. Then back in Ypres, the two brothers managed to stay together in the same Battery. Norman’s descriptions of conditions are pretty horrifying but I have the details.

They both wrote to Vera in Russia and she to them in the trenches in Ypres. The letters were in pencil (see photo) often asking for small comforts to be sent by parcel.

Vera’s letters carefully describe the very beginning of the Russian Revolution. See a photo below.? She wrote on 27th February 1917 “...It is no longer a strike but the revolution - It is terrible. - Tonight guns are booming and soldiers are at each other's throats in the streets around us. She also kept a few of the early Revolutionary newspapers that were hand-distributed on the streets (see photo of 3rd March issue No.7)?

Back in Ypres, Douglas wasn’t so fortunate. On 25th July 1917, he was on stretcher bearer duty and was fatally wounded by shrapnel.?

Here is what Norman wrote to his sister…

“Dearest Vera,

I have a hard letter to write. Douglas was killed this morning. He was helping to carry a stretcher case to the Dressing Station when a bit of shell hit him in the heart. Death must have been instantaneous. It is useless saying what one feels for this is war and his a soldier’s death”

In those days, the family were sent a letter from the King and a large personalised medal.?

Vera managed to get out of Russia eventually returning to England. After the war, Norman finished his law degree (he was a Rhodes scholar) and returned to Jamaica. There he founded the People's National Party (PNP) in 1938, advocating for universal adult suffrage and self-government. He served as Jamaica's Chief Minister (1955-1959) and first Premier (1959-1962), leading the country to independence in 1962.

Norman is one of two Jamaican National heroes, the other is Bob Marley - who was in my grandmother Vera’s music class at school.

So on this day, I would like us to remember all those soldiers from the Caribbean who voluntarily enlisted and fought and died for their King and Country in WW1