Forgotten Warriors of World War One

Ever since the end of the Great War,

we have commemorated those lost in battle.

Like many other countries,

Wales gave up its young men to fight and to die in the cause of victory.

By 1914, Tiger Bay was already a multicultural community

of immigrants, sailors and second-generation settlers.

How did they feel about the call to arms?

And how did they respond when the nation was plunged

into a most terrible war?

I've lived in Cardiff nearly all my life

and I've worked in this area for many years,

so I'm calling myself an honorary docks girl.

In the modern-day Cardiff Bay,

most of the boats here are used for pleasure, not profit.

How was life in Tiger Bay 100 years ago?

In the period immediately before World War I

is a kind of high point of imperialism, of Empire

and so there was a common idea, shall we say,

of white supremacy, white superiority.

On the eve of World War I,

Cardiff was one of the major ports in the world

due to the high demands for Welsh coal.

There were 250 tramp steamers registered in the city.

Their crews were made up of white men above deck and black men below,

stoking the boilers at temperatures of 90 degrees.

The Black community was well-established in Cardiff

by the 1860s.

The Arab seamen then, the Yemenis and Somalis,

who were a later addition to the port of Cardiff's community,

it could be said that

the opening of the Suez Canal is the vital link there in 1869.

Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914.

Within the first 48 hours,

6,000 men signed up for the army

and 8,000 men transferred from the merchant fleet to the Royal Navy.

Alongside the British Tommy,

there were other soldiers fighting for King and Empire.

Over 2.5 million soldiers came from its colonies.

The situation both in African and Caribbean colonies

was difficult economically, socially,

and so it wasn't unusual for people to leave to seek their fortune,

as it were, by coming to Britain.

Britain was a maritime nation.

In the 19th century, it had become dependent on importing food,

so the merchant navy was very much a part of the war.

Without it, Britain would starve.

Germany knew this, so the merchant ships soon became a target.

The first Cardiff ship, Reardon Smith's Cornish City,

was lost in September 1914,

so the German submarine menace made itself evident

quite early on in the war

and, of course, was to be a continual threat

to the British merchant fleet, including Cardiff's ships,

scores of which were sunk during the war

and many, many seamen lost their lives.

But, during the early years of the war,

it's certainly the case that the German U-boat commanders

had a somewhat more gallant approach to ships.

To find out about the experiences of the merchant seaman,

I'm going to meet the descendants of James Augustus Headley,

who was one of the earliest Caribbean immigrants to Cardiff.

Now, I know you've been living in Loudoun Square, Tiger Bay

for many, many years, your family have been here.

Can you tell me anything about your family members' connection

with World War I?

Well, yes, because my mother's father was a merchant seaman

and his ship got torpedoed in World War I

and he was captured by the Germans.

He survived and he returned home

and he told my mother all about these things,

and so long after he was deceased,

my mother would repeat those stories,

so they're sort of folklore within the family home

about his time with the Germans. My mother said that

-he would never have a bad word said against any German...

-Wow.

..because while he was in captivity,

one of the German soldiers used to look after him

and give him his own dinner

to make sure that my grandfather was well fed, you know,

during the crisis.

And so, how he got home, I don't know that part of it

but he did survive it,

in a sense very fortunately because as a merchant seaman community,

many of our grandfathers and uncles went on those ships

and they were torpedoed and didn't survive.

Perhaps the most horrific incident

was that of the Torrington Cardiff Steamer,

stopped by a submarine off the Scilly Isles in April 1917,

where the crew took to the lifeboats and the submarine surfaced.

The captain was taken below in the lifeboat,

the crew were lined up on the deck of the submarine

and the submarine then dived, leaving them all to drown.

James Augustus was awarded two medals for war service.

During the Depression, my mother was pressured to sell the gold medallion

to make ends meet for us to survive, so unfortunately we don't have both.

So, do you have any idea when James Augustus Headley

first came to Cardiff?

Oh, yeah, he arrived here in the late 1890s.

But my mother was born in 1909,

so he was here at least ten years before she was born

-and he married our grandmother.

-Agnes Jolly.

What was her life like living in the Tiger Bay community

with a black husband?

The issue of being in an interracial marriage in Tiger Bay

was an issue for the white women themselves

because nine times out of ten,

the Valleys families or other Cardiff white families

ostracised them completely.

In order to overcome that,

they made a sisterhood with all the other white women

who did the same thing.

In the Armed Forces during the First World War,

again there was essentially a colour bar.

The War office were reluctant to allow black men to enlist,

essentially, even those who came from Africa and the Caribbean.

The general intention was to keep African or Caribbean regiments

separate from other regiments of the British Army.

Of course, those that were recruited in Britain,

the situation was a little bit different

and we find both a reluctance of some recruiting offices

to recruit black soldiers, black men.

In Cardiff, this racist attitude was quite evident.

Black men tried to join up but were turned away.

"A number of coloured men have lately presented themselves

"for enlistment, but up to the present, Recruiting Sergeant Ashton

"has been reluctantly compelled to decline their services

"until such time as the War Office considers it politic

"to form a coloured-race battalion."

Why was there such a reluctance to deploy non-white troops?

There was talk of starting a black battalion

between the ports of Cardiff, Newport, Barry and Swansea.

This never happened.

Some black men did join Welsh regiments,

like this soldier in the 1st Mons...

..and Private Duncan in the Welsh Guards.

"Darkie Duncan enlisted at Cardiff three weeks ago.

"He was employed on the dock where he picked up boxing.

"When asked about his tuition, he replied,

"'You have to do a bit of it in Cardiff or you go under.'"

The Welsh Guards were formed in February 1915.

This photograph shows some of their first recruits.

This could be Private Duncan among them.

There is at least one man we can identify.

I've come to the Local Studies Library in Cardiff

to read about him.

Oh.

"Patriotic Negro."

"Private Eustace Rhone, 3rd Welsh, is a negro

"who had been for four years a seaman on the SS Camlake

"prior to enlisting at Liverpool into the 3rd Welsh.

"He was very popular at the training quarters.

"He is married and has made his home in Maughan Street, Penarth."

Quite a great picture there.

To find out more,

I'm heading to the National Archives in Kew

to meet genealogist Cat Whiteaway.

Oh, wonderful.

So, this box contains more information about Eustace Rhone.

-Wonderful.

-So, this is all the documents from the Board of Trade.

All the logbooks of the various ships.

-Coming in and out of the ports of Britain?

-All the ports, yeah...

-Yeah.

-..of a certain time.

If you remember rightly from the newspaper clipping...

Yes, that's the ship that Eustace was on, the Camlake.

Yeah, the SS Camlake.

-So, this is the logbook for that ship.

-Right.

-We've got have the list of the crew.

-The crew.

I think he's number 16 there.

There we are. "Eustace Rhone."

Yes, described as...

The shorthand for donkey man.

OK, what would he have... What was his job description?

Doing the hard labour, doing the work under the...

-not on the top deck, basically.

-Wow.

OK, so, yeah.

But he's got very good ability and very good general conduct.

And then...at Garston...

On 14th April 1915 E Rhone, I'm assuming is Eustace Rhone,

donkey man, JL Jones, donkey man and T Dring, sailor,

having joined the army, were paid off to go to their depot.

-Wow.

-Incredible.

Specific details.

-The absolute date of when...

-Yeah.

Garston is near Liverpool, so he gets off the ship,

joins the army with two friends.

With two friends who are also on the ship.

On board the Camlake with him, yeah.

Some people joined out of, you know, a kind of sense of adventure

with the belief that the war was soon going to be over.

Other people joined for economic reasons.

Some joined for patriotic reasons.

They identify with Britain,

with the whole idea that the country needed them and so on.

Others from the Caribbean and Africa as well as other countries

believed that they were proving that they were just as good as,

as patriotic as, any white person,

and that as a result of this sacrifice,

they expected that if they were going to suffer equally

in the trenches or in the merchant fleet,

that they should be treated equally when the war ended.

To learn more about Eustace Rhone,

I've come to meet author Gwyn Prescott.

This is the regimental history of the Welsh Regiment

and here we see the 3rd Battalion.

Which is the one that Eustace joined.

Exactly, that's the one that Eustace Rhone joined in Liverpool.

Now, the 3rd Battalion was the reserve battalion

and they trained men to replace any men who retired

-or who were injured or ill or died.

-Yes.

You'll see here that the 3rd Battalion

at the beginning of the war were in the barracks in Maindy

but within a matter of days they moved to the castle.

-As in living, training...

-Yeah.

-..they lived within the castle grounds?

Yeah. Yes, that's right there was a castle in the castle grounds.

The officers were accommodated in the Marquis of Bute's apartments.

Apartments!

But the men, the other ranks, were housed in the stables,

outbuildings and mainly under tents in the castle grounds.

It's quite incredible to think that just over 100 years ago

that Eustace Rhone would have been stationed here in Cardiff Castle

and the tent may be right on this spot. It's amazing.

To hear about the 3rd Battalion, I meeting Tim Whiteaway.

Two months sort of training in this environment here in Wales

with the 3rd Battalion and then he finds himself in France

and really, I don't think anything he's done here

has sort of prepared him for any of that.

He spent most of sort of August and September

holding this line of trenches back here in Vermelles,

but later on he's in part of the Battle of Loos,

which is 25th September 1915.

-Right.

-Which is a huge, experimental battle.

What do you mean by experimental?

It's experimental on two fronts, really, because the scope of it,

I mean it's absolutely enormous,

there's 48,000 men are going to take part in this attack.

-Right.

-Nothing has ever been done of that scale before

and they're also going to use an experimental weapon, the gas.

"September 24th.

"The final preparations for the battle were made.

"The wind was south-east, but showed signs of changing."

This is a huge amount of gas all along the front,

you're talking 6,400 cylinders, 150 tonnes of gas.

"September 25th.

"At 7am to my amazement, we heard that they would use gas."

"And at about 7:30, the show started."

"We saw clouds and clouds of white and brown smoke rise into the air,

"but the clouds remained stationary

"and seemed to drift back instead of forwards."

Half an hour after the medical team were treating 950 Allied troops

-back here with gas injuries.

-Right.

So, at seven o'clock in the morning, all of Rhone's group,

-they get ordered to take the front-line position.

-Yeah.

And they actually, successfully,

-go through the first and second line of the German defences...

-Mm-hmm.

-..without loss.

-Wow.

Now, that's recorded that they don't have a loss at that stage

of the 2nd Welsh, so that means Rhone must have been with them

-and he must be alive at that point.

-Right.

So, this is about one o'clock in the afternoon.

And what's happened to the gas at this point?

-It's still just sort of being...

-A lot of it's... Because it blew in the wrong direction,

it has been dissipated but it's... the gas is heavier than air.

-Right.

-So anything like a trench or a shell crater,

it's going to sink into it.

So, the Germans by now have re-manned

their final line of defence

and this is when they start literally mowing men down...

..and the 2nd Welsh start to take casualties

and they're literally pinned down in shell craters, possibly full of gas,

for a good two hours, till four o'clock in the afternoon,

Rhone was taken by the 29th Field Ambulance.

But do we know what those injuries were?

-Have you got any idea?

-At that stage we don't.

-We know that Rhone died of them...

-Right.

-..two days later.

Now, the record for his death says he died of gas poisoning.

But the irony is he died because almost...

what do they call it? "Friendly fire."

Astounding really, because in 1918

they did a huge amount of analysis of the gas and the upshot is,

what they found was out of 2,600 men,

they actually only identified seven men

that died as a result of this gas on this day.

I am very shocked that it's only seven.

That's really shocking.

-It is a surprising thing.

-I would have expected higher numbers.

It's extraordinary that it's our...

that the person we're tracking from Wales, and he's one of the seven.

By 1916, the merchant navy were short of crew.

Yemeni and Somali seaman arrived in Cardiff in significant numbers.

Ali Janrah was one of these men.

He lived on Bute Street

and rescued his captain after their ship had been torpedoed.

Another from Somalia, who served King and Empire, was Askar Farah.

He was to make Cardiff his home.

His daughter Judy still lives in the city.

It's a story I don't like telling but I've got to say it.

My mother - I mean, we weren't rich

and she relied on his allotment note

and it didn't come

and she was desperate to feed us

and a rag and bone man came along

and she gave him to him.

And what he give her for it, I don't know,

but I know when my father found out

that's the only time I've seen him cry.

So, what did your father say when he found out?

He just broke his heart crying.

Giving like a sob.

And he said, "That was my life." And he walked out.

I've come to see genealogist Kat Whiteaway again.

She's found more information about Eustace Rhone.

This is Eustace Rhone's medal card.

So, he's got these three medals.

-Right.

-So this extra line actually gives us information

regarding the medals.

-That date there.

-Mm-hmm.

So, in 1921, they're talking about the disposal of his medals

because he didn't ever collect them.

They were never sent to his parents,

-they were never sent to anybody else and they weren't collected.

-OK.

Right, right.

So, essentially, Rhone's three medals are still available.

So, alongside his medals, as you would today,

if you serve in the army, you get a pension.

So, these are pension records.

OK.

All of Eustace Rhone's details here.

-Quite hard to read. I've had one blown up.

-Right.

So, he died in September 1915.

You can see on 5th January 1916.

That says sole legatee,

so the sole beneficiary to his entire estate and effects,

is this lady, Mrs Emma Jane Thompson.

-So she gets the money...

-Yeah.

-..but she doesn't get the medals?

-Yeah, either didn't get them or didn't want them.

-OK.

-Yeah.

-So, to find out a little bit more...

-About Emma Jane.

His beneficiary. His will.

Right. Now, there's Mrs Emma Jane...

-Oh! Rhone?

-Rhone. Yeah.

But she's not listed as Rhone on the pension certificate.

-Yes.

-"To the end of my death, I will leave all my money to my wife,

"number 70 Maughan Street, Penarth, South Wales, near Cardiff."

"Signed..." That's Eustace Rhone.

Do we guess, maybe, that she became Mrs Thompson afterwards?

She was actually Mrs Thompson before.

Even though Eustace calls Emma Jane his wife

and very clearly leaves his personal effects to her

and they were living together at 70 Maughan Street in Penarth,

I can't find a marriage certificate anywhere.

Ah, so they were...

Might also answer why she didn't go to collect his medals,

cos she couldn't prove that she was his wife

but, I don't know, different departments

and the will, obviously, gives everything to her without question.

Yes.

The war ended at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month

in 1918.

Some 35,000 Welshmen had died,

including a thousand black sailors from Cardiff.

For the land fit for heroes, election promises weren't fulfilled.

It's a time of great unrest, 1919.

Police strikes, workers' strikes, councils of action,

concern about a whole range of things.

Minority communities can just become seen as scapegoats

for wider economic and political problems.

What was happening in relations between races in Cardiff

was in some ways turning the Empire on its head.

It was normal in the Empire for white men and black women,

but, of course, what was happening in Cardiff

was entirely the other way round

and that was seen as inverting not just the racial order

but the sexual order as it were.

White women, it was held, should be protected from black men.

During the war,

Tiger Bay's ethnic population had grown from 700 to 3,000.

With the returning white sailors from the navy,

there was competition for jobs on ships.

The frustrations of unemployed veterans exploded in June 1919.

It was a tense situation

and the multicultural community found itself under attack

when a series of race riots ripped through Cardiff.

One of the men who found themselves under attack

was James Augustus Headley,

who at the time was living outside Tiger Bay.

Quiet as it is today,

you have to imagine what it was like on that summer day

when 1,000 white men came rampaging down this street,

looking for my grandfather and Joseph Friday,

that also lived on the other side of the street.

This is the location and this is the house,

and my grandfather, luckily he survived

by getting out the back door.

My mother and her mother, they ran up the stairs.

My mother was hanging in my grandmother's long skirt,

terrified cos when they looked down from upstairs from the landing

they could see through the glass a flashlight or something

and the next thing they know, the front door was bust in

and men ran into the little room in the front, smashed everything up,

poured paraffin on the table with the idea of burning it down.

Of course, when they realised

the house didn't belong to my grandfather,

they didn't burn it down,

but anyway, when they got a hold of my grandmother, they beat her up.

But my mother, as terrifying as it was and obviously traumatic for her,

they never touched her at all.

But after that, you know, my grandmother became withdrawn,

according to my mother and life was never the same after that.

My grandfather said, "Right," he said, "I know what I'm going to do,

"I'm going to sea, I'm going to save enough money

"and I'm going to buy a house in Tiger Bay,"

and he said, my mother said this,

he would dare any white man to step over our threshold uninvited.

I admire him tremendously

because he was an ordinary seaman at the time.

He wasn't earning huge money but he managed to get enough money together

to be able to buy a house.

I think that was an amazing feat.

I want to know more about these riots.

I'd always assumed it was the black people rioting.

-So, this is the newspaper cuttings for 1919.

-Wonderful.

So, the police, as you can see here, straightaway the South Wales News,

Thursday June 12th 1919, talks of a racial feud.

"The white versus the black feud."

-It is, isn't it?

-"..has extended to Cardiff and Barry."

Friday 13th.

Friday 13th, indeed, yeah, 1919.

"Renewed riots at Cardiff."

"One man killed and two others in a grave condition."

-"Somali's death."

-"Somali's death."

"Negroland."

Yeah, amazing to see that written in a newspaper.

The Western Mail describes the cause of the trouble

as a colour problem and sex relations.

"Nothing could give the British white seaman greater offence

"than to find that a sister or other relative

-"had attached herself to a coloured man."

-Yeah.

Here's the deceased, Mohammed Abdullah, 21, single,

a ship's fireman of 264 Bute Street.

"The coffin was conveyed in an open hearse

"and was enshrouded with the Union Jack.

"The deceased, a native of Aden,

"had served on British ships as a fireman and was a British subject."

No-one was brought to justice for the deaths in Cardiff.

It was those who were under attack who were blamed

for causing the problems

and one of the solutions proposed by the government

was that where ex-service men and others could be repatriated,

particularly to the Caribbean, that repatriation should take place.

One particular ship, the Orca,

carried troops from the West Indian Regiment

and also took some of those who were being repatriated from Cardiff,

so you had both those who had suffered under the riots in Cardiff

and those who had suffered

as a result of being in the West Indian Regiment

and being discriminated against.

"The Orca left Cardiff on 31st August.

"The commander reports that they came on board with a grievance

"that their patriotic services in the mercantile marine

"during the war have been entirely disregarded

"and they contend that they have been repatriated

"in unreserved disgrace without means to support themselves

"and without facilities to obtain employment."

This is a telegraph from 1919.

"The Orca had mutiny with coloured troops

"and civilians require armed guard on arrival at Barbados.

"It will arrive there noon Tuesday.

"Keep all boats away from ship."

One of the British West Indies soldiers, Private Lashley,

was shot dead.

Five of the prisoners were manacled.

So, these men who left the colonies to fight for the mother country

returned in shackles.

In particular for the Black servicemen,

they show how this involvement in the war

made absolutely no difference to their status at the end of it,

and for many that must have been the most significant thing,

that you risk your life,

you've survived four years

and you come back and you're under attack again.

These demobilised men must have wondered

why did they enlist at all?

Why risk their lives on the front line or on the merchant ships?

Those who remained in Wales had survived one battle

but another was just beginning -

a battle for acceptance that would take generations to win.