Walking Back
Building a Nation (Part 2)
Will Jackson
Continued from last Thursday
Since the middle of the 1930's the family
economy shot up to a higher standard than had been seen before.
The seamen could find little jobs more easily, and earn more than
they ever could by way of being paid monthly wages. The sailing
ships were becoming obsolete, with steam and motor power filling
the vacancy on the ocean. Even the Cayman Islands during the early
thirties was in possession of its own motor boat, the M.V. Cimboco,
thus improving the service between the Islands and Jamaica, mail
cargo, and passengers wise. That had been a great step forward
for the Islands.
Then came 1939, with the third decade almost gone, when the mother
country, Great Britain, in September became embroiled in a war
with Germany which escalated by 1940 into a Second World War.
The 40's changed the entire picture of the Cayman Islands, as
it were, changing from a quiet sleepy collection of villages into
a nation of men taking part in a modern war. The Caymanian men
soon changed their roles from that of turtle butchers to soldiers
and sailors dodging bombs and torpedoes on behalf of their own
mother country. The war soon spread from the North Atlantic to
the entire world, including the Caribbean. The Trinidad Navy,
with nearly a hundred enlisted men from the Cayman Islands, was
a big step for the Islands in fighting the war. There were more
than a hundred Home Guards who perhaps did not realize their grave
danger even on their lonely night watches.
A German 2nd mate in National Bulk Carriers told me some stories of his war days in the Caribbean, which made me to know just how dangerous it was to be engaged in warfare. He had been a second Lieutenant onboard a German submarine stationed in the Caribbean, and by the way, that man knew the Cayman coastline better than I did. He said one night in 1944 he and another man landed in a rubber boat by the South Sound light house where they saw two soldiers, only the soldiers did not see them, if they had been seen they would have slit the two men's throats, but they went by unseen and unmolested. They made their way into town, walked into the American base, watched for a while a movie in the town hall, bought a dozen large breads from a little bakery and by prearrangement were picked up just south of town and returned to their sub.
He told of the sinking of the Allister south of Cayman three o'clock one morning, a deed for which they were very sorry but mistook her for a tanker coming out of Kingston for which they had been waiting. All of this and more stories he told me as a friend. Cayman therefore, was indeed in the war, but the good part of the bargain for the Cayman Islands was that the island's finances were swelled beyond anything that they had known before. Cash became popular among the peasants.
In those days there was no banking system
in the islands, save a little hole in the wall spot operated by
the government, which served its purpose well as a savings bank.
There the many little checks that came in could be lodged and
cashed according to the person's wish. Some wives ran a competition
among themselves, which could save a hundred or two hundred pounds.
Which sounded like a lot of money in those days, and indeed it
was a whole lot to those poor families who had been accustomed
to having only five shillings or so per week, when they were able
to have anything at all. A lady was overheard saying, she didn't
know what her husband would do with all of that money when he
came home, she had saved more than two hundred pounds.
The wives of those days must be highly commended for their efforts
and struggles to help their husbands to save something for their
old age, and even to obtain a better place in which to live, them
and their children. Many of them were able to change their little
thatch houses to cement walls with Zinc tops and glass windows
that graced the landscape.
Without doubt the Cayman Islands had received from the war days an injection for future growth. Of the many men who had been involved in the war, nearly all returned home triumphantly by 1946, ready to begin a new peacetime life. Jobs were plentiful for those who could reach America. There were banana boats as well as American ships, and foreign flag ships hauling cargo in the rebuilding of Europe. Caymanian seamen had made a name for themselves in the marine world and had no problems with their profession; but better days were just ahead for them.
Will Jackson
Seafarer and noted
Caymanian Historian