Friends, families, and well-wishers gathered to welcome members of the Royal Air Force who came home after serving in World War II. The men were visibly happy to be home

Published Tuesday, November 12, 1946

Happy to be back after war service

-VOYAGE WITHOUT INCIDENT

Approximately 600 Jamaican members of the Royal Air Force, mostly ground crew men, returned to the island yesterday in the s.s. Esperance Bay. They came home after service in the R.A.F. during World War II, and all were happy  to be back.

Guarding against a repetition of the “Bergensfjord incident” earlier this year, the military authorities in England packed the ship with RAF welfare officers, and the percentage of officers to men aboard the vessel was higher than it has been on previous occasions.

However, there was no trouble. The behavior of this batch of returning servicemen was exemplary, and there was no incident of any picture during the trip from any of the 780 West Indian airmen who were in the vessel.

A West Indian officer, Flight Lieut. R. Hall, of British Guiana, accompanied the men as RAF officer in charge. A member of the staff of the Colonial Office’s welfare department, he is making the round trip in the vessel, which is scheduled to leave here at 5 o’clock this morning in continuation of her voyage, which takes her to Trinidad and Barbados, where she will land the rest of the RAF personnel and back to Kingston on the homeward run.

ATHLETES IN BATCH

Heading the Jamaican contingent was internationally famous runner Flight-Lieutenant Arthur Wint.

Home on leave to take part in three forthcoming Pan-American Olympics in Barranquila, Colombia, he stretched his record-breaking legs over the No. 3 Pier (where the boat berthed). 

Tall and handsome in his uniform, the lithe, young athlete who has made world headlines for his performances in the quarter-mile and half-mile distances on the cinder track, looked fit and fine, and ready to run.

Another Jamaican runner, who has made a name for himself in England, and may yet run for Jamaica in the Colombia Olympics, was a homecomer. He is Arthur S. Dujon, who has been demobbed after service with the RAF.

A distance runner, he is a member of the well-known sporting family.

Home on sixty days leave was Flying Officer J. J. Blair, former elementary school teacher at Greenwich Town, St Andrew, and a veteran of the Battle of Germany Flying Officers C. G. Alexander K. Cerny. A. R. Wong and G. L. Gabay, released in the UK,, also returned.

There were many scenes of rejoicing at the pier as relatives and friends greeted the returnees.

LIVELY WELCOME

Obviously in a good mood, and glad to be home, the boys lined the rail of the ship as she came slowly up the stream on the dot at 7:00 a.m., the scheduled hour for her arrival. The harbour rang with cries as both the boys aboard and the boys afloat Kingston’s famous diving bouys kept up a chorus of greeting.

As the big ship came alongside the pier, the huge hulk towering over the dock, the homing cries of the returning RAF personnel came closer. Relatives and friends began to send waved greetings and the Jamaica Military Band in the audience, under Captain R. G. (“Bobby”) Jones, struck up welcome music.

Lively military air enlivened the welcome as the ship still kept on drawing alongside. Applause broke out from the ranks of the boys as the first part of the programme ended; but the cheers rose high as the Jamaican tunes – “Mango Walk” “Linstead Market.” and “Run Mongoose” came dancing out of the instruments.

Eventually, the docking was complete, and at 7.30 a.m., the loading started. Handled with military dispatch, it lasted for about an hour as the clockwork working of the military transport service saw lorry-loads dispatched with minimum delay in the dispersal camp at Gibraltar. St Andrew.

Everyone was satisfied with landing. Climaxing an uneventful shipboard passage from England, the disembarkation was done without incident, and in a remarkably short time, the men were landed and out of the wharf.

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