Wendell Hollis was a Second Lieutenant in the Bermuda Regiment and assigned to lead a platoon of men into the middle of the riots. Yesterday, for the first time he gave a detailed account of his memories.

His platoon was first ordered to guard Belco, where they carried personal weapons and live rounds with them.

"I chose from the armoury as my personal weapon a pump action shotgun," he said. "I can recall patrolling the Belco area with some soldiers, not knowing what we might find around the next corner.

"Later we stood on the rooftop of Belco and watched the City of Hamilton burn. I remember a young Corporal Fubler by the nickname 'Peanuts' who worked as a warehouse manager at Gosling Brothers, who had tears running down his face as he watched their warehouse burn and said 'there goes all my Black Seal'."

After protecting Belco, former Second Lt. Hollis was assigned to lead the riot squad to Court Street.

"I can recall telling my platoon that this was perhaps the darkest day in the history of Bermuda and that we had been selected to support and assist the police," he said.

"I described the situation on Court Street. I indicated that we would be the riot squad going to Court Street and that we would be armed with live rounds.

"I indicated that it was possible that some of us may not survive the event and it was equally possible that we may be called upon to cause harm to someone else. I indicated that, if at all possible, that would not happen, but if it did happen, Bermuda would never be the same again.

Two men chose not to go with Second Lt. Hollis. The remaining men then made their way to Court Street where they marched while beating their shields. When they got to Court Street they saw ten to 12 officers holding back the crowd.

"In the front of the crowd was a Volkswagen Beetle that was on fire," he said. "The crowd was armed with sticks, machetes and other weapons. Molotov cocktails were being thrown. The crowd had erected makeshift barricades. I recall saying to myself at the time, 'God, if you have any interest in us, now is the time to show it'.

"About this time people started firing ball bearings at us with slingshots from the roof of a house on the northern side of Victoria Street.

"I ordered my men to raise their shields to protect themselves as much as possible. At that time we did not have the type of riot gear that the Regiment has now with face shields etc. One of the ball bearings hit the TV camera of one of the US Networks.

"There then ensued about 15 minutes of a very tense standoff. Members of the crowd starting recognising members of my platoon and started calling them all of the worst names in the world.

"That only served to galvanise my men and at no time did I ever feel anything other than total support from them.

"It then started to rain. It was the hardest rain that I had ever seen in my life. It rained so hard that we could not even see the crowd. I told my men to form a turtle using their shields which was something that the Roman legionnaires had developed two thousand years before; we effectively created a Plexiglass umbrella over the unit.

"It rained so hard that I recall the empty canisters from the Federal riot guns floating onto the drain and the water started to rise up over our boots.

"It continued to rain hard until about 7 p.m. Once it had stopped raining, we lowered our shields and looked down Court Street and observed that there was no one there. The curfew was now in effect. We reformed, I gave the order to advance, and we marched down Court Street, turned around and marched back. We then marched to the Fire Station on King Street, where we rested, dried off, had a meal and stayed for a couple of hours."

After that the Regiment was moved to the bottom floors of the Southampton Princess so the 250 British troops could reside at Warwick Camp.

The British troops had been called as reinforcements for the local Police and Regiment officers, once they arrived tensions dropped and calm returned to the streets of Bermuda.

Karen Daniels was a 15-year-old Berkeley student at the time of the riots, and she too stood on a roof top watching Hamilton burn on December 2, 1977. She lived on Woodlands Road near the Sunshine Company which went up in smoke.

"We were under curfew by that time and I remember hearing word from the neighbours that Sunshine Company was on fire and the entire neighbourhood came out to watch the fire and see all of the action unfold on Woodlands Road from a house on top of a hill directly opposite Saltus school," she said.

"Firemen, fire trucks, hoses, policemen, police cars and even news reporters all crowded the street which was blocked off even for us.

"Suddenly out of nowhere, there were these young guys who were there beside us, no sound from them, nothing, just watching along with us! We never heard them coming!

"They were rioters I presumed because they all had handkerchiefs around their faces. No one said anything. My mother and I went inside the house so fast and locked the door!

"I thought I was going to die from fright thinking our house would be next to go up in flames because we saw them! The next morning there was a Molotov cocktail on my wall — fully intact. We called the Police and they took it away."