THEY were called the Golden Thirteen (pictured)<\p>. I am referring to the first black naval officers to be trained for service in the United States Navy.Tomorrow, November 11, Bermuda, like most countries involved in the two World Wars, will observe Remembrance Day (Veterans' Day in the US) to remember those who fell in these two great conflicts.

As it has been a tradition in this Commentary, I will observe my own remembrance by focusing on the non-white participation in those conflicts.

The reason that I have written in that vein is because it is my opinion that far too little is spoken off, let alone written about, the participation of non-white peoples in those conflicts and this is just a small attempt to remedy this shortfall in what was in many ways a significant yet little recognised role that non-white peoples played in the Great Wars.

Since I began to write about these events around this time of year, the focus has mostly been on the American side of the conflict. That is because in recent years there has appeared a wealth of written information about the African-American participation in those conflicts and their often honourable and respectable combat records.

However, I was able to get a very important book called Our War — How the British Commonwealth Fought the Second World War, by Christopher Somerville, which went some way in bringing to light some of the combat experiences of non-white peoples who came to Britain to fight on the Allied side from all corners of the world. I have used this information from time to time.

One cannot write about those times without including the racial and colonial context in which non-white peoples served in those conflicts, which was often a struggle within itself.

This was often most apparent in the African-American experience of answering the call to arms by their country while living in the teeth of a racist society which very often reluctantly agreed to use its African-American citizens in the defence of their country.

The African-American has answered every call to defend their country from the beginning of America as a nation.

From the American War of Independence up to the Civil War and all of the Americans' armed conflicts to the present day, African-Americans have been there often making the supreme sacrifice in the defence of their country.

Often this included serving in the armed forces of a foreign country as an American. Recently there was shown in Bermuda a movie which portrayed one such individual.

The movie was called Fly Boys, which told the story of a group of Americans who fought in the First World War as airmen in the French Air Force.

Among them was an African-American who was the only known black American airman to see air combat as a fighter pilot in that conflict before the entry of America in 1917.

His name was Eugene Jacques Bullard,a pursuit pilot in the French Foreign Legion; however, when America entered the war, despite his combat record, the American military rejected his attempt to join what was called at the time the Army Air Corps.

The American armed forces remained a segregated institution throughout its history until racial discrimination was abolished in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Before then all branches forbade or restricted non-white involvement in the services. This was no less true of the United States Navy where blacks were only allowed on ships if they were kitchen or mess hall workers. Ironically, this was not strictly enforced during one period of American history. That was during the American Civil War where African-Americans made up some 25 per cent of the Union Navy serving at all levels except of course as naval officers.

As America entered the Second World War it was forced to call upon all of its citizens to help in the struggle against the Germans and Japanese. This included women who worked in the arms factories and black Americans who also found defence jobs in those factories and within the American armed forces. BUT America was not yet ready to integrate its military and so it created all-black military forces in the Army and the Air Force. With respect to the latter, the famed fighter group the Tuskegee Airmen won great respect flying the top-of-the-line American fighter aircraft at that time, the P-51 Mustang. The Tuskegee Airmen have a great combat record as fighter escorts for American bombers in deep-penetration bombing runs over Germany and are credited with never losing a bomber to enemy action — a remarkable achievement given the intense and deadly air way over Germany in the Second World War.

The Navy was no less racially segregated, although one is at a loss to see how racial segregation was enforced within the tight confines of a naval ship. However, blacks remained only kitchen and mess hall members of a ship's crew.

Due to racism, it was generally assumed that blacks could not perform any other task. One would have thought that this mindset would have gone out of the window at the very beginning of America's involvement in the war — Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour.

A ship's steward on the burning battle ship the USS West Virginia, African-American Dorie Millier, rescued his captain from the exposed bridge of the ship and then manned a machine gun and, without training, shot down two attacking Japanese aircraft.

For his efforts he was given the Navy Cross but was still rejected as a normal member of a ship's crew and regrettably lost his life later in the war when the ship he was on was sunk due to enemy action.

There was one more example of the African-American participation in the Navy which shows the highest standards of the service. This came in the form of the all-black crew of the naval escort destroyer the USS Mason. IN my research in writing this Commentary, I was able to view a DVD I bought some time ago which told the story of the USS Mason featuringthe late African-American actor Ossie Davis, who narrated the movie. Again it was thought that this all-black crew would not be up to the task. But having to face the harsh realities of war and racial segregation at home the ship and its crew were finally honoured for its war-time heroism in 1994 under President Clinton.

The events of the Second World War forced a form of racial change in America even before the civil rights struggle. As regards to the Navy, it was decided that the time had come to upgrade the status of African-Americans.

It was decided to train the Navy's first black officers and in January 1944 16 black enlisted men presented themselves at the Great Lakes naval training station in Illinois.

They were in every sense pioneers but having to face American's racial peculiarities the road was far from easy. But they were the first and pave the way for other African-Americans serving in the Navy and the military generally and henceforth were called the Golden Thirteen.

Having spoken on a wide-ranging historical perspective concerning the role of non-white peoples during the Second World War with particular emphasis on the African-American, it only remains for me to say something about Bermuda and this concerns its veterans on an issue that largely affects black Bermudians.

In the media recently it was revealed that there is still foot-dragging in regards to equal pensions for those Bermudians who served their country during the Second World War on the home front as opposed to going overseas.

There should be no distinction. Service in time of warfare is still service and those who stayed behind in the military on the home front had just as an important role in defending their country as those who went overseas.

So on this Remembrance Day this long-existing injustice should be resolved before the last of this generation pass away having not received their full measure for their service to the country.