“ The Present is adorned with the jewels of the Past, The Future will prize them and hold to them fast,
The Past is ever present, enwrapped in man’s shadow,Without it we are left with no Now, nor Tomorrow.”
[© Roaring Lion] [1]

The motive for writing A Different Stick o’ Fire, WORLD WAR TWO IN THE CARIBBEAN, Fragments of a Forgotten Legacy, is multifaceted. First, there is the fact that memories, oral reports and narratives of the role played by the Caribbean in the global fight for freedom from tyranny during World War Two, are gradually fading, as more and more informants are passing away. This compels those of us who have had any form of oral history pertaining to the war handed down to us by senior West Indians, to capitalize and expound on it, for the sake of posterity.
During my childhood years on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten in the 1950s, my brother and I would sometimes overhear bits of conversations between our father and his peers. These elders (all born in the late 1800s) had observed both World Wars and had also travelled extensively in the Caribbean and beyond. Sometimes, when relating to ‘times-gone-by’ they would speak about “when Hitler had sen submarines all de way down here“ and relate how “dey had try to bomb Aruba!” Such conversations would sometimes end with: “Germans were out to rule de wurl… and down here too!” or words to that effect. These iterations, expressed with almost haunting gravity and conviction, gave me, even at a very young age, the notion that the world, at the time, had faced impending gloom and that the Caribbean had somehow played a significant role in warding off this threat. In addition, regularly passing the war memorial, set in the middle of Philipsburg in the late 1950s, and experiencing the ‘mystery’ regarding the names inscribed on it, served to increase said notion.
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1  Stanza from song titled: Heroes of Old, 1936, reproduced with permission from A. de Leon
      (Source: http://roaringlioncalypso.org/home)

Even though it was evident that the main players & payers were European/ American who procured the lion’s share of the war finance, the ‘physical burden’ of the infrastructure of warfare placed by the ‘mother-countries’ on many Caribbean islands, is often forgotten. Used as ‘strategically important’ elements during the war, the islands housed military bases,barracks, military camps, internment camps, posts, stations, yards,docks, depots, radar systems, telecommunication systems, jump-offpoints, oil refineries, flying boat harbours and other forms of defense.
If there is also truth in Maya Angelou’s words “The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.”, then it is necessary that Caribbean youngsters come to know that, alongside all the other World War Two stories, the Caribbean region too has its own legitimate, authentic and compelling history to tell, although it might differ in nature, from that of other regions. This is a history which should never be forgotten, a legacy to “hold fast.” Consequently, this book attempts to help raise the awareness of young West Indians regarding the idea that they too are the heirs to this legacy that not only connects them as Caribbean people with each other, but also places them inside a defining period in modern history.
In view of the above, A Different Stick o’ Fire, WORLD WAR TWO IN THE CARIBBEAN, Fragments of a forgotten Legacy, serves as an introduction to a regional (Caribbean) approach of World War Two. The narratives in verse position the regional occurences against the background of the threat of Nazi domination, which was the concern of every democracy-loving society at the time. Overseas territories/possessions as an integral part of the Allied countries were all up against a relentless, ‘common enemy’ who could only be defeated through combined efforts. In fact, ‘the Dutch West Indies’ were the only part of the Dutch empire that remained free during the war. Everyone’s contribution was valuable, and as history shows: the Caribbean had a vital role to play.
While the scope of the book is the Caribbean region, the focus is on the Dutch West Indies and only slightly on Suriname and the British West Indies. The region is portrayed in the ‘spirit of the times’; as the overseas territories or colonies they used to be.

Equally intriguing was hearing bits and snippets of Calypso-lyrics about the long gone war era, produced by an old gramophone somewhere, or hummed by a passer-by. All these experiences made me anticipate learning more about the Caribbean’s involvement in World War Two, later on. However, the long-awaited lessons were never taught when the subject came to be discussed in school. Seemingly, this ‘trend’ has persisted throughout the years, as most history books and teachers alike seldom position the Caribbean inside the greater-scheme-of-things when discussing the global occurences between 1939 and 1945. As a result, post-war generations in the Caribbean are unaware of the ‘vital’ and ‘strategic’ role their region played in the war effort of the allied countries during the struggle for the democratic freedoms we all cherish so much today. In the past, this approach has been noted by Trinidadian author, Gaylord T.M. Kelshall, who states in the preface of his book The U-Boat War in the Caribbean (1994) that the history of the Caribbean in World War Two “has often been alluded to, but historians have not noted its critical importance.”
Although, since then, a growing number of authors have latched on to the topic, knowledge about this critical role is not wide-spread. One explanation could be the Eurocentric approach practiced by authors, along with the fact that memories of colonized people were not written down and their involvement in both wars are not mentioned during commemorations and festivities.
[1] Most people view the war strictly as a concern of the European empires of that time.
[2] Contemporary West Indians who foster this idea, consequently do not regard the legacy of the war as theirs. In other words, they have not inserted it in the ‘Body of Caribbean Legacies.’ But if there is truth in defining legacy as something that happened in the past or that comes from someone in the past, then this idea is but partially true.
After all, the war related actions took place under Caribbean skies, on Caribbean soil, sea and sand. Moreover, Caribbean lives were affected on social, cultural, economic and governmental levels during and after the war.

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1  van den Oord 2004, p. 1
2  Ashley Jackson discusses the Eurocentric approach in The British Empire and the Second
   World War (2006) and argues for the acknowledgement of the role played by nations outside
   the European continent.
 

The choice of the topics is mostly determined by the bits and snippets of oral history, the experience of the ‘mysterious’ Philipsburg monument, along with the shreds of calypso lyrics and anecdotes mentioned earlier. It is up to the reader to delve deeper into the subject.

Motto: 
Until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify  the hunter.
(Zimbabwean proverb)