Actors in real theatre of war
QUESTION
Apart from Michael Caine, are there any other actors still working who served in the Korean War?
MICHAEL Caine, born Maurice Micklewhite Jr, was called up for national service in Britain from 1952 to 1954.
He opted to serve in Korea as a member of the 1st Battalion Royal Fusiliers, an infantry regiment.
Stationed on the front line along the Samichon River, he saw extensive combat and participated in dangerous night-time patrols into no-man’s land.
After contracting malaria and being discharged in 1953, he returned to London and studied acting. Caine’s first film role was as Private Lockyer in the 1956 war movie A Hill In Korea.
Two decades later Alan Alda played the fictional Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H, the TV series about an American team of medical staff during the Korean War, he had served in the US military.
Alda was deployed for six months in North Korea. Contrary to several biographies, he was not in charge of a gunnery unit but oversaw a mess tent!
Fellow M*A*S*H actor Jamie Farr, who played Sgt Maxwell Q. Klinger, served in Korea shortly after hostilities ended in 1953.
Action hero Chuck Norris was an Air Policeman in the US Air Force stationed at Osan Air Base, South Korea, in 1958.
He studied the Korean martial arts of Tang Soo Do and Tae Kwan Do, becoming the first Westerner to be awarded an eighth-degree black belt.
Hollywood actor James Garner, born James Bumgarner, was a US Army private during the Korean War. He fought with the 5th Regimental Combat Team and was awarded two Purple Hearts for injuries sustained during the conflict. John Horner, Driffield, E. Yorkshire.
QUESTION
I have heard that Irish immigration to Barbados was high during the 17th and 18th centuries. Is this true?
BARBADOS did indeed see the arrival of many Irish immigrants, going back as far as the 1620s.
The first Irish settlers in Barbados travelled willingly, as merchants, while many others travelled less willingly as indentured servants. They went to many parts of the West Indies, so much so that by 1650, some parts of the region had more than half their population levels made up of Irish immigrants.
Barbados in particular saw high levels of immigration from Ireland, as the then British colony was changing the type of crop it grew. It had been growing tobacco and cotton, but switched to sugar. This created a big need for people to work the sugar plantations and much of that demand for labour was satisfied by the ‘export’ of people from Ireland.
As early as 1638, Barbados had a population of about 6,000, which included 2,000 indentured servants, who had come from Ireland, and 200 African slaves.
Over the next 15 years, the African slave population had grown to 20,000, while the number of indentured servants was put at 8,000. Barbados also had over 1,000 Irish freemen, former indentured servants whose term had expired.
During the initial stages of sugar growing, white indentured servants worked side-by-side in the plantations with African slaves, but by the mid-1650s, this was no longer the case. A decade later, indentured servants from Ireland only worked in supervisory or skilled jobs in Barbados.
Estimates of the number of Irish people who settled in Barbados vary considerably. One reliable historical source says about 10,000 Irish people were forcibly sent to the West Indies while 40,000 went as voluntary indentured servants and more just emigrated. Inadequate records mean it’s impossible to show how many did end up in Barbados, but it could have been half those figures.
After the Irish rebellion of 1641, growing numbers of Irish political prisoners, prisoners of war and others were sent to the West Indies, many ending up in Barbados. After Cromwell besieged Drogheda in 1649, his troops killed about 2,000 from the town, and many who survived were sent in exile to Barbados. It’s estimated that as many as 3,000 people from Drogheda could have been transported to Barbados.
Irish indentured servants and prisoners got abusive treatment on Barbados; because they were Catholic and Irish, they were harshly treated by English settlers. Irish prisoners in particular were treated with singular brutality.
In Barbados, as well as other places in the West Indies like Jamaica, Montserrat and Saint Kitts, there were many people of Irish descent until the middle of the 18th century. Former indentured servants then either returned to Ireland or else moved to the British colonies in North America. In Barbados, black slave labour became increasingly important.
While Barbados once had a substantial Irish population, this has continued to shrink for more than 200 years, so that today, current descendants in Barbados of those Irish settlers only number about 400. Most live in poverty and are often referred to, in derogatory terms, as ‘redlegs’.
It’s all a far cry from the time when Irish servants, Irish prisoners and people who had emigrated freely from Ireland, made up a substantial part of the population of Barbados.
Brian Farrell, Co. Louth.
QUESTION
Was the Minoan civilisation wiped out by a tsunami?
MINOAN is the name coined by the archaeologist Arthur Evans for a civilisation that flourished in Crete and other Aegean islands from 3000 BC to 1450 BC.
Recognised as the first advanced European civilisation, it has left a treasure trove of artwork, tools, written records (some of which are still undeciphered) and the ruins of magnificent buildings, of which the Palace of Knossos is the supreme example.
The civilisation traded widely across the Mediterranean to Cyprus, Egypt and Anatolia.
The reasons for its demise are unclear, but it is probable it followed a massive volcanic eruption on the island of Thera (now Santorini).
This was one of the biggest in human history, with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of Seven, wreaking four times as much havoc as Krakatoa.
It appears there must have been a warning of the impending disaster since no human remains have been discovered. Fortunately for posterity, much of the thriving city of Akrotiri was covered in ash and preserved in the same way as Pompeii would be 1,500 years later.
While the Minoan civilisation may not have disappeared immediately, the devastating effects of the eruption are likely to have sent it spiralling into an irreversible decline.
Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex.
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