On 1 October 1888, the 1st and 2nd West India Regiments were merged into a single regiment comprising two battalions. Each battalion consisted of eight companies plus a regimental depot for recruiting and other administrative matters situated in Kingston Jamaica. There was little direct interchanging between the two battalions since one was always serving in West Africa and one in the West Indies at this time. This was in contrast with most other infantry regiments of the British regular army, where recruitment was for seven years "with the colours" followed by five years with the reserves.
Later years The regiment served in West Africa throughout the 19th century. In the early part of the twentieth century one battalion was stationed in
Sierra Leone and the other was in Jamaica recruiting and training, the battalions exchanging every three years. The regiment fought in the
Anglo-Ashanti Wars of 1873-74 and 1896, the
Yoni Expedition (1887) and the Sierra Leone
Hut Tax War of 1898.
World War I On the outbreak of war in August 1914, the 1st Battalion of the WIR was stationed in
Freetown where it had been based for two and a half years. A detachment of the Regiment's signalers saw service in the
German Cameroons, where Private L. Jordon earned a DCM and several other men were mentioned in despatches. The 1st Battalion returned to the West Indies in 1916. The 2nd Battalion was sent from Kingston to West Africa in the second half of 1915. They took part in the capture of
Yaoundé in January 1916. The regiment was subsequently awarded the battle honour "Cameroons 1914-16". The 2nd Battalion, which had been divided into detachments, was brought together in Freetown in April 1916 and sent to
Mombassa in Kenya, to take part in the
East African campaign against German colonial forces based in German East Africa. The five hundred and fifteen officers and men of the 2nd Battalion formed part of a column that took
Dar es Salaam on 4 September 1916. After garrison duty, the battalion subsequently played a distinguished part in the
Battle of Nyangao (German East Africa) in October 1917. For their service in East Africa the WIR earned eight
Distinguished Conduct Medals, as well as the battle honour "East Africa 1914-18". Following their active service in German Africa the 2nd Battalion of the West India Regiment was shipped to Suez in September 1918. It was then transferred to Lydda in Palestine where it spent the two remaining months of the war. Two battalions of a newly raised regiment also recruited from black Caribbean soldiers: the similarly named
British West Indies Regiment (see below), saw front line service against the Turkish Army during the Palestine Campaign. General
Allenby sent the following telegram to the governor of Jamaica: "I have great pleasure in informing you of the gallant conduct of the machine-gun section of the 1st British West Indies Regiment during two successful raids on the Turkish trenches. All ranks behaved with great gallantry under heavy rifle and shell fire and contributed in no small measure to the success of the operations".
Post war After the war, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the West India Regiment were amalgamated into a single 1st Battalion in 1920. This was disbanded in 1927. The reasons for disbandment were primarily economic. The West Indies had long been a peaceful military backwater with limited defence requirements and the substitute role under which the WIR had provided a single battalion as part of the garrison in Britain's West African possessions had become redundant as local forces were raised and expanded there. During the final post-war period only the regimental band served outside Jamaica, attending ceremonial functions in Toronto and London. The actual disbandment of the reduced West India Regiment took place at the Up Park military camp in Jamaica on 31 January 1927, in a ceremony attended by the Governor and a large crowd. A smaller event took place two weeks later at Buckingham Palace when eight officers who had served with the WIR handed over the regimental colours to King George V.
Revival in 1958 As the push for a
federation of the
British West Indies gathered steam in the 1950s, the question of defence was among the issues debated and it was decided to raise the West India Regiment (WIR) once again as the British Caribbean's single significant military unit. The recreated regiment would take on the traditions of not only the previous regular army units (including the military band which had continued to exist when the WIR had been stood down in 1927) but also of the islands' local units. It would wear the old cap-badge and play the regimental march and its officers would dine using the old mess silver. On 15 December 1958, the federal legislature passed the Defence Act, 1958 which gave the legal basis for the formation of the new WIR and detailed its structure and mandate. The West India Regiment then came into existence again on 1 January 1959, absorbing the greater part of the Jamaica Regiment at
Harman Barracks in
Kingston. In September 1960, plans were announced to raise two full battalions for the WIR, the 1st Battalion to be based in Jamaica and the 2nd Battalion in Trinidad and Tobago. The total strength of the regiment was to be 1,640, giving a total of 730 soldiers for each battalion. The WIR was intended (like other regional institutions) to promote a sense of common pride and shared heritage and would be recruited from the various islands and serve throughout the region. It would be a means of introducing the troops to islands other than their own and to build friendships between the Caribbean public and their soldiers. The recruiting for the Regiment, which was the main fighting component of the Federal Defence Force, had been carried out on a federal basis with men from all the islands being recruited on a percentage basis related to the population of each territory. By September 1961, some 200 Trinidadians were serving in the regiment. and 12 Kittitians served, though none emerged as officers. In 1960, the 1st Battalion of the WIR was organized into four companies, one of which was a Headquarters Company, and had a depot with administrative staff. Its strength was about 500 men, half of whom were Jamaican, and about 40 seconded British officers and men. The proportion of non-Jamaicans in the battalion increased to two-thirds during 1960 and 1961 although the majority of the officers remained Jamaicans. In preparation for eventual West Indian independence, some bases previously used only by the British army were transferred to the WIR, including
Newcastle which in 1959 became the Federal Defence Force Training Depot, training recruits from all over the newly formed
Federation of the West Indies. The presence of a federal military force in Jamaica presented the Jamaican government with constitutional difficulties regarding the use of WIR troops for internal security operations. As a result, a territorial auxiliary called the
Jamaica Territorial Regiment was set up alongside the 1st Battalion WIR in February 1961 (the Jamaica Territorial Regiment would be renamed the
Jamaican National Reserve in January 1962 and would later become a component of the Jamaica Defence Force). The 1st Battalion WIR was used in a variety of internal security roles prior to the enacting of Federal legislation (in May 1960) and Jamaican legislation (in December 1960) to resolve these difficulties. It was also used for internal security purposes between April 1960 and mid-1962. Ironically, one such operation was to supervise the referendum in Jamaica that resulted in the dissolution of the West Indies Federation and the WIR along with it and in the creation of the Jamaica Defence Force. The collapse of the federation resulted in the West India Regiment again being disbanded, on 30 July 1962, the constituent battalions becoming the infantry regiments of the two largest islands: • 1st Battalion — 1st Battalion,
Jamaica Regiment • 2nd Battalion — 1st Battalion,
Trinidad and Tobago Regiment • 3rd Battalion — disbanded. ==Officers==