Of the five Bajan World War 1 heroes buried in Westbury Cemetery, David Roachford was the last to die, on 2 November 1919. He was 22 years old.
Although buried in the parish of St Michael, it would appear that David came from St George which is where his next of kin, his father, lived when he enlisted on 24 November 1916 at the age of 20.
St George is in the middle of the island of Barbados. One of only two land-locked parishes – the other is St Thomas – and it borders 6 of the 11 other parishes, more than any other.
Like Fitz Grandison who is also buried at Westbury rather than his native St Peter, David had Tuberculosis (TB). It is unlikely that either St Peter or St George had any facilities to treat TB patients so perhaps they were both hospitalised in Bridgetown until their deaths and were buried at the most convenient cemetery?
Even in supposedly more advanced countries such as England, the treatment of TB was in its infancy. The world-famous Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire, England began life as one of the earliest hospitals for the treatment and rehabilitation of TB sufferers as relatively recently as 1916/17.
Soldiers dreaded the diagnosis of TB as it almost certainly signified an early death. TB accounted for 13.5% of discharges from the forces in World War 1.
Although David enlisted in November 1916 he had to wait until 11 July 1917 before setting sail for Brest in France as part of the 2nd contingent of volunteers.
When he landed in France on 31 July 1917 the weather was cool and wet. Very wet. 21.7mm of rain fell on 31 July 1917. Nor did the rain stop and 1917 became one of the wettest years on record. Something that would have severe consequences for David and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
David was a Private in the 8th Battalion of the British West Indies Regiment. He would have been responsible for servicing and supporting troops on the front line in Northern France and Flanders in Belgium.
At 3.15 am on the day of David’s arrival in France the 3rd Battle of Ypres commenced. It lasted until November 1917 and 550,000 Allied and German soldiers were killed, wounded or lost. David and his fellow volunteers would have been rushed to Northern France to support this effort.
We can be certain that David served in the Ypres area as on 21 and 22 October 1917 he was treated by the 69th Field Ambulance. The 69th was attached to the 23rd Division for the entire War and we know that the 23rd fought at Ypres until the end of October when they were posted to Italy. While it’s good to know precisely where David served it means he had to endure some of the most hellish experiences ever known to man.
Conditions were so bad that soldiers, guns, horses and tanks sank in the mud. The bodies of over 50,000 soldiers from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth were lost in the Battle of Ypres, never to be recovered. The men are commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Flanders which lists the names of each of the 54,389 soldiers who fell at Ypres and have no known grave.
David’s medical record is a vivid summary of the illness and disease troops suffered. In October 1917 he was diagnosed with pyrexia (fever) and in February 1918 he had scabies, followed by pneumonia later that month.
Scabies is a contagious skin infestation caused by parasitic mites which were rife in the trenches. Soldiers would often sleep in their uniforms which soon became riddled with mites, the disease quickly spreading to other soldiers in the crowded living conditions.
David was unwell once more in October 1918 when the medical officers seemed unsure whether he was suffering from pneumonia or TB. He must have recovered because his next illness wasn’t until March 1919 when he was, ominously, reported to have phthisis, which is a wasting of the body associated with TB.
Sadly, this was to be no false alarm on this occasion and David was declared medically unfit for service on 11 April 1919. He had TB. There was nothing to be gained by retaining a solider suffering from this disease as they would not have been militarily effective and there was always the risk they could spread the illness to others. Treating such a solider would be futile too as there was no known cure. Even the ground-breaking hospital at Papworth had only 9 patients in 1916.
David sailed from Cherbourg, France on 14 April 1919 arriving in Bridgetown on 28 April 1919.
There was then a short gap until 3 June 1919 when a medical board was able to convene and examine David. They recommended that he be formally discharged as no longer physically fit for War service.
No doubt David would have been awarded a pension although such was the slow pace of bureaucracy in those days it is quite possible he had not received a penny of it before he died. As can be seen from the letter (below) of 24 February 1920 from the British West Indies Regiment Headquarters in Jamaica, it took 11 weeks simply to notify the Ministry of Pensions that David had passed away on 2 November 1919.
(Letter from British West Indies Regiment Headquarters notifying the Ministry of Pensions of David’s death)
David was entitled to the British War Medal and Victory Medal but records show that these were unclaimed.
We will probably never know if David ever returned to his home parish of St George or whether he spent his remaining days after his return to Barbados receiving treatment in hospital at Bridgetown. What we do know is that his short life will be forever commemorated by his Commonwealth War Grave in Westbury Cemetery, Bridgetown.
(David Roachford – Commonwealth War Grave, Westbury Cemetery, Bridgetown)