World War Ii And The Caribbean

World War II and the Caribbean focuses on one of the most exciting periods in the history of the region as the Caribbean territories faced incredible upheaval and opportunity during the war years. Local operations, cultural mores and the region's international image were forever changed by its pivotal role in the war effort. The chapters in this volume respond to the need for information and analysis on the wide-ranging impact of the war on territories in the region (English, French, Spanish and Dutch). The contributors cover topics such as the economic consequences of wartime activity (the food crisis and the decline of the agricultural sector), while highlighting the opportunities that arose for industry and enterprise in the Caribbean; the accommodations made by the European imperial nations and their attempts to tighten control over their Caribbean territories during the war; the intervention of the Americans in the region; the social impact of the war (the migration of German-speaking refugees and other groups) and the effects on Caribbean societies of this contact; and the impact of the war on public health and the broad spectrum experiences of women (as volunteers, nurses and sex-workers). This well-researched volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of military and conflict history, twentieth-century Caribbean history, and the general reader.

Despite Puerto Rico being the hub of the United States' naval response to the German blockade of the Caribbean, there is very little published scholarship on the island's heavy involvement in the global conflict of World War II. Recently, a new generation of scholars has been compiling interdisciplinary research with fresh insights about the profound wartime changes, which in turn generated conditions for the rapid economic, social, and political development of postwar Puerto Rico. The island's subsequent transformation cannot be adequately grasped without tracing its roots to the war years. Island at War brings together outstanding new research on Puerto Rico and makes it accessible in English. It covers ten distinct topics written by nine distinguished scholars from the Caribbean and beyond. Contributors include experts in the fields of history, political science, sociology, literature, journalism, communications, and engineering. Topics include US strategic debate and war planning for the Caribbean on the eve of World War II, Puerto Rico as the headquarters of the Caribbean Sea frontier, war and political transition in Puerto Rico, the war economy of Puerto Rico, the German blockade of the Caribbean in 1942, and the story of a Puerto Rican officer in the Second World War and Korea. With these essays and others, Island at War represents the cutting edge of scholarship on the role of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in World War II and its aftermath.

In a compelling story of the installation and operation of U.S. bases in the Caribbean colony of Trinidad during World War II, Harvey Neptune examines how the people of this British island contended with the colossal force of American empire-building at a critical time in the island's history. The U.S. military occupation between 1941 and 1947 came at the same time that Trinidadian nationalist politics sought to project an image of a distinct, independent, and particularly un-British cultural landscape. The American intervention, Neptune shows, contributed to a tempestuous scene as Trinidadians deliberately engaged Yankee personnel, paychecks, and practices flooding the island. He explores the military-based economy, relationships between U.S. servicemen and Trinidadian women, and the influence of American culture on local music (especially calypso), fashion, labor practices, and everyday racial politics. Tracing the debates about change among ordinary and privileged Trinidadians, he argues that it was the poor, the women, and the youth who found the most utility in and moved most avidly to make something new out of the American presence. Neptune also places this history of Trinidad's modern times into a wider Caribbean and Latin American perspective, highlighting how Caribbean peoples sometimes wield "America" and "American ways" as part of their localized struggles.

On February 16th, 1942 a Nazi U-boat brazenly shelled the huge Lago oil refinery on Aruba and torpedoed the tankers Pedernales and Oranjestad, both tied up in Aruba's San Nicolas Harbour. Oranjestad was sunk and Pedernales badly damaged. The damage to the refinery was minor, but that same night other U-boats attacked and sank four more tankers in the waters between Aruba and Curaçao and Venezuela. It was the long night of the tankers and the opening salvo of a two year struggle to dominate the Caribbean Sea. In the last twelve days of February, 1942 alone the submarines sank 17 more ships, most of them tankers. Long Night of the Tankersis the story of the German effort to cut the Caribbean off from Britain, the United States andCanada and the desperate defence mounted by the Allies, along with a half dozen other Caribbean and South American nations. The loss of the oil threatened Britain's ability to wage war; the loss of the tankers almost strangled the oil supply to America's industrial north east. When even Churchill and Roosevelt began to worry about the vulnerable Caribbean, the US and its allies poured thousands of men, hundreds of aircraft and dozens of ships into the Caribbean region, organized an effective convoy system and rallied the Central and South American nations against the Germans. By mid 1944, the Caribbean had become an Allied lake and the submarine threat was defeated. But to this day, the old timers of the islands still remember the oil-soaked beaches, the explosions in the night and the bodies of dead sailors washed ashore that marked this dramatic chapter in the Second World War.

Reprint of the account of WWII submarine operations in the Caribbean, originally published by Paria Pub. Co., Trinidad in 1988, with a new (one page) foreword. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book highlights the important, yet often forgotten, roles that Jamaican women played in the World Wars. Predicated on the notion that warfare has historically been an agent of change, Dalea Bean contends that traces of this truism were in Jamaica and illustrates that women have historically been part of the war project, both as soldiers and civilians. This ground-breaking work fills a gap in the historiography of Jamaican women by positioning the World Wars as watershed periods for their changing roles and status in the colony. By unearthing critical themes such as women’s war work as civilians, recruitment of men for service in the British West India Regiment, the local suffrage movement in post-Great War Jamaica, and Jamaican women’s involvement as soldiers in the British Army during the Second World War, this book presents the most extensive and holistic account of Jamaican women’s involvement in the wars.