The American Occupation February 10
My binoculars seem to trigger childhood memories for the old Trini exec on the seawall. “See any submarines?“ he asks nostalgically. Three-quarter century ago, “a t’ousand boats“ would have filled the Gulf before us. Today, spanning 180 degrees of open water, there is a total of 8 merchant vessels, the ferry speeding south to San Fernando, and a departing cruise ship the size of a capsized Chrysler Building. Yet it is what hides beneath the surface that captivates the old Trini. He is still haunted by U-Boats.
Before the US had even joined the fight against Hitler, the military readied for war in Trinidad. By 1945, there were more than 300,000 Yanks and Brits living on the island, building roads, expanding ports, erecting communication systems, securing the Panama Canal, coveting the Venezuelan oilfields, and training deep sout’ for prolonged jungle warfare in Asia.
In ’39, at the start of the war, the Navy established the Construction Battalion—the Seabees they were called by their acronym—who comprised a skilled civilian workforce sent abroad in the war effort. By 1941, the Seabees were building naval bases and supportive infrastructure far abroad: Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Guam, Bermuda, Newfoundland, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad.
The Atlantic and Pacific theaters merged at just one point on the map, Panama, so the Canal zone naturally attracted U-Boats, like corbeaux to a waterhole. Indeed, more than a dozen ships were torpedoed by German and Italian submarines just off shore around Chaguaramas and Maracas. The merchant fleet remained under constant siege until the Allies forged a naval blockade in the southern Caribbean. The Lend Lease Act with Britain allowed Yankees to take control of Barbados, Grenada, and Tobago. The commanding admirals of the South Atlantic Fleet lived in confiscated Victorian homes on the Queen’s Park Savannah.
The old-timer recalls those years with bitter pride. Many Trini’s served during the war, his dad at Carlsen Airfield, a giant air base 20 miles south of the capital. During the dawning nuclear age, the Seabees were improbably assigned to build a city of blimp hangars in Chaguanas. The masterminds must have been sucking hydrogen gas on the Maraval Road, in Whitehall.
The social changes during the war were extreme and irrevocable, as American military and oil men crashed into island culture with overwhelming force. In 1943, Lord Invader had a calypso hit with “Rum and Coca Cola,“ which chronicles what happened after the boys stormed the Cumana Point in Carenage. Soon after, the Andrew Sisters, America’s blond sweethearts of the airwaves, recorded a wildly popular version of the song, apparently with no clue that the lyrics are about prostitution and imperialism.
And when de Yankeys first went to Trinidad,
Some ah de young girls Were more than glad,
Deh said that de Yankeys treat dem Nice
and deh give dem the better Price.
Deh buy rum and coca-cola, went Down Point Cumana,
Both mothers and daughters, workin Fuh deh yankey dollar.
And look, I had ah little chick De odda day,
But her mother came and took her Away,
Ah self and her mother and her sisters
Went tuh make out with some soldiers.
Deh bought rum and coca-cola, went Down Point Cumana,
Both mothers and daughters, workin Fuh deh yankey dollar.
Deh have some Aristos in Port Of Spain
I know alot but ah won't call names,
and in the day wouldn't gih you a right
But yuh go see dem with deh foreigners late at night.
Drinkin rum and coco-cola, goin down Point Cumana,
Both mothers and daughters, workin Fuh deh yankey dollar.
I know a couple who got married one Afternoon,
An was tuh go tuh Miami on deh Honey- Moon,
But de bride run away, with de soldier Lad
and de stupid husband went starin Mad.
Because rum and coco-cola, goin down Point Cumana.
Both mothers and daughters, workin Fuh deh yankey dollar.
We won the war after all. And in a few years, the Caribbean Islands eventually won their independence from occupation. These achievements earn annual celebration and remembrance, but the past is always bittersweet. Like the old Trini exec says, it is the Jumbie, the bogeyman, hiding beneath the surface that still haunts.