Bermuda Volunteer / Territorial Army Units 1895 – 1965 The Volunteer ( later , Territorial ) Army units raised in Bermuda were created as part of an Imperial military garrison that existed primarily to protect the Royal Naval base , centred about the HM Dockyard on Ireland Island . The British Army Following The Crimea . Following the Crimean War , it was painfully clear to the War Office that , with half of the British Army distributed between garrisons around the globe it had insufficient forces available to quickly assemble and deploy an effective expeditionary force to a new area of conflict reducing unacceptably the British Isles ' own defences . What was painfully clear to the citizenry of those Isles , when ( following an assassination attempt on Emperor Napoleon III ) there was a threat of invasion by the much larger French Army in 1858 , was that Britain ' s military defences had already been stretched invitingly thin , even without sending a third of the Army to another Crimea . This vulnerability to a potential European invasion continued to be underlined by subsequent events on the continent : on April 29 , 1859 , war broke out between France and the Austrian Empire ( an outgrowth of the Second Italian War of Independence ) , and there were fears that Britain might be caught up in a wider European conflict . The Austro - Prussian War of 1866 , and the Franco - Prussian War of 1870 - 71 ) , and by the development of steamships , railroads , and of breech - loading and repeating rifle s . Creation of The Volunteer Force . In response to the perils Britain faced following the Crimea the Volunteer Force was formed as a ready reserve to the British Army . On May 12 , 1859 , the Secretary of State for War , Jonathan Peel issued a circular letter to lieutenants of counties in England , Wales and Scotland , authorising the formation of volunteer rifle corps ( VRC , a . k . a . corps of rifle volunteers and rifle volunteer corps ) , and of artillery corps in defended coastal towns . Volunteer corps were to be raised under the provisions of the Volunteer Act 1804 ( 44 Geo . 3 c . 54 ) , which had been used to form local defence forces during the Napoleonic Wars . Their part - time soldiers would serve voluntarily , unlike those of the militia , gathering in their spare time to practice drill and marksmanship . Volunteers were unpaid , and , indeed , were expected to pay for their own uniforms and equipment . Although the militia had become largely moribund , and the yeomanry were unable to mount a useful military force , the Volunteer Force quickly became very popular , and , despite the initial reservations of professional officers , the War Office took an increasing interest in its organisation , equipment and training . With the British Army traditionally underfunded , to the benefit of the Royal Navy , the advantages of this large , but economical reserve of trained soldiery were inescapable to the generals . The Volunteer Force provided the pattern subsequently used in creating volunteer units in Bermuda . Originally corps were to consist of approximately 100 all ranks under the command of a captain , with some localities having subdivisions of thirty men under a lieutenant . The purpose of the rifle corps was to harass the invading enemy ’ s flanks , while artillery corps were to man coastal guns and forts . Although not mentioned in the circular letter , engineer corps were also formed , principally to place underwater mines for port defence . The Territorial Army . By 1907 , when its civilian administration teetered on the brink of insolvency , the Volunteer Army had become indispensable to British defence planning , as well as an enabler of the Regular Army ' s drawing its own troops away from home defence stations . Consequently , the Government took over the Volunteer Army completely , re - organising it as the Territorial Army in 1908 . In addition to the introduction of terms of service for volunteers , this meant that most of the units , themselves , lost their unique identities , becoming Territorial battalions of the local Regular Army regiment . At the same time , the remaining Militia and Yeomanry units were folded into the Territorial Army . Development of British Army 1860 - 1908 . The British Army ' s response to the situation it found itself in , following The Crimea , was a series of reforms , redeployments , and re - structuring that stretched over the next fifty years . It was realised that a standing body of soldiers was required in Britain , composed of all of the combat and support elements required for either countering an invasion of Britain or for dispatch to another campaign like The Crimea . As the Government was unwilling to fund an actual increase of its manpower , the Army could only accomplish this by withdrawing units from Imperial garrisons , and by placing much of the obligation for home defence onto the Volunteer Army . Withdrawing units from much of the Empire would have resulted in native insurrections and border insurgencies , or invited attacks by powerful neighbours ( this was especially true in India , with its internal intrigues , Russian and Turkish neighbours , and Afghanistan as a buffer state ) . The Army ' s solution was to withdraw or reduce garrisons in sleepy locations such as Bermuda . Bermuda was far too prominent a naval base for the Army to abandon entirely but as the range and effectiveness of artillery increased , the number of Garrison Artillery batteries was steadily reduced . This process was accelerated at the end of the 19th century as the Dockyard ' s own ships assumed the responsibility for its defence . The infantry posted to the Island was also steadily reduced . By the 1870s the military garrison , at 2 , 200 , amounted to nearly twenty percent of Bermuda ' s population , but in the 1880s it was reduced by 1 , 600 . Although its size was briefly restored above 2 , 000 regular soldiers , the trend would remain the steady reduction from then on . The Army also went through a major restructuring , the Cardwell reforms that saw individual battalions grouped to form county regiments , and , in 1908 , the British Expeditionary Force ( BEF ) was formed . Extension of Volunteers to Overseas Territories . The War Office was eager to extend the Volunteer movement to Bermuda ( and other territories ) to allow the Regular Army garrison to be reduced . However , although volunteer units sprang up in other territories , in Bermuda there was considerable resistance from the Colonial Government . The Bermudian government had two concerns : Firstly , it feared being saddled with the total cost of maintaining the entire garrison ( since allowing its Militia , once the only military force protecting the Colony , to lapse after the American War of 1812 , the Bermuda Gorvernment had contributed nothing , materially or financially , to the defences . Other than during a brief period of profiting from the American Civil War , Bermuda ' s economy had been ailing since its shipbuilding and maritime trade had begun to recede under the assault of steam and steel . Defence infrastructure had , in fact , been the primary crutch upon which Bermuda had limped through the middle of the Century ) ; Secondly , the social discontent that would be stoked by raising either racially integrated or segregated units . The Bermuda Government dealt with its concerns by ignoring the pleas of the War Office until the 1890s , when the Secretary of State for Defence held ransom their plans to develop the emerging tourism industry with American investment into a new hotel ( The Princess ) . Foreign ownership of land had been banned lest an enemy state ( by inference , the USA ) use a threat to its nationals ' interests as a pretext for invasion . There were also plans to improve the shipping channel into St . George ' s Harbour , intended to prevent St . George ' s being left behind by the Age of Steam , but which also would have eased the task of a naval force landing troops . The Secretary insisted that he could not approve of either project while Bermuda contributed nothing towards its own defence . The result was that the Secretary got his Bermudian volunteer units , and Bermuda got its hotel and its shipping channel . Raising of Voluntary Units in Bermuda . Three Acts were passed in 1892 by the Bermudian parliament , authorising the creation of three separate military units . The Bermuda Militia Act 1892 , No . 3 , authorised the creation of a battery of garrison artillery . Called the Bermuda Militia Artillery ( BMA ) , this unit recruited part - time volunteers , and was not a Militia in the sense of the compulsory Militias of old . This unit assisted the Regular Royal Garrison Artillery ( RGA ) gunners , at first , but , as its numbers and experience grew , it began providing its own firing parties , and ultimately took over completely from the Regular gunners after the Great War . The bulk of the BMA volunteers were Black , although the Officer Corps was originally restricted to Whites . The Bermuda Militia Act 1892 , No . 4 . This authorised the creation of a Company of infantry , intended to be titled the Bermuda Volunteer Infantry Force , but which was actually named the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps ( BVRC ) . This numbered 300 all ranks . BVRC recruitment was effectively restricted to Whites , from the outset . The third act of 1892 , The Bermuda Coast Defense Act , 1892 , No . 5 , called for the creation of the Coast Volunteers . This was to have been a unit of miners , assisting with the submarine mine defences of the colony . In the event , only the BMA and the BVRC were raised . These two units began recruiting in 1895 and 1894 , respectively . In the years leading to World War I , the two units concentrated on increasing their sizes and efficiencies . Their roles within the garrison were increased as their experience and capabilities grew , and as the regular garrison was slowly reduced . The Great War . Both units were embodied , and fulfilled their obligations to the Garrison during the Great War ( the First World War ) . Additionally , each sent two contingents of volunteers for service on the Western Front - the BVRC contingents being attached to the Lincolnshire Regiment , and the BMA serving as part of the larger RGA detachment to the field . Although both units prepared to send detachments to Europe soon after the start of hostilities , the BMA was stymied in its first attempt . The BVRC raised its First Contingent in December 1914 , both from existing soldiers and from new recruits . The contingent was embodied , and trained at Warwick Camp over the winter of 1914 - 1915 , and was then despatched to the Canadian Maritimes , where they joined a larger Canadian detachment for the trans - Atlantic crossing . Becoming an extra company of 1 Lincolns , they reached the Western Front in France in July 1914 - the first colonial volunteer unit to reach the Front . By the following summer , the First Contingent ' s strength had been too reduced by casualties to compose a full company , having lost 50 % of what had then remained of its strength at Gueudecourt on 25 September 1916 . The survivors were merged with the newly arrived Second Contingent and re - trained as Light - machinegunners , providing twelve Lewis gun teams to 1 Lincolns headquarters . By the War ' s end , the two contingents had lost over 75 % of their combined strength . Forty had died on active service , one received the O . B . E , and six the Military Medal . Sixteen members of the two contingents were commissioned , including the Sergeant Major of the First Contingent , Colour - Sergeant R . C . Earl , who would become Commanding Officer of the BVRC after the War . Some of those commissioned moved to other units in the process , including to the Royal Flying Corps . In 1918 , 1 Lincolns was withdrawn from France and sent to Ireland to combat the army of the Irish Republic , declared in 1916 . The two BMA contingents served as part of the larger Royal Garrison Artillery detachment to the Western Front . The first , 201 officers and men , under the command of Major Thomas Melville Dill , left for France on 31 May 1916 . A second , smaller , contingent left Bermuda on 6 May 1917 , and was merged with the first contingent in France . Titled the " Bermuda Contingent , Royal Garrison Artillery " , it served primarily in ammunition supply , at dumps , and in delivering ammunition to batteries in the field . The Contingent served at the Somme from June to December 1916 . They were then moved away from the Front , serving on docks until April 1917 , when they were attached to the Canadian Corps at Vimy Ridge , serving in the battle for Vimy Ridge . They were at Ypres from 24 June , until 22 October , where three men were killed , and several wounded . Two men received the Military Medal . In 1917 , Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig , the Commander - in - Chief in France , wrote his own commendation of the Contingents ' , praising their gallantry and devotion to duty . In Bermuda , the BMA was demobilised on 31 December 1918 , and when the overseas contingent returned in July 1919 , it was to no unit . Thirty men who chose to remain on , temporarily re - enlisted in the RGA , and the rest were demobilised . The Bermuda Volunteer Engineers . The cost of the voluntary units at Bermuda was originally covered by annual stipends to the Bermuda government , from the War Office . Affected by the popular patriotic fervour , the Bermuda government began its own voluntary contributions during the Great War . From January 1928 , the Bermuda Government began paying a percentage of the pay of all members of the military garrison . From January 1930 , it also agreed to pay contributions , based on the size of the local population , to the cost of Imperial defence . The Military garrison began to be reduced considerably , following the Great War , with most of its duties falling on the part - time units , which were re - organised in line with the Territorial Army . The submarine miners were proposed to be withdrawn in 1928 , and a territorial unit formed to take over the operation of the electric search lights at the remaining artillery batteries . This unit , the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers ( BVE ) , also absorbed the signals section of the BVRC , and provided wireless teams to the other units . Bermuda Militia Infantry . By 1939 , the active coastal artillery was reduced to two guns , the manpower requirements of which could hardly make maximum use of the available supply . As it was not desired to integrate the BVRC , a second infantry unit was raised , titled the Bermuda Militia Infantry , and grouped administratively with the BMA . Second World War . Local territorials were embodied on 3 September 1939 , with the declaration of War on Germany by Britain and France . Whereas volunteers had continued to perform their civilian jobs , during the Great War , they were embodied to serve full - time for the duration of the Second World War . The strengths of the units were quickly increased as Bermuda , again , assumed a position of great importance as the point of formation of trans - Atlantic convoys . As in the Great War , the BVRC soon detached a contingent for service overseas , with the Lincolnshire Regiment . A small number of soldiers from the BMA and BVE joined with that contingent , travelling with it to England in June 1940 , before separating to join other units . Concerned of stripping the garrison , however , the War Office placed a moratorium on any further drafts being sent overseas . Some members of the local units still managed to find their ways to the sharper ends of the War , primarily by volunteering to train as pilots at the Bermuda Flying School , on Darrell ' s Island . Those who gained their ' wings ' were sent on to the Air Ministry to be assigned to the Royal Air Force , or the Fleet Air Arm . The moratorium against drafts was not lifted ' til 1943 , when the likelihood of a German attack on the Island had diminished . The Bermuda Militia ( the BMA and BMI , together ) and the BVRC each detached contingents for overseas service , which trained together at Prospect Camp before being sent their separate ways . The BVRC Contingent was sent to the Lincolns , as with its Great War predecessors . The Bermuda Militia Contingent was sent to North Carolina , where it formed the training cadre of a new regiment , the Caribbean Regiment , which served briefly in Italy before escorting POWs to Egypt , where it remained ' til the end of hostilities . Post war . After the War , the BMI and the BVE , along with the Home Guard formed during the conflict , were disbanded . The BVRC and the BMA were both reduced to skeleton operations in 1946 , but were brought up to strength in 1948 . Conscription was re - introduced to both units , although they remained part - time . The BVRC was retitled the Bermuda Rifles . The BMA converted to the infantry role in 1953 , when the last coastal artillery batteries were taken out of use . 1953 was also the year that the closure of the HM Dockyard , the defence of which was the justification of the military garrison , was announced , and the last year in which an Imperial Defence Plan , under which the local units were tasked , was released . The last Regular Army detachment was withdrawn by 1955 , and the Dockyard closed in 1958 . For reasons of its own , the Bermuda Government chose to maintain the two Territorial units entirely at its own expense . Amalgamation . Many Bermudians have felt , since , that maintaining a TA infantry unit which has no military role under the ( British ) Ministry Of Defence , or NATO , is an unnecessary expense . Maintaining two such units was clearly an unnecessary duplication of effort . The racial disharmony which these two units exemplified was rapidly becoming politically incorrect , as the Island was affected by the equal rights movement in America . Consequently , in September 1965 , the two units were amalgamated to form the Bermuda Regiment .