Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps ( BVRC ) was created in 1894 as an all - white , racially segregated reserve for the Regular Army infantry component of the Bermuda Garrison . Renamed the " Bermuda Rifles " in 1951 , it was amalgamated into the Bermuda Regiment in 1965 . Formation of the BVRC . Although Bermuda had maintained its own militia from 1612 til the end of the American War of 1812 , it had been allowed to lapse thereafter due to the large garrison of regular soldiers that had been established following US independence . The reason for the military garrison in Bermuda was ultimately the protection of the Royal Naval dockyard on Ireland Island . At the time , the primary defence was seen to be by the coastal artillery , mounted in various batteries and fortifications and manned by the Royal Garrison Artillery ( RGA ) . A voluntary reserve was created for the RGA at the same time , titled the Bermuda Militia Artillery . If , despite the best efforts of the artillery , enemy vessels succeeded in landing military forces on Bermuda ( which was most likely to be achieved using small boats to cross over the reefs to reach beaches on the South Shore ) , the infantry was expected to tackle them , in the worst scenario , making a fighting withdrawal into the forts and the dockyard itself . The BVRC was formed under an act of the Colonial Parliament , passed in 1892 . Captain E . S . B . Evans - Lombe , of the Prince of Wales Leinster Regiment , arrived in November , 1894 , to oversee the raising of the Corps , and became the first Adjutant . The BVRC was originally divided into three companies ( A , B , and C ) , one each located in the West End , the centre , and the East End of Bermuda . Headquarters was located centrally , where a fourth Company , D , was added . Twelve officers were appointed , including the Commanding Officer , Major Sir Josiah Rees , three for each of the original three companies , a Surgeon - Lieutenant and a Chaplain . To these were added four Permanent Staff , attached from the Regular Army , including Captain Evans - Lombe , a Regimental Sergeant Major ( RSM ) , and two Non - Commissioned Officers ( NCO ) . The mandated strength of the Corps was 300 , all ranks . The lowest rank in the BVRC , as with other rifle regiments , was Rifleman , which was equivalent to a private in a normal infantry regiment ( the first rifle regiments had been distinguished from infantry units by their weapons , their tactics , and their green ( camouflage ) uniforms . When the Enfield rifle replaced the musket as the standard weapon of the British Army , there ceased to be any distinction between the equipment and tactics of the infantry and those of the rifle and light infantry regiments ) . Recruitment into the BVRC was restricted to white males , aged 17 to 50 , although the barrier to non - whites was achieved by requiring volunteers to be members of a rifle club . All of the private rifle clubs , at the time , restricted their membership to whites . The terms of service for the Bermudian volunteers were similar to those of Volunteers in Britain . Enlistment was voluntary , and a member could leave the Corps by giving fourteen days notice , except while embodied for active service , or training on a military camp - when he also became subject to Military Law . Whereas Volunteers in Britain were originally expected to pay for their uniforms and equipment ( including their rifles ) , Bermudian volunteers were issued these . The uniform was rifle green with black buttons , in conformity with other rifle regiments throughout the Empire , but khaki uniforms were issued from 1898 . A minimum attendance at drills , and completion of annual inspection and musketry tests , was required for a volunteer to be returned as ' efficient ' . The Corps could be called out in times of War , or in response to an invasion , but volunteers could not be sent overseas without their consent . The Great War . The BVRC continued to train and develop over the next two decades . When war was declared in 1914 , it was embodied to fulfill its role within the Garrison . As the economy would have suffered from taking so many young men from their jobs , members continued to perform their civil jobs , before taking their turns standing sentry at the many places around Bermuda that the BVRC was tasked with guarding . The primary task the BVRC was given was guarding the coastline , but it filled other roles as well . Bermuda , as a whole , filled a number of roles , during the War , the most important of which was as a staging point for trans - Atlantic convoys , overseen from the Royal Navy ' s dockyard on Ireland Island . Overseas Contingents . Despite operating under this constraint , the BVRC quickly formed a detachment in December , 1914 , to send overseas to the Western Front . This contingent was composed of volunteers who were already serving , as well as those who enlisted specifically for the Front . The Contingent trained at Warwick Camp through the winter and spring . It consisted of Captain Richard Tucker and 88 other ranks . As there was a shortage of officers , the Governor and Commander - in - Chief , Lieutenant - General Sir George Bullock , filled the role of Adjutant , a position normally filled by a Captain . As a consequence , the contingent was popularly known as " Bullock ' s Boys " . The Contingent left Bermuda for England in June 1915 , travelling to Canada , then crossing the Atlantic in company with a much larger Canadian draft . It had been hoped that the Contingent could be attached to the Second Battalion of The Lincolnshire Regiment ( 2 Lincolns ) , which had been on Garrison in Bermuda when the War began . When the Contingent arrived at the Lincolns depot in Grimsby , the 2nd Battalion was already in France and it was attached to 1 Lincolns , instead ( at least one Bermudian , though not from the BVRC , Corporal G . C . Wailes , did serve with the 2nd Licolns ) . Although commanders at the Regimental Depot had wanted to break the Contingent apart , re - enlist its members as Lincolns , and distribute them as replacements , a letter from the War Office ensured that they remained together as a unit , under their own badge . The contingent arrived in France in July 1915 , the first colonial volunteer unit to reach the Front , as an extra company attached to 1 Lincolns , and remained as such til the following summer , by when its strength had been too reduced by casualties to compose a full company , having lost 50 % of its remaining strength at Gueudecourt on 25 September 1916 . The survivors of the First Contingent were merged with a Second Contingent , of one officer and 36 other ranks , who had trained in Bermuda as Vickers machine gun ners , which had recently arrived from Bermuda . The Second Contingent was stripped of its Vickers machine guns ( which had been collected , in the Army , under a new regiment , the Machine Gun Corps ) . The merged contingents were retrained as Lewis light machinegunners , and provided 12 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 enlisted men from 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 flying ace Arthur Rowe Spurling and Henry J . Watlington , who both went to the Royal Flying Corps ( at least seventeen other Bermudians would serve the RFC , including another BVRC rifleman , later Major Cecil Montgomery - Moore , who detached from the Corps in Bermuda , and earned the DFC in France . An NCO from the overseas contingent also transferred to the RFC ) . In 1918 , 1 Lincolns was withdrawn from France and sent to Ireland to combat the army of the Irish Republic , declared in 1916 . The BVRC benefited from Army Order No . 1 , which increased the pay of most soldiers in the British Army – but not the British West Indies Regiment , which was treated as being " native " . Between the wars . At the end of the First World War , both the BVRC and BMA were demobilised and disembodied , though both were soon rebuilt through new recruitment . Many former members of the BVRC re - enlisted . In Britain , the Volunteer Force had been re - organised in 1908 , absorbing the remaining militia and Yeomanry units , to form the Territorial Army ( TA ) . Among other changes , the TA introduced terms of service . A volunteer could no longer quit with fourteen days notice , but had to complete the term for which he was enlisted , as was the case for professional soldiers in the British Army . The re - embodied BVRC was re - organised as a " Territorial " , although it remained nominally a Volunteer unit . Its association with the Lincolnshire Regiment was made official , with the Lincolns taking on the paternal role it played with its own Territorial battalions . A third local Territorial , the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers ( BVE ) , was formed in 1931 , incorporating the signals section of the BVRC . The Regular Army artillery and engineering detachments to the garrison were withdrawn in 1928 , with the BMA and BVE , respectively , assuming complete responsibility for their vacated roles . There would no longer be a full infantry battalion in Bermuda . Instead , a detached company would be provided from the battalion sent to Jamaica . The Second World War . The BVRC began mobilisation on 3 September 1939 , even before news was received of the declaration of war , when Britain issued Germany with an ultimatum to withdraw from Poland . As in the previous war , it took up positions guarding the coastlines , but its duties soon grew more numerous . Members of the Territorials were called up for the duration , and conscription was introduced to increase their strengths in October , 1940 . Another infantry unit , the Bermuda Militia Infantry , had been raised in 1939 , recruiting blacks , and linked administratively with the BMA . The infantry duties of the Garrison were split between these two Territorials , and the detachment from the 2nd Battalion , King ' s Shropshire Light Infantry ( KSLI ) at Prospect Camp . Also as in the previous war , a Contingent was soon detached , composed of volunteers for service at sharper ends of the War . A few members of the BVE and the BMA travelled with this contingent to England , where the BVRC members were re - enlisted into the Lincolnshire Regiment . This Contingent included two officers , Robert Brownlow - Tucker and Anthony ' Toby ' Smith , who became Company Commanders in the Lincolns before the War ' s end . They were among four Bermudians who would reach the rank of Major with the Lincolns ( although one , Glyn Gilbert , never served in the BVRC ) . Due to fears of stripping the Garrison , a moratorium was placed on further drafts being sent overseas from Bermudian units . This moratorium was not lifted until 1943 , when both the BVRC and the Bermuda Militia ( the BMI and BMA together ) detached contingents to send overseas . The two contingents trained together at Prospect Camp , before going their separate ways . The BVRC left Bermuda in May , 1944 , to join the Lincolns in England . The contingent members were rebadged as Lincolns , and most joined 2 Lincolns in Belgium , as the Allies advanced into North - West Europe . They had travelled as part of a Company of reinforcements under the command of Bermudian Major ' Toby ' Smith , who was killed - in - action shortly after , along with three other Bermudians . While in England , eleven of second contingent had volunteered to join the Airborne Division , training as parachutists . Post - Second World War . After the War , the BVRC men , who had travelled to Europe as units , returned individually , as each waited for his ' number ' to come up . The BVRC and the BMA sent contingents to the Victory Parade in London . In 1946 , however , both units were demobilised and reduced to skeleton command structures . The other two Territorials were both disbanded , but the BVRC and BMA were brought back up to strength in 1951 . At that time , the BVRC was retitled the " Bermuda Rifles " . The loss of the word ' volunteer ' was probably prudent , as conscription was re - introduced to both units . In 1953 , it was announced that the HM Dockyard would be closed . This meant that the military garrison , which had existed primarily to guard the naval base , would be closed , also . The last Regular Army unit ( a detchment of the Duke of Cornwall ' s Light Infantry ) was withdrawn by 1955 , and the Dockyard closed in 1958 . 1953 was also the last year of the Imperial Defence Plan , under which the Bermudian units had been tasked , and the year in which the last of the coastal artillery was taken out of use . The BMA , while still wearing Royal Artillery uniform and cap badge , converted to the infantry role . With no tasking under the War Office , and its successor , the Ministry of Defence , or under NATO , both units might have been disbanded , but the Bermuda Government , for reasons of its own , chose to maintain them entirely at its own expense . A new role began to appear as Bermuda moved into the 1960s , when increasing tension resulting from the racial division and inequity of Bermudian society occasionally spilled over into violence . By then , it was rapidly becoming politically , as well as economically , inexpedient to maintain two , racially divided infantry units . As a result , the Bermuda Rifles and the Bermuda Militia Artillery were amalgamated in September , 1965 , to form the Bermuda Regiment . The Bermuda Regiment badge is a combination of the Maltese Cross of the BVRC badge , and the field gun of the Royal Artillery badge . The unit maintains the history and traditions of both of its predecessors . However the Battle Honors of the BVRC were not passed on . This is due to the stand down between 1946 and 1948 . Attempts to rectify this have not been successful due to strict British Army policies in regards to those honors . Part Of . Bermuda Military of Bermuda Bermuda Volunteer / Territorial Army Units 1895 - 1965