The first ever National Women’s Memorial to honour women who served in the military was erected in Trinidad on April 14, 1996 at the Chaguaramas Military History and Aviation Museum.

The project, unveiled by former PM Basdeo Panday, was the brainchild of Vietnam and South Korean war veteran Darryl O’Brien through his charity, the Darryl O’Brien Ex-Servicemen Foundation.

O’Brien said he realised in 1994 that there were no written records of the women who served in World War I (1914-1918) and WWII (1939-1945) in TT. So he began a project to find out how many women had served and who they were. He said the women would have served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS), the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS), the Red Cross, the St John’s Brigade and other services.

Speaking to WMN on October 6, O’Brien described how the women were recruited.

“There were three levels of participation in WWI or WWII with the women from TT. It was socially directed recruitment. They were to put in a unit in Piarco to do clerical work. One of the main recruiting areas was those who had secretarial experience," he said, and the main secretarial schools were Ogles’ Commercial School and St Mary's Secretarial.

"That was the local African people. Another level was the privileged people who went to England, the Trestrails, Stollmeyers, the clear-skinned French Creoles. Then the local high-white girls like the Vuurbooms and others went to Canada and Washington.”

[caption id="attachment_1119580" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Veterans honoured by the Darryl O'Brien Ex-Servicemen Foundation at the Holiday Inn on April 8, 1995, along with retired Justice Ulric Cross and O'Brien, among others. - Photo courtesy Darryl O'Brien[/caption]

In 1995, which marked the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII and the International Year of the Woman, he honoured 25 women, at least one of whom was a WWI veteran, at a ceremony at the Holiday Inn on April 8. At the ceremony, the women were presented with commemorative medals by retired Justice Ulric Cross.

In an article in the Express on April 4, 1996 (by Newsday's current editor in chief Camille Moreno), O’Brien is quoted as saying,

“Women in the British Caribbean lobbied from early in the war (1939) to be able to allowed to serve in any capacity. These women received basic military training at the St James Barracks before they were sent to the US, Canada and Britain. Although they served with distinction, most of these women have never received the recognition they deserve.”

At the unveiling of the memorial, according to a Sunday Newsday article on April 21, 1996, Panday said, “Women from Trinidad were found serving in the Royal Air Force as aircraft plotters, as flight crew equipment specialists and as general ground crew. They were part of the military units which provided entertainment for the fighting troops.”

Panday said the memorial was erected for “those women who made valuable contributions to the Britis