The 1960 shooting of the Royal Hampshire soldiers – Part I

FROM THE very beginning, there was opposition to the rise of the Jamaican folk religion now known as Rastafarianism and its founder, Leonard Howard, who established a camp near Sligoville in St Catherine. The camp was called The Pinnacle because it was perched on a hilltop with a 360-degree view.

The Pinnacle was raided more than once, the last time being 1954. Leonard Howell was imprisoned for sedition more than once, but after 1954, The Pinnacle did not return to its glory days when the Rastas thrived autonomously of the Government and the wider Jamaican society.

Despite the persecution and prosecutions, the movement proliferates, and Rasta camps, such as the one in Red Hills, were being planted all over the country. The one at Red Hills was established at a place under heavy vegetation. The Rastas created a path that led to what is now known as Washington Boulevard in St Andrew.

In the early morning of Tuesday, June 21, 1960, a joint police and military party carried out a planned raid on the Red Hills camp. But when they reached, it was bereft of humans. However, they found dynamite, two-edged cutlasses, and crude bombs.

Royal Hampshire Regiment soldiers were left to guard the camp while the others went to carry out a day-long search of the areas. About 11:30 a.m., shots rang out at the camp as five men, believed to be residents of the camp, and dressed in military-like khaki attire, crept up from behind with automatic weapons.

GLEANER REPORT

“Three of them were brown, and two black; three were bearded fully; two appeared to be without beard. They were armed with long guns or automatic weapons, and one had a long revolver stack to the top of his trousers,” The Daily Gleaner reports under the front-page headline, DESPERADOES WITH RAPID-FIRE GUNS KILL TWO ROYAL HAMPSHIRE SOLDIERS, the following day.

The ‘desperadoes ‘opened fire, hitting four privates of the Royal Hampshire. Thomas Mettherell (18) died on the spot, John Philpott (22) died in hospital later in the evening, and Leonard Anthony Satterley and William Barnes were hospitalised at the military hospital at Up Park Camp in St Andrew. And from Red Hills, to Ferry, and to Sligoville, the suspects fled.

“They reached there after slipping through the police and military cordon in the Red Hills area and then headed for cover by commandeering at gun-point, a Ford van owned by Wills Battery Company and driven at the time by Mr C. Staples and shooting their way through a police and military roadblock along Spanish Town Road, near Ferry,” The Daily Gleaner says on Wednesday, June 22.

A police van, on its way to Kingston, attempted to turn around to join the chase but turned over into an embankment. The entire area, especially Sligoville where the desperadoes were sighted, was now infiltrated with personnel from the Royal Hampshire and the West India regiments. A guard was placed at the Sligoville home of Wills O. Isaacs, minister of trade and industry. Security for the premier, Norman Manley, and other ministers of government, was also revved up.

“On the way to Sligoville, people have told of being asked the way by armed men in a car, and some at Cotton Piece, about five miles from Sligoville, said the men waved to them as they sped towards Sligoville. At Cedars Valley, two miles from Sligoville, the Ford Van crashed into a telegraph pole as it attempted to negotiate a corner. The occupants fled the vehicle, carrying their weapons and ammunition, and disappeared into the bush,” The Daily Gleaner says.

“The police and military units are now concentrated in the area, having set up campaign headquarters at Mt Moreland Postal Agency, about two miles from Sligoville. Two police dogs are in the area to join the search, while a spotter-plane overflew the Sligoville area all yesterday afternoon to assist in the ground search for the wanted men.” The futile search continued throughout the night.

Premier Norman Manley appealed to citizens to help with information on the whereabouts of the desperadoes. While telling them not to be alarmed, he also said, “These people – and I am glad it is only a small number of them – are wicked enemies of your country.”

The Ministry of Home Affairs sent condolences to the family of the deceased soldiers and is quoted as saying, “There is no doubt a small element of the Rastafari movement is determined to make mischief and to do damage to the good name of this country.”

Ralston J. Powell, commissioner of the UNIA in Jamaica, founded by Marcus Garvey, said he wished to make it clear that the UNIA did not support the shootings, which he termed, “un-Jamaican” and “un-democratic”.

The Red Hills raid was part of a wider campaign to crack down on elements deemed to be a threat to the national security of the country and on places “where it is suspected ganja and/or crude weapons are stored for activities similar to those which were discovered”.

Two months prior, the police had raided the premises of the Reverend Claudius V. Henry-led Ethiopian Coptic or African Reform Church. Henry was jailed without the offer of bail on a treason felony charge. There were also raids by the police and the military on Rasta camps in Wareika Hills. Now, after destroying the camp at Red Hills, they searched relentlessly for the alleged killers of the Hampshire soldiers.