Johnny Smythe
RAF Navigator, Senior Officer on Empire Windrush
Johnny spent 18 months as a prisoner of war until the camp was liberated by Soviet forces in May 1945. Returning to Britain, Eddy explains that Johnny remained in the RAF and was seconded to the Colonial Office. “Part of his duties was to look after the welfare of the West Indian ex-service personnel. This could be quite a difficult task, because a lot of these young men were in a different country, and experiencing a different culture. When they were in the RAF, they had a purpose, routine, discipline and now that the war was all over, inevitably there were issues. There would be fights and general indiscipline leading to him having to take a lot of them under his wing. In fact, that’s where his legal career started because he was called on to defend some of these men in court martial situations. Even though he had no legal training, he was a very eloquent individual and he could present the defence arguments well, resulting in their acquittal.”
Before Johnny embarked on his legal career, he continued as a Welfare Officer and in 1948, he was commissioned to transport ex-service personnel back to the Caribbean, on board the ship Empire Windrush.
Growing up in West Africa, Johnny Smythe had no idea that he would go on to play a key role in shaping modern Britain.
Born in 1915, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Johnny was 25 years old when he joined the RAF, answering the call from Britain to join the fight against fascism in war-torn Europe. Johnny travelled by ship to Britain where he trained as a pilot. However, his high scores in the maths tests saw him being selected and retrained as a navigator for Bomber Command in November 1941. Johnny was promoted from Sergeant to Flying Officer.
Johnny’s son Eddy talks about his father’s wartime experience. “At that stage life expectancy in the RAF was extremely short. The rule was, if you succeeded in accomplishing 30 bombing missions, you were ‘rested’ which probably involved training other crews. During the early years of the war, not many flight crews achieved this. My dad was shot down on his 27th flight.
“A lot of the guys loved flying with him. They’d say; ‘Johnny, you’ve got black magic. Your plane gets shot up but you always get back.’” Then on 18th November 1943, Johnny’s luck ran out. On a mission over Germany, anti-aircraft fire caused one of the engines to explode and Johnny was struck by shrapnel in the abdomen and groin. The crew managed to drop their bombs but were then strafed by a German fighter and lost their second engine. The men were forced to bail out, in order of rank, with Johnny second to last.
Johnny made it to a barn where he took shelter, but was badly injured. When he lit a cigarette, he gave away his location and was captured by the Germans. Eddy picks up his story: “After interrogation, my Dad was transferred to a hospital where his wounds were treated. From there he was sent to Frankfurt where he was kept as a bit of a trophy, because the attitude from the Germans when they first captured him was, ‘What’s a Black person doing here in RAF uniform?’ From here, he was sent to a POW camp in Barth, Germany. For the first year he was the only Black person in the camp and I said to him, ‘How were you treated by fellow POWs and the German prison guards?’ His reply was ‘unless I looked in the mirror, I didn’t remember I was Black.’ He said he was treated no differently by the guards, and as far as the other POWs were concerned, they were just a band of people united on a cause and that was it. Colour never came into it.”
“My Dad was the senior officer on board this ship, still working for the Colonial Office, and the plan was that they would travel to various islands returning ex-RAF personnel to their home countries. When they got to Jamaica, which had the largest contingent of people, the Welfare Officer came on board the ship and said, ‘Look, we are going through a really difficult time economically, we have no work, unemployment is really high and they won’t have any jobs...’ There were also ex-RAF men and civilians in Jamaica wanting to return to the UK. My Dad contacted the Colonial Office and explained the situation. They said, ‘Well look, you’re the senior officer in charge, you make some recommendations’.
The captain of the Windrush put his crew at my father’s disposal, because obviously there were hundreds of people to talk to and interview. Essentially, he said to them, ‘There are opportunities back in the UK for you, but you need to be prepared to work for them and if you do, you will be able to come back to Britain and have successful careers.’ He then compiled a report, which he wired back to the Colonial Office in the UK which was accepted.
“He did not appreciate the magnitude of these actions and it was only when the ship arrived at Tilbury Docks and there was a plane flying by, with lots of people waiting, he realised the significance of his actions. My Mum, his sweetheart, was there, holding up a newspaper with an article on the front saying ‘Smythe was on the Job’ – it was about him.”
The article read:
“Colonial Officer officials who boarded the 14,000-ton troopship Empire Windrush as she dropped anchor in the river here tonight, found that one of their most important jobs had been done. The 492 Jamaicans who arrived in the ship to look for work in Britain had been classified into sections by a young RAF officer on board, Flt-Lieut. J H Smythe, attached to the welfare section of the Colonial Office. He was returning home on leave and the Colonial Office radioed him to help the Jamaicans on their voyage. He discovered that 52 wanted to join the Army or RAF, 204 were coming to friends in this country, and the remaining 236 were taking the chance of finding work here. Coaches are waiting on the landing-stage to take the Jamaicans, about whom questions have been asked in the House of Commons, to their various destinations tomorrow. They are expected to land at 7 a.m.”
When he left the RAF, Johnny trained and qualified as a barrister in London. He and his wife Violet, a Grenadian who had trained as nurse in London during the war, relocated to Sierra Leone. Johnny went on to become a Queen’s Counsel and Sierra Leone’s Attorney General, and later established his own legal practice.
When he retired, he moved back to the UK and lived in Oxfordshire, to be close to his sons Eddy and John. Johnny passed away in 1996.