Dan Snow's History Hit - From Airman to Attorney General: RAF Navigator Johnny Smythe

Episode Date: June 26, 2021

Beginning with his birth in 1915 in Sierra Leone, the life of John Henry Smythe OBE MBE is almost unbelievable. From becoming a navigator in the RAF during the Second World War, to being held captive in a German POW camp, to being the Senior Officer making key decisions about the futures of the people aboard HMT Empire Windrush and becoming Attorney General for Sierra Leone; the twists and turns in this story are incredible. James from our sibling podcast Warfare was joined by John’s son, Eddy, and the BBC’s Tim Stokes to hear this account of life during and after the Second World War, in which we even get a glimpse of JFK. Listen out for Eddy’s song, written in memory of his father, at the end of the episode. You can find the music video here.Tim’s article can be found here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History here. I'm currently in Chalk Valley, a Chalk Valley history festival. It's a little place, a little dip in the ground in Wiltshire, a beautiful little fold in Chalk Downland, one of the many corners of this island that makes it the most beautiful on planet Earth. I'm here camping with my kids, surrounded by history fanatics. It's a happy place. We're together, observing social distancing rules, naturally, and we're communing. A Roman legionary walks past in heated conversation with a World War II re-enactor. Medieval blacksmiths hammer away at bodkin-headed arrow tips. Historians, many of them alumni of the History Hit podcast, give big talks in well-ventilated tents. And the History Hit team sits around selling subscriptions and face masks

and having a bit of a laugh. We're having a great time. If you're here today or tomorrow, please come and say hello. But if you're not, if you're elsewhere in the world, if you're chilling out at home, then I've got a podcast for you.

Oh yes, I do. You will probably not have heard of this Second World War veteran, but trust me, you should have done and you're about to. John Smythe, Johnny Smythe, was born in Sierra Leone. He served as a navigation officer in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War. He was shot down over Nazi Germany and spent two years as a prisoner of war. Not easy for a black man at that time. He returned to the UK and was a big role model, a mentor for those

who began arriving as part of the Windrush generation. He retrained as a lawyer, he returned to Sierra Leone and he ended up becoming Attorney General. He's an absolute legend. In this episode of Downside History Hit, we are repeating an episode of Warfare, one of our sibling podcasts, in which James talks to Johnny's son, Eddie, and the BBC's Tim Stokes to hear an account of the man's life. A man who seemed to be at the heart of everything, everywhere. He even hung out with JFK. He's a truly remarkable figure. We have celebrated many of the men and women of the Second World War generation on this podcast, and Johnny Smythe deserves to be remembered amongst them. If you wish to listen to Warfare or any of our other podcasts,

you can go to wherever you get your pods and subscribe and all that sort of stuff. If you want to join the fun at historyhit.tv, it's a digital history channel. I'm saying this because I've met lots of people at short value. You keep going, I listen to a pod. What is this history hit TV you keep talking about? I'm like, okay, okay okay let me try and make this simple it's a tv channel it's a tv channel just with history on it a netflix just with history you're watching a telly you're on your phone you're on your computer watch it wherever you

like and it's just history we make original documentaries we've got licensed documentaries we've got all the podcasts on there as well, so you get some audio on there. And it's absolutely amazing, available for a very small subscription. The cost of a smart cocktail, once a month, will get you a subscription to History.tv. We make new programs all the time. We've got very exciting big projects.

I'm not going to tell you about a few, but we've got the huge Operation Barbarossa documentary about to land for the 80th anniversary. Lots of exciting stuff. Yes, and new elna yunega medieval programs as well don't worry and stop atting me head over to history at dot tv but in the meantime here is warfare about johnny smile hi eddie and tim thank you so much for coming on the Warfare podcast. How are you doing today?

Yeah, doing great, thanks. The pub's open today, but I won't be going there because it's freezing cold. But other than that, yeah, doing fine, thanks. Yeah, simply doing well. At least that'll work, so. A bit jaded, but you know, we're good. A bit jaded, no worries at all. Well, you know, this topic, I know for a fact, is going to liven us all up because it is a pretty electric history, let's just say that. It is really great actually to have you both on the podcast, especially given this history that we're discussing, which is your family history, isn't it Eddie? Especially, it's about your father, John Henry, Johnny Smythe, MBE. So, let's jump straight into it. Tell us who your father was and when did he join the RAF? Yeah, John Henry Smythe, born in 1915, Freetown, Sierra Leone. He joined the RAF in 1940 when Britain called upon its colonies to supply both people and equipment to aid the war effort.

And my dad took the view, well, Sierra Leone is part of the British colony. The Queen, and at the time the King, is my King, and I will fight for the King and for the British Empire. And he had no hesitation putting himself forward for selection. He was lucky to be selected and he came over to Britain and trained and joined the RAF and had a pretty exciting time during the war. How common was it for a man from Sierra Leone to join the RAF and to actually get accepted through to become an officer? Well, he was one of six people chosen. So when the call came through, every red blooded young man immediately jumped at the opportunity. He was one of six chosen. And he

went out, he successfully completed all the training courses, both in the classroom, which he found very rigorous, and then the operational training. And in his camp, he was not only the only Sierra Leonean, but the only black person. And he was one of six that actually passed out as an officer. So when you successfully complete your training, you achieve at least the rank of a sergeant. But out of the 90 or so that were there, he was one of six that came out as an officer. Wow. So he really was one of a small few people who managed to get through from Sierra Leone. And then what's his role in the RAF? What's his first role during the war? Well, what he really wanted to do was fly. And I guess, again, it must

have been the ambition of lots of young men. It seemed like a glamorous thing to do. He wanted to do was fly. And I guess, again, it must have been the ambition of lots of young men. It seemed like a glamorous thing to do. He wanted to go out, he wanted to fly. So he initially trained as a pilot. He had flown solo in Tiger Moths, as it was, as they used for training at the time. But it was at the time where the RAF had realised that the accuracy of the bombing was extremely poor. It was something like one bomb in every plane load fell within five miles of the target. It was horrendous. And they realised that they needed specialist navigators. Up to that point, the job was done by observers. So all the cadets at the time who had attained high mathematical results in that particular module were invited, invited in inverted commas, to train as navigators. And my dad, he was very disappointed when he was asked to be a navigator.

And they said, look, you will be in charge of the plane because you have to take it all the way out there. You've got to find the bombing target and you've got to bring it all the way back. So they obviously buttered them up and he then switched into training as one of the first navigators, you know, dedicated navigators in the bombing force. We've had actually a navigator on the podcast before, a veteran who came on. And when he was explaining that role, I couldn't think of anything more complex or difficult to get your head around and to work out everything from the wind speed and your velocity to your altitude mixed in with coming up to the target under fire. I mean, all of that

is kind of like doing Einstein-esque equations under enemy flak fire, isn't it? What did your dad say about flying in those sort of conditions? Well, the interesting thing is he found navigation very easy. I mean, I could not get over it because I'll declare my hand now, I do fly, but I fly helicopters. So you're flying a lot slower, you're flying with GPS systems, with updated charts, which are, you know, rarely up to date. And you're flying just in the UK. And I found the navigation very, very difficult. The navigators then had to fly at night in planes that were unpressurized. in planes that were unpressurised. And as you say, under all types of weather, into areas where the charts actually weren't that accurate. And it's not only about getting to the country and to the region, but it's also to the target. And they had various navigation techniques they used.

And he did, at one time, explain them to me. My dad had incredible memory for things that happened 50 years before, but not so good the things that happened the day before. But I remember him explaining to me and I was totally lost. But he clearly had an aptitude for navigation. And I guess he ended up in the right role. Yeah, someone noticed something about his mind and being able to fulfil that role under pressure. And he sounds like he did it pretty well because he had a lot of successful missions, didn't he?

And grew a bit of a reputation for being lucky. Yes, yes. I mean, at that time, the life expectancy of a bomber crew wasn't very high. And the short Stirling bomber, which was what they flew, was the first four-engined plane that the RAF used. And it was very slow and it couldn't fly very high. So it was very susceptible to anti-aircraft fire from the ground and being shot at by fighter pilots. So the rate of losses was very, very high. so the rate of losses was very very high and at that time in the RAF if you successfully accomplished 30 missions you were basically out you got your desk job with the American Air Force it was 25 missions if you accomplished 25 it was great and bearing in mind the Americans flew much

much higher than the RAF did so So they flew at much lower levels. And yes, he went out and he started flying and he kept coming back, you know, and lots of his friends and colleagues didn't come back. And they always used to say he had some sort of black magic thing going on and were always very keen to fly with him. But of course, his luck did eventually run out. Yes. And we will come to that now. So Tim, you are a BBC correspondent, and I found this fascinating history because of your articles and your BBC World Service report on this. Now, first of all, where did you first hear about this history? So I'm a BBC reporter. I'm based with BBC London. And as well as doing a lot of day-to-day London news

I have a bit of obsession with the history of the city, all sort of bits and pieces of the city from some of the more well-known things like the history of the Royal Abbot Hall to bizarre people like an autograph obsessive in the 20th century who used to send himself in parcels to people and stuff like that. So it's all

sort of quirky things like that and I was chatting to someone at the Museum of London and they just mentioned this story. It's just incredible. And I spoke to Eddie, and it just all came from that really. And the more you hear of this tale and about Johnny Smythe's life, you just, I don't know, it's incredible. And it seems madness that hasn't been sort of known before this, that very few people know this history. Well, even more people are going to know about it now. We have listeners all around the world, and I'm sure we'll get emails in about this, and I'll direct them towards your article. In fact, we're going to put a link into our bio as well. But take us through the next stage of Johnny's war, Tim, because his luck does run out, doesn't it?

Yeah, so Johnny had flown 26 successful missions. His plane's been shot at, he's been hit a few times, but he's always got away with it and got back. So it came on to the fatal 27th. It was the 18th of November 1943, and it was the start of the Battle of Berlin. And Bomber Harris, the air chief marshal of the RAF, he had declared that the RAF would destroy Berlin. And he was like, oh, we'll lose 400, 500 off aircraft, but it'd be worth doing because we will end the war if we destroy Berlin this campaign lasted until about the end of March 1944 and Johnny's mission the 27th was on that first night his plane was one of about 800 which flew off and around 30 didn't make it back one of them was Johnny as they flew Germany, they got hit by anti-aircraft fire,

and Johnny was hit by shrapnel in two places, in his groin and his side. Still, the captain said they should carry on. They flew over, continued to fly, dropped their bombs, turned back, but obviously now down to three engines, they just couldn't fly away so well. And they got spotted by a night fighter who started following them they're strafing them he hit again another engine dropped out and they knew they had to get out of the plane and the captain ordered them to jump as the second in command eddie's was the penultimate one to jump out and he just parachuted down and he was bleeding away heavily hurt but he landed in some woods hit his parachute

and took off on foot he then saw a tavern and outside his tavern was bicycles so he nicked one of those jumped on and cycled away and then thought then noticed that a bike is missing from this tavern so i should really get rid of that so he got off the bike threw it into a river and then he spotted a barn and he's obviously seriously injured. And he thought, wow, that's, at last I can just find someone to have a rest. However, he made a fatal error as he walked into the barn and he lit a cigarette.

And that is how he was spotted. Oh, wow. I mean, there's so much wrapped up in that, Tim. Bloody hell. Imagine the amount of adrenaline that's pumping through your veins and you finally get to a barn. And I can understand it.

I would be walking through like, oh, time to light a cigarette. It's funny you say that, but that's exactly right. And he said he never even realised how badly he was injured because of the adrenaline. He was able to, as Tim articulated so well, steal a bicycle and cycle and go and hide. But he was obviously, by this stage, had got very weak and made his first mistake by lighting a cigarette. Well, Eddie, tell us here. So he lights a cigarette and I'm assuming at this

point someone spots him and some German soldiers are sent on the way. They obviously end up capturing, but I've got to ask, how does a German soldier react when they see your father, six foot four, black officer, emerging from a barn? What's their reaction here? Well, I think it was total incredulity because they've never seen anything like this before. He was taken to what sounds like

a sort of police station type headquarters where he was interrogated and they were saying to him what are you doing dropping bombs on our country were you a black man and he said I'm from Sierra Leone we're part of the British empire and I'm fighting for my king and he was then interrogated quite harshly. And my dad was a fairly calm person, despite his big size. He was very calm and very, very slow to get cross and lose his temper. But bear in mind how much he'd been bleeding. And he said there was this particular German officer that came and hit him with a gun butt, kicked him in the side. He said, luckily, it wasn't the side

where he'd been shot and he'd fallen to his knees. And he got up and he decided that the next time this guy got in range of him, and you'll have to excuse me when I say this, but this is what he thought, the next time he comes close, I will grab him and I will snap his neck. Because although I will be killed, at least I'll take him with me. And that was his thoughts. Fortunately, that never happened. And after the interrogation and they realised he was weak from loss of blood, he was taken to a hospital that looked after officers, German officers. And he did say for years and years, while he was in prison of camp, he used to see that officer's face. And he used to pray that one day before his time came, he would meet that officer, which obviously he never did. But he was looked after very well in the hospital. And he ended up chatting to a couple of German officers who were in the bed next to him. And they said to him,

you know, Johnny, you are so lucky. And he says, why am I lucky? He said, well, for you, the war is over. You're going to prison of war camp, and you're going to see the war over. He said, but for us, as soon as we're amended, we're going to go back into war, and the chances are we're going to be killed. But he was treated very well, and after he left hospital, he was then taken to Stuttgart to be interrogated, because he was a bit of a prize. He was different. He was unique. He'd been captured. They had to get some propaganda out of it.

And in Stuttgart, he was taken into an office and in walked in a German who spoke perfect Creole. Now, Creole is the language that we spoke in Sierra Leone. And he was amazed. And this guy told off his soldiers who were looking after him for not giving him water and a razor blade so he could clean himself up give him cigarettes come and sit down johnny and they chatted about places in freetown and people that they knew that they knew because this guy worked in freetown and he was absolutely delightful my dad said all along he was very suspicious he knew there was something coming and then the question started. You wanted to know specific answers to some questions about the squadron and their equipment. And at the time, my dad said the only thing he

knew that was in the plane, which they destroyed before they parachuted, was the planes used to drop strips of foil. And the strips of foil used to fool the German radar, because the radar waves used to reflect off the foil. And at that time, it was something very new. And all the planes carried this foil. And he said, before they jumped, they destroyed it. That was the one thing they had to destroy. And there was nothing else he was worried about. But every time he was asked questions, he would just say, Smythe, Johnny, number 114608, which was his number. And that's all he would answer. And after that, the interrogation got worse and he was roughed up and beaten up

and ended up back in jail where he sat waiting his fate, thinking, you know, perhaps my time has come. But from there, he was transferred to a prisoner of war camp, which in his case was Stalag Luft 1, which was a camp for officers, where he was reunited with the captain of the plane and one of the other officers on board. This has been Dan Stant's History. We've got an episode of Warfare on. We're talking about Johnny Smythe, a legend. More after this. Instead of Warfarin, we're talking about Johnny Smythe, a legend.

More after this. Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt. And avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows

or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. What happened to the rest of the crew? Was it a sad end for them or were they able to make an escape? Well, it transpires it was two of the crew very badly wounded and my dad was convinced that the rare gunner had died because he was slumped over the guns and he couldn't get to him. But it turns out that they actually did manage to get out. But of course, they wouldn't have been in an officer's prisoner of war camp.

They would have been in another camp somewhere else. I see. That makes sense. Okay, Tim, we're at the stage now where Johnny is in Stalag Luft 1. So I'm going to ask you a question that you asked yourself in your own article. So we're in that sort of situation now. Okay, we're in a kind of meta situation. You write that in the clutches of a murderously racist Nazi regime, how did Johnny Smythe survive the war? So tell me, Tim, how did he survive, and how was it in that prison camp? You'd expect in the Nazi regime, a black man in the Nazi regime, you'd face horrible consequences. And for people living in Nazi Germany who were of African heritage,

everyone had different experiences. But as time went on, while the persecution wasn't as systematic, people faced exclusion from certain jobs or education. Some people were sterilized, even some people were taken to concentration camps. However, for Johnny Smythe, he was just treated like a bit of a trophy. He was a bit of a propaganda coup. It was just this bizarre thing of a six foot four black man in an RAF uniform in the middle of Germany. So once he gets to the camp, he actually said for 12 months, there was no other black man apart from him. And he almost had to look into a mirror to remember that he was a black man. Life there, it was very monotonotonous but he wasn't picked on for being black or anything like that he was just another officer as a prisoner of war however

there was one thing he did point out which eddie's told me story about once they were talking about whether you could ever do escapes and did people actually try and get out of you know because you see it in movies you know great escape and all that did it happen and that happen? And apparently, as he said, Danny's father said, oh, yeah, all the time, we were trying to break out. We had committees, we were looking at it. And there was a story about one American officer who managed to get out and he was caught in woods afterwards. They dragged him back and put him back in the camp.

And the commanding officer of the prisoner of war camp said, how have you managed to do this? You know, you can't get out of this camp. We hold people here. And he said, I've just vaulted over your fence it's fine i can do it and the commanding officer went yeah i don't believe you if you can do it you can go and so he just he went fine do it so he ran out the fence vaulted over and legged it into the woods and managed to get out and unfortunately he was captured he was brought back but everyone was laughing and clapping and the guards were but johnny while he was on the committee he was asked in the early 90s by a reporter from the time saying

so did you ever try and escape you know and he said well i think as a six foot four black man in germany i'm not sure i would have i think i may have stuck out a bit like a sore thumb and the report and see your point yes that would be a problem. So, well, he wasn't treated badly in the camp. He knew there was no getting out for him from the escape route or that sort of thing. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that makes sense because there's a serious point there, isn't there? I mean, black people in Nazi Germany were treated very badly. We had a fantastic scholar on the podcast recently talking about how black and Roma peoples were sent off to different parts of places like Auschwitz and so on and so forth. But it would

have been incredibly difficult for Johnny to escape, wouldn't it, Eddie? Yeah, impossible. Because as he said to the Times reporter, I think he said, yeah, I could just mingle with all the other six foot four black people in Germany at the time and go completely unnoticed. You know, it was impossible. There's no way he could even think about it. But as Tim said, when he was in the camp, he was treated no different to anyone else. And he loved his time in the RAF. He never came across any racial issues in the RAF. You know, there's no prejudices whatsoever. They were just like one happy band of people. And he said, right up to the day he died, he used to say, I had some of the happiest days in the RAF. He just loved it because you banded together and united against the common enemy, you know, the common foe. When does Johnny's war come to an end,

Eddie? Well, whilst they were in the camp, the only radio they used to hear was what the Germans used to broadcast through loudspeakers in the camp every day. And it was all propaganda stuff. And they used to hear Lord Ho-Ho constantly, you know, talking about the fact that the Allies were being defeated, they were starving, homes were being bombed. And it did used to get to them. And there was talk that an incineration factory was being built not far from the camp because the Germans won the war. They were all going to be incinerated. So there were all these stories going through. But what they were able to do, some clever officer was able to put together a small radio, just using bits of wires and stuff.

And they could listen to the news. And this radio could easily be pulled apart. So when the guards would come in, or the goons as they called them, they would pull the bits and pieces apart so they didn't realise that they could actually listen to what was going on. And they knew that the Allies were winning the war. They knew the Russians were coming in from the east, and they knew the British and Americans were coming in from the west.

So they knew that was happening. And they used to pray for the day when the Allies would get there and it was revenge time on the guards. They used to pray for that day. And then one morning they woke up and the guards were gone. The gates were open. There was no one there. Airy silence. So clearly the guards knew that the Allies were close. And they also knew that if they were there, when the Allies got there, they were finished. The prisoners were going to rip them to pieces. They knew it. So they disappeared very quickly. And the Russians got there first. And my dad said they weren't sure whether to cheer or be scared because they just looked like wild men. But they were great.

They were able to give them weapons, although they couldn't give them food, which meant they went out into the towns and did some foraging themselves, which I think was quite a horrific time because these were young men who had been brutalized. They'd been locked up for two years and suddenly they were given weapons and they were told to go into the towns and get what food they needed. And my dad always said they did things which probably would regret with hindsight, but that's how it was at the time. And then eventually transport was laid on and he was put on a ship with his other fellow Brits and they came back to London where he immediately signed up for another tour. Oh wow so he stays in the military? Yeah he stays he comes back and he

signs up of course by then the war with Germany was over but the war with Japan was still on so he quickly re-enlisted and he said he was the only one from his camp that he knew who did that but he was just eager to get back in there. And they started being retrained in Lancasters because it was a totally different type of bombing. But before they could become operational, the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped and the war in Japan was over. So that brought an end to his fight in Korea. brought an end to his fight in Korea. And that is a little known part of history, actually, is that how the Lancaster bomber pilots and all the crews in the RAF and Bomber Command were being retrained and already doing the runs planned out for bombing Japan if that invasion

and that operation was going to go ahead. Now, I would usually end the podcast there, but I can't, because if anything, Johnny's career, the most important things in his life, aren't really happening during the war. Because when you look at the history of his life, his life has just begun by this point. Eddie, if you can, give us a little bit of a history of what happens to your dad post-military. Well, certainly post the war, he joined the colonial office in London. So technically, he was still an officer in the RAF, but he was working with the colonial office. And part of his role there was to look after the welfare of the ex-colonial military folk. And one of his most important exercise, if you like, was to do with the Windrush.

So he was asked to go on board the Windrush, which was a captured German World War I ship, which was returning a large contingent of West Indian airmen who had been demobilised and were being returned back to the Caribbean. And so he was the senior officer on board. And the ship went out and visited all the different islands, dropping the men back off. When they got to Jamaica, the Jamaican labour officer came on board and said, look, you know, our country is paralysed by a host of economic and social issues. Unemployment is really high. Trying to take these young men back is nigh on impossible

because we've got no work for them. So this was cabled back to London and colonial office authorised my dad as a senior officer to come up with recommendations on how to deal with it. And the captain gave him the cable and said, look, I've got my men at your disposal, because there are hundreds of these men on board. And he basically sat them down and he talked to them, he interviewed them, found out what their skills are. And in reality, most of these guys did not have skills. The ones that did have sort of academic ability and certain qualifications stayed in England to work and were actually

given scholarships. So the people that chose to go back were people who didn't have any of these qualifications. So he said, right, you can come back to Britain under certain conditions. You have to be prepared to work. You have to decide what you're going to do now. And he went through them and some of them were offered vocational training. A lot of them signed up for manual work, but he went through it all, of them were offered vocational training. A lot of them signed up for manual work. But he went through it all, wrote out a report, his recommendations, and this was cabled back to London. And they said, fine, we'll accept it. And the boat then turned back and came back to Britain, which was with the Windrush generation.

And he didn't realise this was a big deal until he got back and they were buzzed by a plane and a helicopter with a banner. And his girlfriend, my mother, who met him there, was holding a copy of the Daily Mirror and on the front it said, Johnny on the case. It had made the news. So that was quite an important part of his life. But part of his job when he was attached to the colonial office, as I said, was looking after the welfare of demobilized men and women. And some of these men, you know, they had physiological, psychological issues. They'd been traumatized during war. They had problems settling down. And inevitably, they had issues.

And quite often, he was called upon to sort out court-martials. And his job was to defend any men that were under his care. Now, he had no legal training, but he was a very articulate individual. He could present a case very well. So the first case he had to defend was an airman who was charged with assaulting another member of the RAF and breaking some furniture, which was a chair. So he went to court, he presented his case, and he won it. And the judge advocate at the time congratulated him on the way he presented the case. And so he went on to do several more. Great success.

And this judge actually said, would you like to meet for lunch? And he goes, yeah, sure. And he was, oh my God, the judge wants to meet me for lunch. And he said, Johnny, what are you going to do for the rest of your life? And he said, well, I want to stay in the RAF. And he said, well, you can't do that because the war is over. You can't keep flying. Have you thought about law? And he said, well, yes, I have thought about law. And he goes, right, well, I will write your letter of introduction to the Inns of Court in London. And with this letter,

he went into Inns of Court and he got taken on as a graduate. And he went to law school, and he studied, and he qualified, passed out as a barrister, married my mother and then went back to Sierra Leone. Wow, that is remarkable. Tim, did you know about this aspect of the story when you first stumbled across it? Did you know that Johnny had such a massive impact really on the history of London and of Britain more broadly? Because a lot of people who came off Windrush settled in London, didn't they? Yeah, exactly. I mean, there was little hints of it. I heard something about Windrush and him,

but there was nothing of how instrumental he was in helping it and bringing people back. And like you said, the Windrush generation was so important for people in London. I mean, it really did help rebuild the sea. And across the UK, they were just such important people. And I mean, you saw in the just the amount of fanfare there was when the ship sailed into Tilbury Docks, and people were just so pleased to have them back. And they were so thankful that these people were here to help rebuild Britain. Which makes the controversies under the administration of Theresa May, of course,

The controversies under the administration of Theresa May, of course, even more despicable. Eddie, now, Johnny's legal career takes him to quite remarkable heights, doesn't it? I mean, you don't get much higher than some of the positions he reaches. I'm not going to give it all away. But tell us, where does his legal career take him? Well, when he first goes back to Sierra Leone, he works for the government, initially as a junior lawyer, and he rises up.

Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Through the ranks fairly quickly, and he ended up working as the Solicitor General,

and then the Attorney General to the country. And as Attorney General at that time, his role was quite wide ranging. And in 1963, he was invited by the United States Department in Sierra Leone to go over for a three-month tour in the States. He managed to visit most of the large cities, historical sites. He did lectures in several leading American universities, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Howard and Yale. So he got to meet lots of people. He got to meet the then Attorney General, who was Robert Kennedy. So he was, if you like, his counterpart in America. And whilst my dad was out there, he went on a visit somewhere in Las Vegas, and he actually rode a camel. And this camel bucked, and he ended up hurting his back. And when he met Attorney General Robert Kennedy, he was sort of limping and John Kennedy, was president of America at the time,

and asked his chiropractor to have a look at my dad's back. So he actually was treated by John Kennedy's chiropractor in the White House before coming back. So he had a very, very successful tour. He enjoyed his time enormously. He was awarded the OBE on the back of that. He had already been awarded a military MBE. He went back to Sierra Leone, continued working for government, but then he set up his own practice. So he created his chambers. He had quite a few other solicitors working for him. And he also became a Queen's Council. And also, Sierra Leone attained independence in 1963. And he was very instrumental in the actual constitution of independence, in actually setting it up and liaising between Britain, because it was a British colony,

and they were seeking to get independence from Britain. So he was very instrumental in liaison with them in the writing of the constitution and the approval of the constitution, which enabled Sierra Leone to gain its independence. Well, your father sadly passed away in 1996, I believe, but his story, his history as a war hero, his legacy is both fascinating and inspiring. Thank you so much, Eddie, for bringing us your family history. And Tim, thank you so much for bringing this story to the world. Pleasure. I mean, the world needs to know it, really. It's such a good story. It really is. I wish I was a fly on the wall when your dad met JFK, war hero to war hero,

talking about their experiences. Because JFK, of course, didn't he swim something like five kilometres with a belt strap of his crewmate in his teeth and swam to an island i mean it's crazy stuff that's right he was the captain of a particular small light boats yeah pt yeah that's right and yes fascinating story you're right they must have had some really interesting stories and yeah they ended up talking about their backs well there you go if that's one thing that unites you both isn't it it's your war injuries and your bad backs well thank you both so much for coming on the podcast

no thank you James I really appreciate it and thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share the story and thanks to Tim for raising the profile of the story not at all yeah thanks very much, James. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours,

our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Well, that, folks, was an episode of Warfare with Dr James Rogers. We've extended the remit of Warfare to First and Second World War,

but also the great wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. So I hope there'll be something in the warfare feed for you all to enjoy. If you want to subscribe to warfare, just head over to wherever you get your podcasts, search warfare, and feel free to give it a rating and a review as well. Thank you. you