ABSTRACT
Such was the case, in the First World War, when a relaxation of the colour bar enabled 'non-Europeans', like Sergeant-Pilot W.R. Clarke from Jamaica and Second Lieutenant Indra Lai Roy from India, to fly and fight with the Royal Flying Corps. Second Lieutenant Roy was officially designated an ace, having claimed ten victories, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Sadly he was killed in July 1918 when his aeroplane was shot down in flames over France. In spite of the distinguished service of men like Clarke and Roy, the 'pure European descent' policy or colour bar, was reimposed as soon as the First World War ended. Although, in the 1920s and 1930s, the policy was challenged on several occasions, it was still firmly in place, by the outbreak of war in September 1939.3
Senior RAF officers and Air Ministry officials had always sought to defend the colour bar as expediency, the imposition of which was vital for securing harmony in the corporate life of the Service. In February 1939, the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Kingsley Wood, drafted a reply to the Labour MP, Sir Stafford Cripps, who had threatened to make the colour bar a public issue. In his reply he made clear that in principle 'we are opposed to the idea of discriminating against a British subject on the ground that he is a man of colour'. However, 'adherence to that principle would not justify us ignoring strong feelings of antipathy which are well known to exist and which we are powerless to remove'.4 The 'strong feelings of antipathy' were felt to derive from a natural reluctance on the part of both Europeans and the members of other races to mingle. In the 'enforced intimacy' of Service life such feelings of antipathy would lead to much friction. As such, the colour bar was framed 'as much with a view to the happiness of the non-European individual as in the interests of the Service'.5 In such manner, did the officials of Britain's Imperial government and Armed Services, justify the practice of a repugnant policy of racial discrimination. The colour bar, official or otherwise, ensured that Blacks and Whites never interacted in 'close quarters'. Even more to the point, it ensured that a 'man of colour' never occupied a position in which he had the powers of command and punishment over Whites.
