Hundreds of people, mostly strangers gathered in London on Thursday (May 25) for the funeral of former RAF Sergeant, Jamaican Peter Brown, who got a royal send-off.

Originally from Jamaica, Flight Sgt. Peter Brown, who flew bombing missions in World War II after volunteering for the Royal Air Force died last December at the age of 96. Volunteers tried to track down family and people who knew him with word of that search drew interest from others, who didn’t want him to be forgotten for the service he offered in Britain’s darkest hour.

The service took place at St Clement Danes Church, in London. He died alone in London without any known family but neighbours made sure Brown, who had volunteered as a teen to fight for Britain in World War II, was not forgotten.

Strangers touched by Brown’s story

Strangers, who were touched by his story, answered the call yesterday and packed St Clement Danes Church to give the former flight sergeant a proper send-off. Officiating minister Reverend Ruth Hake said that when Brown left his Jamaican home at 17 in 1943, there was no promise he’d return home like millions of others, who gave their lives in World War II.

“The willingness that he showed then and the next seven years that he served in the Royal Air Force to put his life on the line on behalf of this nation … is a debt that all of us, who have certainly lived our lives in freedom in this country have to honor,” Rev Hake was quoted by the Washington Post as saying.

Brown was one of about 5,500 men from the Caribbean, who volunteered after the RAF dropped its “colour bar” in 1939 and began recruiting in its colonies in what was then known as the British West Indies. The largest group, some 3,700, came from Jamaica.

Most of these recruits were ground staff with only 450 being aircrew. Brown was trained in Jamaica and Canada and became a radio operator and gunner, flying five missions on Lancaster bombers in the final year of the war.

‘Pilots of the Caribbean’

He was one of the last of a generation that is rapidly disappearing and likely one of the last of the group dubbed the “Pilots of the Caribbean.” The youngest of those, who served are in their 90s.

When Brown died at his home in December, the Westminster City Council tried to find his family. As news of his death spread, historians, military researchers, genealogists, and community groups took up the cause, and interest grew.

What had once been planned as a modest service at a crematorium had to be postponed and relocated to the spiritual home of the RAF, the expansive church dating back 1,000 years that had to be rebuilt after being mostly destroyed by a German incendiary bomb in 1941.

Susan Hutchinson, who has spent the last four years trying to get recognition for troops from the Caribbean who fought for England in both world wars, remarked that if Brown’s neighbors hadn’t drawn attention to his life, she fears that he would have been another Black service member buried in a pauper’s grave and forgotten.

Funeral arrangements

Six RAF pallbearers carried Brown’s flag-draped coffin on their shoulders as Edward Elgar’s “Nimrod” was played on the pipe organ during the procession. A spray of red and white roses, two of his medals and an RAF dress cap sat atop the Union Jack at the front of the church.

Some 600 seats were reserved for the public and most were filled, many by people with Jamaican roots, as well as a few distant relatives who learned of his death and several others who thought they might be related. Dozens of RAF officers and enlisted personnel wore dress blues.

Leonie Gutzmore, who lives in England, said an aunt saw the news about Brown’s death, recognized he was a relative and notified family back in Jamaica. Her grandmother, Myrtle Gutzmore, whose husband is Brown’s first cousin, had been due to visit England, so she attended the funeral with other family.

She was happy so many people honored him. “All of it is very touching,” Leonie Gutzmore said noting they known, who he was, her family would have been able to support him.

“But it was really nice to hear that his local community looked after him in a place where we weren’t able to do so,” she remarked. After the war, Brown returned to Jamaica to work with family in the coconut industry in Kingston but returned to England, where he re-enlisted, rising to the rank of flight sergeant.

He flew missions in Tripoli, Egypt, and Malta and left the forces in 1950 and later became a civil servant in the defense department. In keeping with his personality, Brown’s burial was private.