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Sunday, March 30, 2025

Carmona: A hard act to follow

by

20131011

A fine driz­zle blew over Memo­r­i­al Park in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing dur­ing an emo­tion­al and mov­ing memo­r­i­al ser­vice for world-ac­claimed Trinida­di­an World War II hero, Philip Louis Ul­ric Cross.Cross passed away peace­ful­ly at 96 at his home in Port-of-Spain on Oc­to­ber 4 and was cre­mat­ed af­ter a pri­vate fu­ner­al.

Born in 1917, he served as a squadron leader in the Roy­al Air Force at a time when this coun­try was still a colony of Britain, and be­came the most high­ly dec­o­rat­ed avi­a­tor in the Caribbean. He was al­so an in­ter­na­tion­al ju­rist.His hero­ic ex­ploits in at­tack­ing Adolf Hitler's Ger­man army as he flew and his fel­low crew mem­bers flew their Mos­qui­to air­craft in over 80 op­er­a­tions earned him the soubri­quet "Black Hor­net" and in­spired Ken Fol­lett to make him the mod­el for the char­ac­ter Charles Ford in his nov­el Hor­net Flight.

British High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T Arthur Snell, pay­ing trib­ute at the ser­vice, said so im­por­tant was the con­tri­bu­tion of Cross and oth­er West In­di­ans in de­fend­ing Britain that, with­out it, the out­come of WW II would have been dif­fer­ent.Re­flect­ing on the "re­mark­able things" Cross did for the Unit­ed King­dom, Snell said it is gen­er­al­ly be­lieved that in the ear­ly 1940s Britain stood alone.He said this was his­tor­i­cal­ly in­ac­cu­rate be­cause Britain had the help of the coun­tries of the British Em­pire.

"With­out the help of ser­vice­men from the Com­mon­wealth (like Cross), the out­come of World War II would have been en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent."Snell com­mend­ed Cross for "fight­ing for an em­pire that had not giv­en him his free­dom."He did it for a big­ger cause. His sac­ri­fice will nev­er be for­got­ten in Britain."Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, in his trib­ute, said fas­cism pro­mot­ed by Hitler was spread­ing and it was this that in­spired Cross.

"If we had asked him if he was a hero, he would have said he didn't con­sid­er him­self one, that it just need­ed to be done."Car­mona said Cross, asked once if he felt afraid dur­ing com­bat, said, "One can­not be trained to not be afraid, but one can be trained to con­quer fear."Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie had ear­li­er said in his ad­dress that Cross had de­scribed him­self as an ag­nos­tic, but Car­mona said his life showed he was a man of faith.

He quot­ed Isa­iah 1:17: "Learn to do good, seek jus­tice, cor­rect op­pres­sion, bring jus­tice to the fa­ther­less, plead the wid­ow's cause.""What greater prayer can one pray than by in­vok­ing such deeds?" he asked. Car­mona urged that all should em­u­late Cross's ex­am­ple and stop talk­ing and writ­ing let­ters to the ed­i­tor and do what need­ed to be done.Archie said Cross had asked for him to speak at his memo­r­i­al ser­vice. Re­fer­ring to Cross' ag­nos­ti­cism, he said, "I'm a man of faith but the scrip­tures say faith with­out works is dead."

He said when one looks at Cross's life, it took faith to do what he did.Group Cap­tain of the T&T De­fence Force Air Guard unit Ty­rone Rudul­fo cried when he paid trib­ute to Cross who, he said, was one of the last peo­ple to speak to his un­cle, Capt Hyde, be­fore his plane was shot down dur­ing the war.Hyde was fly­ing with his lit­tle dog next to him when the Ger­mans shot him down. Cross, who was just be­hind, flew down when he crashed and spoke to him be­fore he died.

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing Le­gal Af­fairs Prakash Ra­mad­har, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty in­ter­im chair­man Robin Mon­tano at­tend­ed the ser­vice.Di­vi­sion­al heads of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry and sev­er­al oth­er dig­ni­taries were al­so at the ser­vice, which was held un­der a tent.


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