Billy Strachan

William Arthur Watkin Strachan (16 April 1921 – 26 April 1998) was a British communist, civil rights activist, and pilot.

He is most noted for his achievements as a bomber pilot with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War, and for his reputation as a highly influential figure within Britain's black communities.

As a teenager in Jamaica at the outbreak of the Second World War, Strachan sold all his possessions and travelled alone to Britain to join the RAF.

He survived 33 bombing operations against Nazi Germany during a time when the average life expectancy for an RAF crew was seven operations.

He survived numerous life-threatening situations including being shot by the Nazis, a training crash, the Nazi bombing of the hotel he was staying at during his honeymoon, and a near mid-air collision with Lincoln Cathedral.

Billy Strachan was born in Jamaica on 16 April 1921 to a family of former slaves and was raised within a predominantly white and wealthy area of Kingston.

Strachan recalled in interviews during his later life that his family had all been admirers of the British monarchy and the British Empire, all standing up in salute whenever the national anthem "God Save the King" was played.

As a young boy, Strachan once stole his father's car, before his father then reported him to the police.

During his school days, Strachan played the saxophone in a band with his friends.

Billy was raised alongside two sisters: Dorothy who migrated to Britain, and Allison who migrated to Canada.

Cyril Strachan, Billy's father, was a black man who worked as a manager at a tobacco company.

Although Cyril was far wealthier than most black Jamaicans during this time, he received lower wages in comparison to the white company directors, who worked far less intensely yet received enormous profits.

Cyril admired the British Empire, believing that the British monarchy would protect them against the injustice of the colonial authorities in Jamaica.

Despite not always being able to afford an elite lifestyle, Cyril would often attempt and fail to emulate the wealthy strata of Jamaican society.

Orynthia, Billy Strachan's mother, was (like most black Jamaicans) a descendant of enslaved African people.

Billy's paternal grandfather was a wealthy Scottish man who fathered many illegitimate children with black women; however, he favoured Strachan's father Cyril, who never met his half-siblings.

Strachan attended preparatory school between 1926 and 1931.

From 1931 to 1938, he attended one of Jamaica's most prestigious yet racially divided schools, Wolmer's Boys' High School, in Kingston.

His father often struggled to pay the school fees.

Despite being described as a rebellious student, Strachan graduated.

Strachan would later describe the wealth and racial divide in the school, noting that more than half the boys were white fee-paying students who arrived in expensive cars such as limousines, while the rest were black or mixed-race who arrived either on foot or by bicycle.

Although Strachan believed there was no physical violence between the children, there was very little social mixing between different races of children outside school hours.

Before he was old enough to attend school, Billy would only socialise with white children as a result of his relatively privileged upbringing.

He experienced a traumatic racist incident when at the age of 11 while playing with a white girl, he was forced to hide under a bed from her racist father.

This incident had a profound effect on Billy's worldview, leading to a lifelong hatred of racism.

In 1938, Jamaica experienced a wave of labour strikes across the country, which were often met with deadly violence at the hands of the British police and military.

As a result, the British government sent warships to quell the uprising but also sent a royal commission.

British politician Stafford Cripps went to Jamaica to investigate, and Strachan was taken by his father to listen to Cripps speak at a political meeting.

During this meeting, Strachan witnessed the founding of the People's National Party.

In 1939, after leaving school, Strachan gained employment as a civil service clerk in Jamaica.

In response to the British declaration of war against Germany, he left his job in the civil service to join the British Royal Air Force (RAF).

Rising to the rank of flight lieutenant, an extremely rare achievement for a Black person in Britain during the 1940s, he was charged with investigating incidents of racism on RAF bases throughout Britain, boosting the morale of many Caribbean men in the British military.

Postwar, Strachan became a communist and a human rights activist, campaigning for universal suffrage and worker's rights, and promoting anti-colonial and anti-imperialist politics.

He was a leading member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), an admirer of both the Cuban Revolution and the Viet Minh, and a committed communist activist for the rest of his life.

His communist beliefs saw him become the victim of political persecution, once kidnapped by the United States for his communist politics, and being banned from legally travelling to multiple countries, including British Guiana, St Vincent, Grenada, Trinidad, and even his home country of Jamaica.

Between 1952 and 1956, Strachan published the newspaper Caribbean News, one of the first monthly Black newspapers in Britain.

He was a mentor to many leading black civil rights activists in Britain, including Trevor Carter, Dorothy Kuya, Cleston Taylor, and Winston Pinder, and was a close personal friend of the president of Guyana, Cheddi Jagan.

In later life, Strachan was called to the bar, becoming an expert on British laws regarding drink driving and adoption.

He also helped found a charity that taught disabled people how to ride horses.

He is recognised by numerous historians, activists, and academics as one of the most influential and respected black civil rights figures in British-Caribbean history, and a pioneer of black civil rights in Britain.