PART ONE
British West Indian Airways fondly known as "Bee-Wee" was established on November 27, 1939, by Lowell Manley Yerex.
Yerex was born in New South Wales Australia on July 24, 1895, and attended Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, US and graduated in 1916.
During World War I, he volunteered for the British Royal Flying Corps.
In 1917, he was shot down over France and spent four months in a German prisoner-of-war camp.
Yerex founded the Central American Transportes Aéreos Centro Americanos (TACA) in 1931 but was forced out at the end of 1945.
At the invitation of Lady Young, wife of TT's then-governor Sir Hubert Winthrop Young, Yerex came to TT and founded British West Indian Airways (BWIA).
Operations began in 1940 with a twin piston engine powered Lockheed L-18 Lodestar aircraft operating daily services between Trinidad and Barbados.
In two years of operation, the airline had five aircraft of this type.
In 1947, BWIA was taken over by British South American Airways (BSAA), during which it operated a mixed fleet of Douglas DC-3 and DC-6 aircraft.
After a few months of operating as BSAA, the name "BWIA" was restored for operating routes among the Caribbean islands using eight VickersViking twin piston-engined aircraft manufactured by UK-based Vickers Armstrongs Ltd.
In 1949, BSAA merged with British Overseas Airways Corporation and BWIA became a subsidiary of BOAC.
In 1955, Vickers Viscount four-engine turboprops aircraft began to replace the Vickers Viking.
In 1660, two Bristol Britannia aircraft were leased to fly the London route, via New York.
[caption id="attachment_1146326" align="alignnone" width="1024"] BWIA flight attendants in 1955. - Photo courtesy the National Archives UK -[/caption]
The West Indies Federation was established in 1958 and comprised the ten territories of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, the then St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and TT.
The federation was established by the British Caribbean Federation Act of 1956, with the aim of establishing a political union among its members.
As part of the federation's goal to establish federal institutions and supporting structures, it began negotiations to acquire BWIA.
Jamaica, the largest member withdrew from the federation after conducting a national referendum in 1961. That led to the now famous statement of former prime minister Dr Eric Williams, "One from ten leaves nought," referring to the withdrawal of Jamaica and justifying his decision to withdraw TT from the federal arrangement a short while later.
The federation collapsed in January 1962.
The government of Dr Eric Williams unsuccessfully tried to get his fellow premiers to participate in BWIA.
In his autobiography, authored by Prof Hamid Ghany, Kamaluddin Mohammed, former minister of West Indian affairs, recounted Williams' efforts to get Barbados to support BWIA as the regional airline.
According to Mohammed, Williams was determined to ensure BWIA became the regional carri
