HERITAGE MUSEUM GETS HISTORIC INVASION SHIP’S LOG

Heritage Collection Museum at East End, Anguilla, whose Curator is Colville L. Petty OBE, was the recipient on Tuesday this week of the log of the retired British Royal Navy Ship, HMS Rothesay, one of two frigates which landed invasion troops on the island on March 19, 1969.

Governor Harrison, Mr Petty and Mr Dixon

The presentation to the island’s historian and author was made in the Executive Council’s Chambers by former Able Seaman on the frigate, Alan Dixon, who is holidaying in Anguilla from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, in northeast, England.

Mr. Petty and Mr. Dixon were welcomed by Governor Alistair Harrison at the presentation ceremony to which the press was invited. He said that Mr. Dixon, who was part of an invasion landing party that came ashore at Road Bay, had been able to obtain a copy of the ship’s log from the National Archives in Britain an that it would add to the knowledge of events of 1969 in Anguilla.
In receiving the ship’s log from Mr. Dixon, Mr. Petty said it was a very wonderful addition to his collection and would be of much assistance to him in researching that period of Anguillian history.

Mr. Dixon told reporters that he had some difficulty in obtaining the ship’s log during his inquires at a number of sources, until he made contact with the National Archives, but eventually got the document through someone else who was a frequent researcher there. “It was a long-winded process just to get it, but I think it has been worth it,” he said.

Mr. Dixon, who was 19 years old at the time when he landed in Anguuilla, recalled that the HMS Rothesay was on its way to Rio de Janeiro when it was ordered to Anguilla to assist with controlling “‘the disturbances”. He was among a party of marines who marched to the Sandy Ground residence of Tony Lee, then the Senior British Official on the island, to provide guard services. He also recalled C130 aircraft parachuting equipment on the island.

“The way I read the situation was that somebody over-exaggerated it.We couldn’t believe it,” he stated, adding that he and the others had marched up the challenging Road Hill, found that there was nothing to do, and were eventually sent back to the ship which left Anguilla shortly afterwards.

But Mr. Dixon, then a young man, just in the final year of his teens, possessed the stamina for the rigors of the military march. Now at 64, and retired, he has returned to relax and enjoy the island with his fiancée.