Homosexuality - Blame the Navy!

In 1960, 18 men were removed from Christmas Island for homosexual tendencies. (Please note that these documents contain wording which may cause offence)

Squadron Leader Budd of the Directorate of Legal Services was the legal officer who was sent to Christmas Island when the offences first came to light, so the UK Government asked him for his first hand experience of the conditions on the island.

The 'nest' of homosexuals was discovered on Christmas Island. 18 men were identified.

7 Royal Air Force, 5 Royal Navy, 4 Army and 2 Civilians. They were all flown home and of the Air Force cases four have been tried by court-martial and were convicted and three were awaiting further trial.

Many of the men claim they were bullied into giving confessions and did not receive a fair hearing.

The report tries to figure out why these men engaged in homosexual activity; was it because they had too much time on their hands? Was it the work conditions?

The report states 'Boys in Public Schools have the optimum of sport and work, but yet experiments of a homosexual nature take place.'

But we cannot blame the Royal Air Force for the nest of homosexuals. The report notes that the offences took place before the R.A.F. took full control of the Island, and that all of the offences took place in what was known as the Port. i.e. that part of the Island which was controlled by the Royal Navy.

Thus, there were no known homosexuality on the R.A.F. camp, but men with these tendencies gravitated to the Royal Navy part of the Island where apparently supervision was less strict.

Blame the Royal Navy!

These documents show that these men were dismissed and court-martialled. Yet further documentation obtained states that the Air Council's policy is to get rid of known homosexual offenders, either by court-martial or administrative action unless there are exceptional grounds for not doing so.

What were those grounds? Rank? Seniority? Old School Friends? Who knows.

Across the R.A.F. between 1960 and 1964, 332 investigations into homosexuality took place.

Broken down into the following ranks and age categories:

What we do know is that these men are now eligible for non-financial restorative measures under the MOD's LGBT Scheme: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pre-1967-lgbt-veterans-apply-for-restorative-measures

Yet because these offences happened before 1967, they cannot receive any compensation. We would encourage any veteran or family member to seek restorative measures if they were removed from the armed forces.

We have other documents in this series that are too shocking to publish; the wording is extremely offensive, and the language used is not acceptable in today's society.