Ulric Cross arrived in Britain from Trinidad in November 1941 and trained as an RAF navigator. He served with 139, the Jamaica Squadron, and became part of the Pathfinder Force, whose work included identifying and marking targets for other bombers. As navigator, he established the position and route needed for the operation.1
A navigator in the Pathfinder Force
The RAF Museum records eighty operations over occupied Europe and Germany. Cross received the Distinguished Flying Cross in June 1944 and the Distinguished Service Order in 1945. He left the RAF in 1947 with the rank of squadron leader. These details establish both the sustained operational service behind his decorations and the point at which he began moving into a different professional life.1
A wartime public voice
Cross also appeared in West Indies Calling, a film catalogued by Imperial War Museums as a 1943 production. Una Marson introduces contributions from Learie Constantine and Cross, bringing Caribbean participation in the war before viewers in Britain. Cross speaks as a serving navigator, making him a public representative as well as an operational airman. The film drew on broadcasting connections between Britain and the Caribbean, but its intended audience and official purpose shaped what appeared on screen.2
The Colonial Film Catalogue’s analysis places the production within wartime publicity promoting imperial unity. It also identifies what the film leaves aside, including racism experienced by Caribbean people in Britain. The record is valuable partly because of that selectivity. It preserves Cross’s public presence while requiring viewers to distinguish the message an official film wished to convey from the full experience of those it represented.2
Studying law after the war
A veterans’ scholarship helped Cross study at the Middle Temple, and he was called to the Bar in 1949. The University of the West Indies’ honorary degree citation records his return to Trinidad as a legal adviser to the Controller of Imports and Exports. His working life did not stay within a single profession: he subsequently returned to London and worked in the BBC’s overseas broadcasting service. Legal knowledge, public administration and communication all became parts of his post-war career.3
Work in African legal systems
The National Caribbean Monument Charity dates his BBC period to 1953–1957 and his service as Crown Counsel and Senior Crown Counsel in Ghana to 1958–1960. He also lectured in criminal law at the Ghana School of Law. Later work in Tanzania included appointment to the High Court in 1967 and chairmanship of its Permanent Labour Tribunal from 1968 to 1970. These were distinct institutions with different responsibilities. Teaching law, representing the state and considering labour disputes should not be compressed into a vague claim that he worked overseas. The sequence points instead to the movement of professional expertise between jurisdictions during a period of major political and institutional change.4
Cross also held senior legal posts in Cameroon. In 1990, after returning to Trinidad and Tobago, he became High Commissioner in London. This appointment placed him in another public role in the country where he had trained for wartime service and later studied law.3
Courts and law reform at home
After Cross’s death in October 2013, Trinidad and Tobago’s judiciary issued a tribute to his work in the High Court and Court of Appeal. It also recalled his chairmanship of the Law Reform Commission and his contribution to reviewing and developing national legislation. This institutional record shifts attention from individual honours to the continuing work of courts and legal administration. The tribute also acknowledged his involvement in the Cotton Tree Foundation, linking his legal career with a separate form of community work.5
Support through primary education
Education formed another practical strand of Cross’s later public involvement. The Cotton Tree Foundation identifies him as the originator of its scholarship programme, designed to support children through primary school. Its account describes selecting pupils from the foundation’s early childhood provision, considering the support available within their families, and maintaining contact with schools to follow progress. The arrangement involved continuing relationships, rather than a single ceremonial award. This programme provides a specific connection between Cross’s name and the work of an organisation in Trinidad: helping children make the transition into school and sustaining support during the years that followed.6
Sources and further reading
1. Pathfinder Squadron Leader Philip Louis Ulric Cross — RAF Museum.
2. West Indies Calling, CCE 211 — Imperial War Museums; Colonial Film Catalogue.
3. Philip Louis Ulric Cross: honorary degree citation — University of the West Indies.
4. Ulric Cross — National Caribbean Monument Charity.
5. Passing of Mr Justice Ulric Cross — Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago.
6. Scholarship programmes — Cotton Tree Foundation.
Featured image. A de Havilland Mosquito B35 displayed at the RAF Museum in Hendon, photographed in November 2016. Contextual museum image. Photograph: www.mgaylard.co.uk and thanks for looking (Flickr), 22 November 2016, via Wikimedia Commons. Image record · CC BY 2.0
