English: The Bermuda Contingent of the Royal Garrison Artillery (BCRGA) in Europe during the First World War . The contingent was composed of volunteers for overseas service from the Bermuda Militia Artillery , which was already embodied for annual training when the war began and remained embodied for full-time service for the duration of the war. Militia terms of service were for home defence only, and soldiers could not be compelled to serve overseas. The volunteers for the overseas contingent to serve on the Western Front were consequently re-commissioned or re-attested as regular soldiers for the duration of the war. The BCRGA was actually made up of two drafts. The first, 201 officers and men, under the command of Major Thomas Melville Dill , left for France on 31 May 1916. A second contingent, of two officers and sixty other ranks, left Bermuda on 6 May 1917, and was merged with the first contingent in France.