Black GIs arrive in Britain (Part two)

In this blog post I will be referring to government records, newspapers and other accounts from the Second World War which use terminology which we now consider offensive, for example, ‘coloured troops’ and ‘negroes’.

The first white American troops landed in Northern Ireland in January 1942, and they soon began to arrive in the rest of the UK. The friendliness, informality and cheerfulness of the GIs were greatly appreciated by the British public. It is well known that the GIs brought various treats to war-battered, heavily rationed Britain – including fruits, chocolate bars and chewing gum.

There were many positive interactions with the British public in general, many acts of kindness. My Mum has a childhood memory of being given an orange (a true rarity in war-torn Britain) by friendly GIs in Bridport (Dorset) and being allowed to take a ride in their jeep. The American Red Cross arranged dances and concerts, and local girls found themselves dancing the ‘jitterbug’ with these glamorous new arrivals in their smart uniforms.

The American presence was a huge boost to the morale of the British public, strengthening the conviction that the allies would be victorious. These were our allies, our friends, coming to fight alongside us. The strong appeal of this huge influx of American troops was captured in the uplifting music of Glen Miller, with its promise of a better world to come.

But there was a troubling undercurrent. The British people were taken aback by the prejudice directed at Black people by many white Americans. Author and journalist Linda Hervieux cites an incident in March 1942:

‘a group of U.S Marines outside a London restaurant accosted Samson Morris, a black corporal from the Caribbean serving with the British forces.

“You’re not going in there to eat with us”, a marine told Morris.

“I am a British subject from the West Indies and you are not in America where you lynch us people”, retorted Morris.

More marines entered the fray until there were six, and one grabbed Morris by the collar. A policeman intervened before the situation got out of hand’.

From ‘Forgotten: The Untold Stories of D-Day’s Black Heroes’, Linda Hervieux (Amberley, 2019), p.167-68

This incident was discussed at a high level in Churchill’s government, but the Foreign Office decided not to take a forceful line about it when presenting a report about the incident to the US chargé d’affaires.

Signs of enlightenment

In my first blog post on this subject I explored the British Government’s response to the arrival of Black GIs in Britain during the Second World War. There were some depressing statements (not unsurprising) though the messages emanating from government were occasionally enlightened, for example, the Home Office directive of September 1942 which began ‘It is not the policy of His Majesty’s Government that any discrimination as regards the treatment of coloured troops should be made by the British authorities’. In this post I’m going to focus on the reaction of the British public to the African-American soldiers who came to this country to prepare for the grand invasions that were to take place in Europe.

The picture I’m going to paint has some refreshingly positive aspects reflecting opposition to racism but, of course, I’m not viewing the past with rose-tinted spectacles. The Sunday Pictorial quoted the views of a Somerset vicar’s wife: ‘If she [a white woman] is walking on the pavement and a coloured soldier is coming toward her, she crosses to another pavement … White women, of course, must have no relationship with coloured troops. On no account must coloured troops be invited into the homes of white women’. 

However, the Sunday Pictorial countered this, in robust terms:

‘Any coloured soldier who reads this may rest assured that there is no colour bar in this country and that he is as welcome as any other Allied Soldier. He will find that the vast majority of people here have nothing but repugnance for the narrow-minded, uninformed prejudices expressed by the Vicar’s wife. There is – and will be – no persecution of coloured people in Britain’ (see footnote 1).

We have seen, in my first blog post, how racial prejudice could sometimes find confident expression which remains shocking to read, as in Major Dowler’s notes. However, as Kate Werran points out, Ministry of Information opinion surveys and other government analysis, censored letters, diaries, newspapers and articles all show, convincingly, that ‘Major Dowler’s unreconstructed view was not the majority opinion. At all’ (footnote 2).

It is good to keep in mind the fact that ‘in most areas of the UK where black G.I.s were stationed, locals would have been seeing and interacting with black people for the first time’ (footnote 3) (the Britain of 1942 was not as ethnically diverse as the Britain of today). There is a considerable amount of evidence showing that the British public were well-disposed to Black GIs, whereas reactions to their white comrades sometimes struck a critical note. The celebrated author and journalist George Orwell wrote that ‘the general consensus of opinion seems to be that the only American soldiers with decent manners are the Negroes’ (footnote 4).

Black American soldiers welcomed

Weekly reports by the Home Intelligence Division of the Ministry of Information (MOI), based on surveys of public opinion, tend to support this view, for example, ‘the good behaviour and manners of the coloured troops is approved in three Regions’ (footnote 5).  A report by the Postal and Telegraph department of the MOI entitled ‘Opinion on American Troops in Britain’ of July 1943, quoted from a Hull canteen worker’s censored letter:

‘We find the coloured troops are much nicer to deal with … they’re always so courteous and have a very natural charm that most of the whites miss. Candidly, I’d far rather serve a regiment of the dusky lads than a couple of whites … All my friends – most of them were colour conscious before – who serve in canteens feel the same.’

Catalogue ref: FO 371/34126

Her language jars with us today but her positive sentiments are certainly clear.

A report by the Home Intelligence Division of the MOI of 14 January 1943 stated that:

‘Discrimination against their coloured brethren by white U.S. soldiers has been criticised consistently though not on a very wide scale. The “colour bar” is criticised as being undemocratic and as “conflicting with the Englishman’s idea of fair play”.

Members of the public who witnessed discrimination being inflicted on Black servicemen appealed to the Government to intervene. Mark Mendoza, from Westcliff-on-Sea, wrote to the Foreign Secretary (Anthony Eden) on 25 May 1944. Mr Mendoza had taken his wife and two daughters to a dance at the Palace Hotel, Southend-on-Sea, where a group of over 100 US sailors and officers were present, including two ‘coloured’ sailors. Mr Mendoza described an ugly incident:

‘At about 9 o’clock five or six white sailors attacked one of the coloured men simply because he was dancing with a white girl. American Officers … ordered the victim out of the place and in spite of protests from several of the British people who were incensed at this absurd behaviour, he was forcibly ejected. An ugly scene seemed to be presenting itself as the ladies then refused to dance with the Americans who began to show their annoyance and feeling rang so high that the management stopped the dance.’

Catalogue ref: FO 371/38624

Mr Mendoza conveyed his outrage to the Foreign Secretary in eloquent terms:

‘I am particularly disgusted that at this point of the War when so many men are dying in the fight for the rights of mankind, this sort of persecution should be allowed a free hand in our liberty loving Empire.’

He goes on to mention other examples of racial prejudice when black soldiers had been victimised in Westcliff-on-Sea.  

Mendoza’s reference to the Empire grates with our modern day sensibilities, but it needs to be viewed in the context of the time and there is no denying his total revulsion of witnessing prejudice in action. 

Mr Mendoza received a brief reply from Nevile Butler of the Foreign Office, on behalf of Eden, dated 6 June 1944:

‘Mr Eden is grateful for the trouble you have taken in writing to him and he has noted your views. Every effort is naturally made by senior American officers in this country to guard against the occurrence of incidents of the sort you describe.’

I doubt that Mark Mendoza found this reply satisfactory.

Nuances to the historical story

Racial tensions within US military units repeatedly surfaced from 1942 until the close of the war. A particularly shocking incident took place on 26 September 1943, when there was a shootout between white and Black US servicemen in the Cornish town of Launceston, researched by Kate Werran (footnote 6).

However, it’s important to make the point that there were of course nuances to this historical story. Linda Hervieux makes the point that racial integration within the US army could, and sometimes did, occur: ‘A white soldier from Georgia stationed in central England found that he preferred the “Negro” Red Cross club to white clubs elsewhere. There, he was free to speak with black GIs, some of whom he befriended, something he would never have done in front of his white friends.’ (footnote 7)

As I hope I’ve demonstrated, there were many positive aspects to the stories concerning the African-American soldiers stationed in Britain, particularly the respect with which they were treated by many ordinary British people, who protested, and sometimes directly intervened, to stop the implementation of Jim Crow-style segregation. The Black GIs experienced a freedom and respect that they had not experienced at home, and they retained positive memories when they returned to the United States, which fed into the civil rights movement.

Footnotes

1. Sunday Pictorial, 6 September 1942, referred to by Linda Hervieux, Forgotten: The Untold Stories of D-Day’s Black Heroes (Amberley, 2019), p.177 and by Kate Werran, An American Uprising in Second World War England: Mutiny In The Duchy (Pen & Sword History, 2020) p.71
2. An American Uprising in Second World War England: Mutiny In The Duchy, Kate Werran (Pen & Sword History, 2020) p.73
3. Shocking Racial Attitudes: Black G.I.s in Europe, David Schindler, Mark Westcott, The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 88, Issue 1, January 2021
4. As I Please, Tribune, George Orwell, 3 December 1943
5. Home Intelligence Division Weekly Report No. 97, 13th August 1942, INF 1/292
6. An American Uprising in Second World War England: Mutiny In The Duchy, Kate Werran (Pen & Sword History, 2020)
7. Forgotten: The Untold Stories of D-Day’s Black Heroes, Linda Hervieux (Amberley, 2019), pp.185-186

Further sources of interest

• Home Intelligence Reports can be searched on the MOI Digital website: Reports (moidigital.ac.uk)
• See also this excellent blog post, by Lucy Bland and Chamion Caballero, which includes some very interesting and moving stories: ‘Brown Babies’: The children born to black GI and white British women during the Second World War