BS: WW2 made whites-only

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 01:28 AM

No point in crying over history. One corrects, and moves on.

I remember just after the war (WW2), I was at a camp where many GI's were coming to be re-assigned or demobilized.
One Black soldier came (don't know his unit but probably auxilliary). He was assigned to an empty barracks where he was the sole occupant. He was given his meals in a small building near the kitchen facilities. He didn't participate in any of our duties (make-work stuff, we were just passing through).
The word was that he was outside our vision.
I was re-assigned rather quickly so I never learned any more about his situation or disposition.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 10:33 PM

Note that that's from the UH Military's official history site. They don't hide it.

Even when I was on active duty (1963, 1968-69) there were officers who would look the other way. There were also Black troops who went out of their way to cause trouble -- which is also true of some of the White troops. Race relations were often strained.

I think that they got better FAST when the first bullet cracked by.

There always were, and probably always will be, those who feel superior to others. The Greeks and the Barbarians, the Romans and the Gauls both come to mind.

It's not "right" but it happens. Overall, I think the US military is now ashamed of its racist past.

But consider: Black troops were killing gooks in 'Nam just as White troop killed Chinks in Korea and Japs in the Pacific. You must depersonalize, dehumanize, your enemy before you can kill him.

...There are rumors in our camp about the enemy.
They say that when you see him he looks just like you and me.
But you deny it Sergeant and you are a man of war,
Oh I hope you will be patient for I've never killed before.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: s&r
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 06:59 PM

Look up the Battle of Bamber Bridge

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 06:50 PM

Rapaire, that's a hell of a read.

This bit I have seen confirmed by British social histories of the war:

Racial friction also developed in Great Britain where some American troops, resenting their black countrymen's social acceptance by the British, tried to export Jim Crow by forcing the segregation of recreational facilities. Appreciating the treatment they were receiving from the British, the black soldiers fought back, and the clashes grew at times to riot proportions. General Davis considered discrimination and prejudice the cause of trouble, but he placed the immediate blame on local commanders. Many commanders, convinced that they had little jurisdiction over racial disputes in the civilian community or simply refusing to accept responsibility, delegated the task of keeping order to their noncommissioned officers and military police. These men, rarely experienced in handling racial disturbances and often prejudiced against black soldiers, usually managed to exacerbate the situation.

As you might imagine, the thing that really ticked off the white racists in the military was when British girls took up with black GIs.

Some social historians come close to blaming the degeneration in race relations in post-WW2 Britain entirely on the US military's behaviour when over here. That goes way too far, but they sure didn't set a shining example.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 06:14 PM

Integration of the US Armed Forces, 1940-65.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Les from Hull
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 06:01 PM

The Poles were excluded from the UK WW2 victory parade in an attempt to keep well in with 'Uncle Joe' Stalin, even though they had fought and died alongside the British before the Free French (or even the USA) became involved. I'll never be surprised what the 'powers that be' will do in the name of political expediency.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 03:04 PM

Vic, thank you very much for posting that and the link. Very interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 02:51 PM

It is very sad that has happened...it is also very important to get everyone's story out there via some of the Smithsonian?? projects or on genealogy web sites so people find it when searching by name or situation etc. Write everything you know..and encourage others to do the same.

Also..don't forget other participants in WWII...the Filipinos who never got what they were promised..the Navaho Code talkers, etc...Many many groups. mg

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 02:44 PM

SHAEF wanted to bypass Paris completely.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Vic Smith
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 01:37 PM

Jack Campin wrote:-
"Somebody knowledgeable about Francophone African music must know of something from there."

Well, I know quite a lot about the jaliya music of the Manding people of The Gambia, Senegal, Mali and Guinea Bissau and there is no reference to anything in their traditional music about the Second World War that I know of though there are lots of songs and stories about warriors though these tend to be about local conflicts including battles against French colonialists.

There are quite a number of modern composed jali songs calling for peace in Angola, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia, etc. etc (e,g. "Africa" sung by the Gambian kora player and singer, Jali Sherrifo Konteh on his album "Mansalou" - see http://www.compoundsounds.com/) and one of the most popular song in all the jali repertoire is "Kaira" meaning "Peace" in Mandinka.

We have been going to West Africa each year since 1997 and a couple that we met on our very first day in The Gambia - Adam and Pa M'Boge - are now amongst our closest friends out there. Although we have got to know them well, it was only about four years ago whilst we were having a meal in their compound that we found out that both their fathers had fought in World War 2 in the Kings West African Frontier Force and that they had served in Burma. Pa's father had received the Distinguished Service Medal for carrying his wounded (British) officer back to safety under fire. When he showed me that medal, I saw that he also had the Burma Star - as did Adam's father - and that brought us closer together as my father had also fought in Burma and had been awarded the Burma Star.

When we next went out to The Gambia, we were able to meet up at the the Gambian National War Memorial in Fajara. This is beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth Graves Commission. The egrets that parade sedately around it seem to fit in well with the mood of the place. We were able to place a wreath from three offspring of Burma Star holders - two Gambians and one Brit. As well as the graves of those who were killed in West Africa, there are plaques listing the names of the many Gambians killed fighting in Burma.

On our visit to The Gambia earlier this year, we also found out the father of the Head Teacher of the school that we support out there, Mrs Yaharr Jallow, had been a recipient of the Burma Star.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 01:25 PM

Long time ago.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 01:11 PM

If there were any links to songs on the Gurkha site I couldn't see them. If there's a Gurkha equivalent of the Highland Division's Farewell to Sicily you aren't going to find it on a site like that.

The Indian subcontinent is a whole different issue anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: s&r
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 12:53 PM

The Gurkhas

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 12:10 PM

I am still wondering what musical trace there might be of the Black effort in WW2. I know about Ellington's V-discs, which were made *for* the war effort rather than expressing anything about it. And that's the nearest I can think of.

Somebody knowledgeable about Francophone African music must know of something from there.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 11:48 AM

Whether there are skeletons or no, this is interesting, no?

Subject: RE: WW2 made whites-only
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 11:33 AM

Yes-I'm sure it will be moved soon.... but it really, really would be nice if folks remembered to use the right prefix when posting....

Subject: RE: WW2 made whites-only
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 11:32 AM

Jack - do you still hold a grudge against Italy for feeding Christians to the lions?

I'm sure you have skeletons in your own closet that you have to deal with. No one is proud of segregation if that is what you are trying to insinuate. It seems like you are trying to keep the hatred alive instead of trying to improve for the future.

Subject: RE: WW2 made whites-only
From: Nancy King
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 11:29 AM

Umm -- shouldn't this be below the line?

Subject: RE: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 11:18 AM

The story makes it clear that making it an all-white show was done on the orders of the US general Bedell Smith. De Gaulle had insisted that the French should take the lead role, but didn't say that it just be the white French. That was an American idea that the British brass went along with (as they had done with the US importing segregation with their armed forces in Britain over the previous three years).

Subject: RE: WW2 made whites-only
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 11:00 AM

The "Tuskegee Airmen," who had one of the most exemplary records of all the fighter escort groups in WWII, came back to find their war exploits, for the most part, had not made their lives as civilians much different, nor opened up many opportunities. The recent movie, "Devil in a Blue Dress" portrayed a returning black war hero who finds himself and his service count for nothing in trying to find a job in post WWII Los Angeles. In southeast Texas in the 1940's and '50's I saw gas stations with three rest rooms; "Men, Women & Colored." Black people sat in the back of the bus and lived across the tracks, not to be seen on the white side of town after sundown. It is not surprising that, in those times, the government, pandering to those worst instincts "out of the ugly necessities of war" should put forth such a policy. That part of our past may be ugly, but the past does not have to be prologue. Ask our new President.

Subject: RE: WW2 made whites-only
From: Mr Happy
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 10:58 AM

National pride???

Subject: RE: WW2 made whites-only
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 10:55 AM

Hey, hey, hey- are you a caption writer for Fox News?

From the story it appears that first it was the French who demanded the whites-only parade, then the US and then the British.

(I recognize that the thrust of your post is the Black experience in WWII but your opening statement should not be ignored.)

Subject: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 10:41 AM

This is one of the creepiest stories about white racism I've read for a long time:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7984436.stm

(The Free French forces put together, with great difficulty, an exclusively white unit to "liberate" Paris in front of the cameras, on the orders of the racist US Government).

It made me wonder about what songs there might be about the Black experience in WW2. Obviously most of them are going to be from the French colonies because of their overwhelmingly greater numbers, but there should be some from the US, the Caribbean and the British colonies in Africa too.