The Other Band of Brothers - Execution on the Home Front

Writer: Maurice Mcleod

The debt owed by Britain, and the rest of the West, to those that fought and died in World War II is immense - The Other Band of Brothers shows that some lives were given more cheaply than others.The programme looks at the plight of African American GIs serving in Britain during the later years of the Second World War and highlights the stories of some of those who were executed at the British prison Shepton Mallet for offences, including rape, during the war.

Under a unique agreement between the American forces and the British government, US troops were tried by the Americans, under US law on British soil. This happened even when the crimes were permitted against British citizens. Rape was not a capital offence in Britain at the time, but it became one for black soldiers accused of raping the local British girls.In many cases the short trials were based on flimsy evidence and then followed by swift executions.

In their 1995 study - Executing US Soldiers in England, WWII: The Power of Command Influence and Sexual Racism, J. Robert Lilly and J. Michael Thomson concluded that: “The Visiting Forces Act of 1942 permitted the American military to use capital punishment in England as an extension of discipline...... Its purpose was to control a perceived danger: the socializing of African American troops with British females, and the possible explosive violence between Caucasian and African American troops.”

African-Americans signed up to fight in large numbers for WWII, as they had done in previous wars. Around 2.5 million African-American men registered for the draft and they formed about ten percent of the American military. Many joined hoping that by demonstrating their willingness to fight for America it would earn them the respect of white society and lead to more freedoms for Black people in peacetime. This misconception was nothing new and Black troops with these same hopes had been fighting in America since the Civil War.

In Britain black soldiers still make up just 1.7 percent of the armed forces and despite numerous initiatives black communities are still far from convinced that a military career is a good option for them.

As long ago as 1863 Colonel TW Higginson commander of the First Regiment South Volunteers Union said: "No officer in this regiment now doubts that the key to the successful prosecution of this war lies in the unlimited employment of black troops. Instead of leaving their homes and families to fight they are fighting for their homes and families, and they show the resolution and sagacity, which a personal purpose gives. It would have been madness to attempt, with the bravest white troops what I have successfully accomplished with the black ones." It seemed that the US military had still not learned these lessons 80 years later.

Britain did not practise segregation. The US forces separated black and white troops in-keeping with the Jim Crow laws that held sway in much of the US at the time. Black soldiers were considered unsuitable for the frontline and so stayed in barracks for months longer than their white comrades. This meant that many Black soldiers stayed in a given area for up to a year and a half. They consequently got to know the white locals and got used to the desegregated nature of wartime Britain.

The British had not yet developed the strong racist ideas that took a grip after the war and looked upon these black visitors as curiosities and brave men who had left their homes across the sea to defend Britain. Young black troops were not used to white women being friendly to them but very quickly sexual relationships sprung up which enraged the white American soldiers and caused a great deal of antagonism between the two groups of men. Many British people were appalled at the treatment of black troops. Following reports of a number of disturbances between white and black US troops, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “These incidents frequently involved social contact between our Negro soldiers and British girls... The small town British girl would go to a movie or dance with a Negro quite as readily as she would with anyone else, a practice that our white soldiers could not understand. Brawls often resulted and our white soldiers were further bewildered when they found the British press took a firm stand on the side of the Negro”

When Private Leroy Henry was accused of raping a woman from Bath he was saved from execution only after over 30,000 local people wrote to Eisenhower to protest the man’s innocence.Most African American troops accused of sexual assaults on white locals were not so lucky.Of the 18 soldiers executed in England during the war 11 were African-American and three were Hispanic-American. Nine of those executed were convicted of murder, six of rape, and three of both.

There were some positive outcomes to black soldiers’ involvement in the war. It is widely accepted that their time spent in Europe and elsewhere opened many black soldiers’ eyes to the fact that the segregation and discrimination the endured at home was not universal. After the war they demanded more freedoms and these demands gradually evolved into the civil rights movement that came later.

The American forces were not the only black troops to arrive in wartime Britain – several thousand black and Asian soldiers came to Britain to support the war effort. Around three million men from the Indian sub-continent joined the Allied war effort, forming the largest volunteer army the world has ever seen.

Of the 27 Victoria Crosses awarded during the Burma campaign, 20 were won by members of the Indian armed services. Around 8,000 people from the Caribbean served in WWII, as did 375,000 Africans. While British-based Empire soldiers still experienced some racism from locals and their white officers it was minimal compared to the hardship faced by their African American comrades. Many Empire soldiers, brought up on stories of the Mother Country’s fairness and benevolence, felt compelled to join up when Britain was facing its darkest hours. They did not fight in a segregated army and while their numbers were far fewer than the black Americans, they were treated, on the whole, in the same way as white British soldiers.

A great deal of the racism that Empire soldiers faced in Britain was at the hands of the white American GIs who couldn’t get their heads around the black soldiers’ carefree familiarity with local girls. Colonel B.P Rogers of the London Command said: "In London the Negro British Nationals are rightly incensed. They undoubtedly have been cursed, made to get off the sidewalk, leave eating places and separated from their white wives in public".

Sadly Britain has done little to ensure that today’s young black men and women feel as welcome in the British forces. There is also very little made of the contribution of Empire troops to the British war effort even though most of these man and women were volunteers fighting in a war against an enemy that posed little threat to their home nations.

In the years since the war the US has fought hard to reform the armed forces and while they are still far from perfect it is widely accepted that a military career is one of the fairest institutions that an African American can enter. African-American soldiers make up 22 percent of the force and individuals like Colin Powell have risen through the ranks to the very highest level.

In Britain black soldiers still make up just 1.7 percent of the armed forces and despite numerous initiatives black communities are still far from convinced that a military career is a good option for them. Recognising the sacrifices and hardships of black troops from the past might be a start.