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Revealed: How Britons welcomed black soldiers during WWII, fought alongside them against racist GIs
Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | 6 Dec 2015 | Patrick Sawer

Posted on 12/06/2015 5:02:49 PM PST by PotatoHeadMick

This was no ordinary Saturday night punch-up outside a pub.

At the height of World War Two, with the country gripped in a life or death fight for freedom against fascism and dictatorship, dozens of local drinkers fought alongside black soldiers against white Military Police officers harassing them outside a Lancashire pub.

It was just one extraordinary example of the active support shown by ordinary Britons for the thousands of black American troops stationed amongst them during the war - in stark contrast to the vicious racist abuse they received from their fellow countrymen.

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: 2thelastamericanlife; agitprop; blackcannonfodder; ntsa; stfu; unitedkingdom
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I post it up without comment, others more knowledgeable than me about the time can say what they think.
1 posted on 12/06/2015 5:02:49 PM PST by PotatoHeadMick
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To: PotatoHeadMick

Vicious racial abuse = one drunk MP


2 posted on 12/06/2015 5:09:06 PM PST by 2banana
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To: PotatoHeadMick

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom

There was plenty of racism by the Brits, but rationing was so severe families were welcoming any gi that could help put food on the table.

Passing out spam and cigarettes would make anyone popular in a pub regardless of skin color.


3 posted on 12/06/2015 5:13:40 PM PST by Snickering Hound
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To: 2banana
Vicious racial abuse = one drunk MP

You make it sound like you think it was an isolated incident. It was a different period and racial bigotry was common in both the North and the South, so why should the army be any different than the civilian world. The services were segregated they did try to maintain that segregation on base and off it.

4 posted on 12/06/2015 5:16:07 PM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: PotatoHeadMick

America sucks so bad, it is a wonder we can live with ourselves. //sarc


5 posted on 12/06/2015 5:20:41 PM PST by Vermont Lt (I had student debt. It came from a bank. Not from the Govt.)
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To: Snickering Hound

What the Brits really said:
“Americans are Overpaid, Oversexed, and Over Here.”

They didn’t think very much of American soldiers who were stealing their women.


6 posted on 12/06/2015 5:20:46 PM PST by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: PotatoHeadMick
Didn't that riot spread world wide?


7 posted on 12/06/2015 5:21:46 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Mollypitcher1

Let’s not forget that the Yanks hit back that the Brits were “underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower”.


8 posted on 12/06/2015 5:22:50 PM PST by PotatoHeadMick
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To: DoodleDawg

The beef is with the Brits trying to act all better-than-us on the issue of race. Their history is no better.


9 posted on 12/06/2015 5:22:55 PM PST by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: Mollypitcher1

England also sent the half black children of unmarried women to Australia.


10 posted on 12/06/2015 5:22:56 PM PST by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

Good one. Thanks. lol


11 posted on 12/06/2015 5:24:04 PM PST by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

Still waiting for the first black Prime Minister.


12 posted on 12/06/2015 5:24:43 PM PST by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

My dad wasn’t black but he thought MPs were Aholes.


13 posted on 12/06/2015 5:26:31 PM PST by tiki ( r)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

This is great. Its not too late to invite the descendents of these abused GIs to come back to live in England.


14 posted on 12/06/2015 5:30:34 PM PST by armydawg505
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To: PotatoHeadMick

this only happened because that racist democrat Wilson re-segregated the US military.


15 posted on 12/06/2015 5:32:10 PM PST by RginTN
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To: tiki

My Father would probably be considered racist now but was probably mild by 1940s standards.

Not sure why, but he hated MPs and paratroopers.


16 posted on 12/06/2015 5:33:10 PM PST by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

Always victims, never perps is a white “journ-O-lists” dream article and bookseller


17 posted on 12/06/2015 5:36:02 PM PST by A_Former_Democrat (In Missouri, and coming to a State near you, #BlackLiesMatter)
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To: PotatoHeadMick
I remember the very start of the war. My father was a professional soldier at Aldershot. Later a Dunkirk veteran. Never forget the crowds at Buckingham Palace gates. "We want the King". This at war's end in Europe. Now to the chase.

Beggers! who never saw the war and still carping about our American friends. I remember my old WW1 veteran grandfather and him bringing in a huge plate of scrambled eggs. Yes, reconstituted eggs, in a carton with two hands shaking each other. We all cheered. Eggs a luxury. This after an "all clear" had sounded. On the cuffs were the United States flag on one and the Union Jack on the other.

I am proud of my own country for helping defeat Hitler. I do not kid myself, if America did not help with Lend Lease things would have been different. Once starvation set in there would have been riots and probably started by the British communists. They were already fomenting trouble.

Those that never saw that war are the "experts". Few know how close Britain came to disaster.

A rant by me. I do remember. Thanks America!

18 posted on 12/06/2015 5:36:34 PM PST by Peter Libra
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To: PotatoHeadMick

Many “racists GI’s” saved a lot of the limeys’ asses & gave up theirs


19 posted on 12/06/2015 5:39:09 PM PST by Insigne123 (It is the soldier, not the community organizer, who gives us freedom of the press)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past
"Their history is no better."

Great Britain was directly responsible for slavery in the American colonies and they were the premiere slave traders from the 1600s until the very early 1800s.

20 posted on 12/06/2015 5:39:23 PM PST by Flag_This (You can't spell "treason" without the "O".)
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