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July in Britain is high summer when the evenings are long and light and 1944 was no exception with blackout regulations not coming in force until just after 11.00 p.m. Many of the black GIs in and around Bristol, however, had other matters on their minds apart from the British weather. The big explosion there came late on Saturday 15 July, but tension had begun to mount on the previous Monday, and doubtless at the black American Red Cross Club rumour was rife. Again, an aviation truck battalion was involved. The lesson of Leicester had not yet been learned, however, for these blacks were joined at their base, the Miller Orphanage camp, on 10 July by white paratroop replacements. The blacks claimed that two of their men were beaten up without provocation. This was followed by several incidents involving blacks and whites in Bristol over the next few days. As usual the cause of the problem was not difficult to find: the white paratroopers resented the easy relations that had developed between the white British girls in the town and the black soldiers.
On Thursday 13 July, the discontent spread. Men from the 545th Port Company, based at Sea Mills Camp, tough city blacks mainly from Detroit and New York, mutinied by staying in their billets and refusing to turn out for reveille even when the Articles of War were read to them.
The eruption finally occurred on 15 July around Park and Great George Streets. A large number of black GIs had gathered there on that Saturday evening and brawling had broken out. Extra MPs were drafted in and some calm was restored. The black troops were then marched off to the Tram Centre where trucks were to take them back to their camps. This procedure in itself must have been an awesome sight for the onlooker: Great George Street comes down from Brandon Hill and runs into Park Street, one of the city’s main arteries. Both streets slope quite steeply and the ‘march’ down to the Tram Centre about a quarter of a mile away (now simply called the Centre) may well have induced some panic in the GIs. Some of them had knives and while they were being disarmed a black soldier, who was stabbing an MP, was shot by another MP. Not surprisingly, a ‘mob spirit’ prevailed among the black GIs with MPs shooting people in the legs. Buses were drawn across some of the roads to confine the incident, while some of the wounded were dealt with by members of the St John Ambulance Brigade, who took the more seriously hurt off to Bristol Infirmary. The disturbance had involved 400 black and white troops and it had taken 120 military policemen and many arrests to bring the situation back under control. One black GI was killed and dozens may have been wounded. Bristol remained under military curfew for several days.
At ten o’clock on the morning of Thursday 9 November 1944, one of the war’s more bizarre chapters was about to unfold in a most unlikely location. A dartboard was still hanging on the wall of the mess room adjoining the barracks in Thatcham, near Newbury in Berkshire, where ten young black Americans were waiting with a mixture of apprehension and bewilderment for their court martial to begin. In the crowded, stuffy, makeshift courtroom they were about to face proceedings which could end with their executions. They listened quietly as the most serious of the charges, that of murder, was read to them. They were accused of killing three people, one of them the wife of a pub landlord, in an act of revenge which went dreadfully wrong.
The incident had begun exactly five weeks earlier to the day, and was all over in the space of about six hours. The men of the all-black 3247 Quartermaster Service Company had come from Devon on that Thursday, 5 October, to their new camp about a mile from Kingsclere, a village half-way between Newbury and Basingstoke in Britain’s leafy south. They had arrived at their destination at about 4.30 in the afternoon, cleaned up their barracks and prepared their bunks. As was normal practice when they were on the move, each man had his weapon – a rifle or a carbine – and these were not taken away until about 10.45 that evening. After attending to their chores and eating, some of the men went into Kingsclere though no leave passes had been issued. They made their way to the Bolton Arms, one of several pubs in the village, where shortly after 7.00 p.m. they were approached by three or four American auxiliary military policemen. They were told that they had to return to camp because they had no passes and were improperly dressed. One soldier later claimed that an MP had cocked a rifle at him. An hour later they were on their way back to base in a truck and an earnest conversation began to develop about returning to get the MPs: ‘We are going down there with our rifles,’ said one GI, while another argued that they should take the rifles away from the MPs and then beat them up.
At around 9.30 p.m. rural England took on the appearance of the Old West as ten black soldiers walked back into the village, loading their weapons as they went. They looked for the MPs first in the Bolton Arms, and then in another pub, the Swan Inn, before going on the Crown Inn at about ten o’clock. Inside, in various rooms of the pub finishing off their drinks, were about eight or nine black GIs, probably also out without passes, a few locals and several MPs. One or two of the ‘snowdrops’ as the MPs were commonly called, left the pub and a single shot rang out, followed quickly by a volley of gunfire. In movie style everyone hit the floor. When the smoke had literally cleared one black GI lay dead in a pool of blood, shot in the head. The landlord’s wife, Mrs Rose Napper, was lying in an inner room with a bullet wound in her jaw. She died in hospital in the early hours of the next morning. Outside, lying in a garden about 150 yards away, was the dead body of a black American MP, a bullet through his heart.
About forty people were packed into the cramped room as the court martial opened on that November morning. Apart from the defendants, the most interested spectators were the barrister representing the landlord of the Crown, and two senior officers from the Berkshire and Hampshire constabularies. As the day progressed the atmosphere grew more cloying and the air became thicker. Though smoking was not allowed while the trial was taking place everybody puffed away furiously during the short intervals. Two of the accused appeared to be asleep as 7.00 p.m. approached on the first day, one with his head in his hands.
The next morning was bright and sunny as the defence opened. That didn’t take long for only one man elected to take the witness stand, while three of the others made short, unsworn statements. Ironically one of these said he wouldn’t have been in the pub at all that evening if it hadn’t been his birthday. It was thirty minutes before the military court reached its verdict and it was during this period that the gravity of it all seemed to hit some of the men, one of whom knelt and prayed with his Bible in his hand. Nine of the men were found guilty on all three counts – murder, riotous assembly and absence without leave – and despite having no previous convictions they were given life sentences with hard labour. The tenth man was found guilty of being AWOL. The trial had left as many questions as it provided answers. How and why had this hatred of MPs been generated in such a short time? Had the fact that at least one MP was black been of significance? Had the men’s experience elsewhere in Britain led to this bitterness? Were any white officials reprimanded for sloppy weapons-storing procedures? The only known sequel to the affair was that a US colonel apologized to Harry Haig, the Regional Commissioner, for the company’s behaviour, and the remainder of the men who had not been on trial were quickly dispatched overseas
I was enthralled 