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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People's War site by CSV Storygatherer, Pam McCarthy, on behalf of Bernard Peters. They fully understand the terms and conditions of this site.

D-Day . . . The 60th Anniversary. Preparations go ahead for reunions, remembrances and celebrations. Not only for German - British relations, but for the Americans, centre-ing on Trebah, Falmouth and Omaha in Normandy. As with the First World War so too was the Second World War, 1939-1945, a tragedy for the world; over 50 million dead (20 million were Soviets USSR). Very few countries were not involved . . . And it need not have been.

As terrible as it was it has afforded us films to watch and ‘enjoy’. How often we hear someone say, ‘I love a good war film’. We have countless books to read and enjoy; written by the survivors, men and women of the forces, who were there! We have the splendid TV series, 26 parts of the World War. We have memorable music, songs still enjoyed from 80 and 60 years ago. There are battle fields to visit, memorials and places world-wide used for guided tours.

Great friendships were formed, and reunions with annual parades; these friendships are on-going into 2004. 1939-1945 has never gone away. But, alas . . . We fail to learn; history teaches us nothing, each generation wants to do its own thing, no matter how mad, with tragic circumstances. The aftermath of 60 years ago is with us now, and tragic sad stories remain. Time has not healed . . . Great heartache; and that will remain until the individual dies. With me is one such story , which I hope to tell.

Truro has known about black people for over 100 years, by reason of the splendid, loveable Cockle family; and Tidewater (Scattups) village had the Mohammeds. Beloved by the community. Then in 1943 we saw the yanks’ arrive . . . The white Americans and the African/Americans. Their camps were all around the Truro and Falmouth area and it grew to a crescendo for 1944. Camps in Devoran, Perranwell, Shortlanesend, Chacewater and penstraze, Treliske and, closest to us, Boscawen Park. Where the hospital is were tents and Nisson huts, ammunition stores. Fro m the beginning of Penventinnie Lane right along the side of the golf course was a huge assault course. We lost Malpas Park, our playground, it was closed to us. Inside the railings (they had not gone for the war effort then) were luxury tents, square with flooring and stoves.

The camp attracted us like bees around a honey post, for it was from there that we could get maybe and orange, or some chocolate, even some ice-cream; otherwise we saw no such things for years. Our favourite frequest request was, ‘Got any gum chum?’ We thought that they were men, we were 14 and 15, never realising that they were only 18, 19, 20 to 25 say. Their uniforms were different to our troops - smart and quality cloth, not rough serge. They seemed to have everything, and were either always chewing gum or smoking good sized cigars, and they were always friendly. Because of Hollywood films, tuppence in the front row of our fleapit (the P. cinema) we loved the Yanks before they got here, when they arrived they were idolised and the girls threw caution to the wind! They went overboard for them and these young Americans were rewarded with what we only dreamed about. Our women folk in the 1940’s couldn’t get Nylons from shops, not for love nor money, but the Yanks had plenty of them, and for ’love’ the ladies would get them. We knew the most determined ones . . . And I would love to tell you their nicknames . . . They were real characters and, as often happens, those we give nicknames to are held with warmth and affection in our hearts. But I have been asked already by their descendents not to declare their names. One pair we refereed to as ‘the long and short of it’, for another we would say, ‘Here’s my nose, my ass is cumin’.’ The girls provided ‘comforts’ for the GI’s, we lads begged comforts, i.e. sweets, gum and fags from them.

What amused us was the lackadaisicalness of the US troops. Our soldiers and airmen were so smart that the casualness of the Yanks was glaring. No smart drill , falling in to march up to town. We knew something was happening when a group of them would come outside the railings, chewin’, smoking’, and loitering about; belt and gaiters on, with forage caps tucked under their should epaulettes. Then an officer would appear, ‘Okay you guys, dunk them fags and fall in and quit the talking.’ No ‘Attention!’. No ‘By the left quick march!’. Some semblance of order would take place, then the officer would say, ‘Okay men, follow me.’ Rather like John Wayne’s hand wave and ‘Yo Ho.’ Maybe a few seconds later he might call out, ‘Murphy, spit the tobacco out!’.

There were black Americans and white. For us in Cornwall it was strange to see so many black people. Malpas Park was for the white GI’s. In 1943, for the first time, we lads heard of the Colour Bar. The white Americans did not accept the blacks (the negros). We knew this by way of how things were run. The various camps were either for the African/American or for the Eurasians . . . the whites. Segregation was a new word for us. Off-duty they did not mix. When the Negroes were in town, the whites were kept in camp. The coloured GI’s were a part of the First US Army, the US 29th Infantry Division and First Infantry Division for Omaha, this was the US 5th Corps. The US 7th Corps was for Utah comprised of the US 4th Infantry Division.

What none of us knew at that time was what the attitude of the American authorities towards their Negro citizens. In World War 1, two black US divisions fought in France (some years ago on a pilgrimage we saw the memorial to the Negro fallen, in Flanders). One division served with the French army, winning medals. The French asked for more black troops. The other division served with the Americans, under white southerners as officers, and having poor training and equipment did poorly. The United States senators and senior officers at the US Army College in 1937 believed that the Negro was docile, tractable (easily manageable), light-hearted, carefree, good-natured, careless, irresponsible, unmoral and untruthful, cheerful, loyal, uncomplaining, is religious, has primitive art, great sense of rhythm and can be industrious, concluding that the blacks were not capable of combat service. The military did not want to ‘sully’ their forces with them.

Benjamin Davis, a many times decorated General, took up their struggle; borrowing from the library, his autobiography , ‘Benjamin O. Davis Jr. - American@ (Smithsonian Institution Press 1991). He wanted to prove that the blacks were as goods as the whites and he succeeded. The President, General Eisenhower, knew he was right, they knew better than the biased senators and ignorant senior officers, and ordered and issued circular letters to all senior American commanders that there was to be no discrimination, no segregation. The Army covered up that 90% or all trouble was directly caused by the white troops (ignorance and slave day memories). Read how Ben Davis went through hell, humiliation, isolation, but persevered and proved that, by their own actions, black troops once given a chance were as good as and, in many situations, better. So in 1944 the troops were strictly segregated but equal by law. Red Cross clubs and pubs were controlled by passes for one colour at night, alternate night passes. Officers were indignant at the association of British women with black soldiers. American women in uniform, the WAACs, the WAAFs, were more strictly segregated by their sex than the blacks were by their race. Any amoral associations resulted in the woman being sent back to the States.

The Americans liked the English girls and vice versa. The GIs had more money than British troops; smarter uniforms, and were able to supply wartime luxuries. They cam from across the seas - America Hollywood. They were young and going to war. The women sympathised and gave love - received love, in that their own men were away at war.

To re-emphasise what I have just written, and possibly to excuse any feeling of shame, I take this from the Telegraph, March 2004. From the obit to Peter Townsend’s first wife, ‘Peter Townsend and Rosie Pawle had known one another for only a few weeks when on July 17 1941 they married in the old church at Much Hadham. Later Townsend would describe those times, ‘Life in those dangerous days seemed a brief, precarious thing. So true to that war-time phenomenon, the urge to reproduce, we rushed hand-in-hand to the altar’. As did many others, even without marriage. They were to have two sons.’

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