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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 the site.

The way that the black GIs were kept apart from the white troops - different camps, different off-duty nights to come into Truro - astounded our parents. It was puzzling and disappointing. Yes there were occasional brawls, knife fights and stabbings. Often the white American was to blame, the Afro-American seemed gentler and kinder - certainly extremely nice to be with. In Chacewater and Perranwell and the like, they gave super ‘gospel’ concerts. When not at play they were on the river Fal at our beauty spots, such as Tolverne, Turnaware Bar - places that had fore-shore. In earlier years we picnicked or played, and went fishing, but now the GIs built slipways, concrete and steel matting to assemble landing craft. Opposite King Harry Ferry they cut through almost virgin land to lay a tarmac road. It is still there. For donkeys years after, you could go there and see the tank track marks along the road. In later years, as Tolverne was developed for the tourist trade, the marks disappeared.

The black GI’s were SOS (Services of Supply), rather like our Pioneer Corps and RASC. Truck drivers, boat and port personnel helping with wounded. (Heroic deeds were done off Omaha simply with the effort put into lift badly wounded men up the sides of ships). These GIs drove the Higgins boat and manned battle stations on the warships, piloting LSTs (landing ship tank). Special black GI brigades were formed - EXBs (Engineer Special Brigade). The first ESB was with the 4th Infantry Division on Utah beach. The 5th ESB was with the 16th and the 6th ESB was with the 116th on Omaha beach. They demolished beach obstacles, blew up mines, erected guide signs and cleared access roads. They blew gaps in sea walls and put down supplies, ammo dumps, also acting as beach traffic cops. One man who will not be attending the 60th anniversary is Lt-Cdr Robbie Robinson. Only just in February this year, February 26th, he died at the age of 82. As Petty Officer, 23 years old, he was with the Gis, a diver clearing the Normandy beaches of mines and booby-trapped obstacles, below the high water mark. He cleared 2,500 explosive charges under the sea. His story is worth reading. He was at Plymouth, and later with the US Marines as a demolition specialist in the Korean War.

In March 1944, 60 years ago, General Eisenhower issued a special circular letter to all senior American commanders. He ordered that discrimination against Negro groups must be deliberately and consciously avoided. The Red Cross had to provide separate clubs for the black GI’s. They were on equal footing as the whites but in pubs and clubs there had to be segregation, otherwise shootings and fist fights would occur (the fault of the white man disliking the Negro). They hated the way our girls took to the black man; and were very surprised that us, English, did not resent negros.

The ESB’s were trained at Slapton Sands, where the villagers had to leave their homes. Last March one of the preserved tanks was shown on TV, with the man who bought it to have as a memorial. Not much is seen there today but there is a plaque. The Tiger Operation was a disaster, due to poor communication from ship to ship, and ship to shore, when German E boats from Cherbourg arrived. Almost 1000 GI’s lost their lives and the wounded were quickly transported to Wales, in the hope that secrecy and silence would keep the fiasco from the media. It was a training manoeuvre which became real life, in that the ESB’s were learning to tend the wounded as medics, learning to leave any dead; and in Normandy they would carry out grave registration and be burying parties.

Amongst these GI’s was George Fizzuglio, I’ve already mentioned, and Benjamin Davis who would live until 2002; Chris Thomas, Howard Manoian - who for many years would return to visit Ste Marie Eglise on the Cerbourg peninsula where his friend hung from the church spire, featured in the film ‘The Longest Day’. Paul Honath from New Mexico, would return, staying in the Royal Hotel whilst revisiting his old camp and Union Place, Truro (I still write annually to his widow). Doug Chester and GI Stanway survived to return, 40 years later, but more about them later.

Then June 2nd and 3rd arrived, 1944. Overnight the Americans were gone. The camps were empty. D Day was imminent and they were gone. Once again Tolverne, Turnaware Bar, Tullimar HQ, Tregye, Trebah and Polgwidden Cove, Helford were empty and silent. Empty slipways. The Fal was open to us after several years; King Harry picnic spots. All gone, but where? Only days later did we know about Omaha and Utah. About the Normandy beaches of Sword, Gold and Juno. The Afro/American GI’s were in the 3rd wave on Omaha and Utah. The SOS and ESB’s were not frontline combatants, but more like our own RASC for supplies and services. General Eisenhower knew what the first landings would be like, so he used the young, ‘rarin-to-go’ unblooded troops. The older men being more careful would not have had the ‘dash’. At Tullimar HQ Generals Omar Bradley and Eisenhower knew that the lads, being young and unseasoned had to be the 1st wave, and would be expendable. It has been said that Omaha turned boys into men; with 80% killed and total carnage for the 116th. 150,000 black Americans went as GI’s, mainly as Services of Supply, at ports loading ships, tending wounded and driving trucks, but there was one battalion of Negroes in the attack on 6th June, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, setting up barrage balloons from the S1s and LC1s to keep enemy planes away. However, in December 1944 Eisenhower allowed almost 5000 truck drivers to volunteer for the privilege of fighting, so the 92nd Infantry was formed and just as they proved themselves in the First World War fighting for the French, they did the same in the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes.

I seem to be harping on the Afro/American troops a lot. This is because running parallel with 1943 into 1944 and the aftermath to 2004 and on has been, is, the sad, tragic story I mentioned when I began this DD Anniversary. One story that has been repeated a thousand times. But first I want to deal with the aftermath here in Cornwall with the GI’s gone to war.

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