Fighting Racism: Black Soldiers and Workers in Britain During the Second World War

Immigrants & Minorities ISSN: 0261-9288 (Print) 1744-0521 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fimm20 Fighting Racism: Black Soldiers and Workers in Britain during the Second World War Gavin Schaffer To cite this article: Gavin Schaffer (2010) Fighting Racism: Black Soldiers and Workers in Britain during the Second World War, Immigrants & Minorities, 28:2-3, 246-265, DOI: 10.1080/02619288.2010.484250 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02619288.2010.484250 Published online: 28 May 2010. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 591 View related articles Citing articles: 2 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fimm20 Download by: [St Francis Xavier University] Date: 07 September 2016, At: 11:44 Immigrants & Minorities Vol. 28, Nos. 2/3, July/November 2010, pp. 246–265 Fighting Racism: Black Soldiers and Workers in Britain during the Second World War Gavin Schaffer* School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK The Second World War led to a substantial increase in the number of black people living and working in Britain. Existing black British communities were bolstered in this period by the arrival of war volunteer workers from the Empire, who came to serve Britain in a variety of military and civilian roles, as well as by the arrival of 130,000 black GIs in the US army’s invasion force. This article considers the reception that these communities received from the British government and the British general public, questioning the extent to which racial ideas of white difference and superiority continued to shape white British reactions to black workers and soldiers. Using a variety of sources, including government papers and Mass Observation reports, this article interrogates the roots of changing dynamics of racial thought in wartime Britain, highlighting in particular the extent to which fears of racial mixing continued to undermine white responses to growing black British communities. Keywords: black immigrants; black workers; racism in Britain; Mass Observation; racial science; black GIs; Second World War In the mid-1980s, pioneering scholars of immigration and minority histories offered a series of important interventions concerning the reception of black people, and the development of black communities, in wartime Britain. In this period, the likes of Marika Sherwood, Ken Lunn, Peter Fryer and Graham Smith provided solid foundations for the developing historical field of black British study, highlighting the *E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 0261-9288 (print)/ISSN 1744-0521 (online) q 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/02619288.2010.484250 Immigrants & Minorities 247 experiences of diverse black communities in Britain and offering an enhanced analysis of British racism.1 The development of black British war history in this period reflected changing currents in broader historical approaches to wartime Britain, in particular, an increasing scholarly willingness to probe more deeply into the nation’s war image and engage with less glorious aspects of the British war experience.2 Pioneering scholars of black history were also no-doubt mindful of the timeliness, amid the nationalistic and often xenophobic atmosphere of Thatcherism, of a history which drew within its scope the long-standing contributions of black people and detailed the complex British history of racism and intolerance. Twenty years after this burst of scholarship, and despite a generation of historians who have attempted to develop our understanding of the Second World War, key questions remain about the experiences of black people in wartime Britain.3 In particular, historians continue to debate the extent to which black volunteers were welcomed into the British war effort and the level of government and popular hostility towards the development of black communities in this period. In light of this ongoing debate, this article will focus on the history of both black civilian workers and soldiers during the war in the belief that understanding the reception of soldiers (as well as civilians) is necessary in order to unpick racial sensibilities in a wartime society. To this end, the article will utilise both government papers and the archives of Mass Observation to re-consider the reception of all black volunteers in wartime Britain, questioning the ways in which changing dynamics of racial thought created and conditioned this reception. At the outset it is important to challenge the idea that black presence or racial conflict was a new phenomenon in wartime Britain. Of course, in the context of this volume, such an idea would not come to the fore. However, government and media outlets during the war repeatedly characterised the black presence in Britain as new. In particular, the idea that the nation had no experience of co-existing with black communities or dealing with racial conflict seems to have been engaged in order to defend, and often defer to, American racial attitudes and policies of segregation. For example, Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, noted in a 1942 memorandum that ‘the American point of view’ needed to be considered, specifically because Britons ‘have not had sufficient experience on a large scale of the colour problem’.4 The idea of deferring to American expertise on race relations was never universally accepted and was subject to numerous challenges, especially from the Colonial Office.5 Nonetheless, the notion that black communities posed new problems to a historically white British society 248 G. Schaffer remained fairly prominent and has repeatedly entered historical analysis. Smith, for example, has argued that the arrival of black GIs ‘caused considerable consternation’ precisely because Britain was ‘unaccustomed to racial problems’.6 More black people did though come to Britain because of the Second World War. Volunteers from across the British Empire and black GIs bolstered Britain’s existing black communities and played a substantial role in the war effort. Specifically, the war saw the arrival of 1000 technicians and factory workers in Merseyside, 1200 Honduran Foresters in Scotland and the enlistment of over ten thousand Caribbean soldiers by the RAF. More significant in terms of numbers were the one hundred and thirty thousand black GIs of the United States army, which built up in Britain until the attack on the Nazi Continent in 1944.7 Fryer has argued that the reception of the black GIs entailed ‘a strange mixture of genuine welcome and genuine discrimination’.8 Similarly, mixed messages seem also to have characterised the reception of black volunteers from the Empire. Many British politicians, perhaps most, were less than happy at the prospect of accepting such volunteers into Britain. As far as the black GIs were concerned, the British government had tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent their arrival in any great numbers. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) accused the British government of asking their allies in the United States to station no black troops in Britain. An official at the Foreign Office noted that it was impossible to refute such a statement as there was a ‘possibility’ that the Prime Minister may have done so. The best answer that could be given, the Official concluded, was that the request had not been to completely stop the sending of black troops but to minimise their number. This nuance, he noted, would do little to reassure the NAACP.9 Correspondence between British officials in the United States and the Foreign Office in 1942 indicates the extent to which this reluctant acceptance of black soldiers and volunteers in Britain was entrenched in British policy. A British official in Washington Ronnie Campbell wrote that while he understood that ‘coloured’ volunteers were ‘not desired’, any public indication that the British government was operating a policy which discriminated ‘on grounds of race ...[was]...likely to give rise to serious trouble with the coloured organisations in this country’. The Foreign Office’s reply to Campbell reinforced the idea that, political considerations aside, the recruitment of black volunteers was not on the British agenda. Any such recruitment, it was argued, ‘would create most difficult situation (sic) which we are not yet prepared to deal’.10 There were two main reasons for British reluctance to host black GIs and other black war volunteers. Firstly, politicians and officials were concerned Immigrants & Minorities 249 that an increased black presence might entail negative social consequences. The exact nature of these concerns is not always easy to pin down but they seem to have orientated around fears that a heightened black population might lead to an increase in racial violence and a deep-rooted concern about black and white sexual mixing. The other reason for opposition was a belief that black soldiers and volunteers would not meet the same standards as their white comrades. While British politicians could not act effectively on these fears as regards black GIs, a belief in black inferiority certainly shaped policy towards the use of Empire war volunteers.11 The most extreme proponents of the idea of black inferiority resided in the War Office. Here, the Secretary of State, James Grigg, consistently resisted the recruitment and use of black troops. A 1942 report from Grigg to the Cabinet strongly argued the case of black troop inferiority. He argued: ‘While there are many coloured men of high mentality and cultural distinction, the generality are of a simple mental outlook ...In short they have not the white man’s ability to think and act to a plan’.12 Throughout the conflict, the War Office maintained its opposition to the use of black troops, and attempted to influence other government departments to minimise black presence in Britain. One 1943 report forcefully argued the case for exclusion. Grigg argued: ‘On purely military grounds I am afraid the drawbacks of so employing them, whether as combatant (e.g., anti- aircraft) troops or as labour units outweigh any advantages’.13 These attitudes were not shared by everyone.

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