White locals stood shoulder to shoulder with black soldiers at the Battle of Bamber Bridge

Americans didn’t just bring glamour and nylons to Britain during the war; they also imported the systemic racism of the segregated United States. David Barnett on a little-known mutiny near Preston in 1943

Saturday 27 June 2020 19:08 BST
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African American soldiers after a court martial in which they were charged with mutiny
African American soldiers after a court martial in which they were charged with mutiny

Bamber Bridge lies just to the south of Preston, now connected by urban sprawl from the Lancashire city, but a community with its own strong identity. It’s referred to locally as Brig, and though there’s a strong following for nearby Preston North End, Bamber Bridge has its own fiercely supported Northern Premier League side. During the Second World War it was also home to an American army base at Adams Hall, pretty much just a collection of huts and barracks housing the US Eighth Army Air Force Station 569. This included a Quartermaster Truck Company attached to the unit, which was primarily composed of black American soldiers, under the command of a few white officers.

American GIs were famously overpaid, over-sexed and over here during the war, as Allied troops gathered in Britain preparing for the push into Europe to fight the Nazis. But the Americans didn’t just bring glamour and nylons with them; they also imported something far less palatable. The systemic racism of the segregated United States.

And that led to an astonishing incident that is little known outside Bamber Bridge, where it has achieved the status of local legend: nothing less than a mutiny.

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