Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
WW2’S FORGOTTEN HEROES
The brave exploits of black and Asian soldiers have been overlooked, says Idris Elba. His new show aims to redress that
While being transported to a prisoner-of-war camp in Bayonne, France, Siddiq Ahmed decided to make his daring escape. An assistant surgeon in India who had been working as a medic with the British Army during World
War II, he and two fellow Pows jumped from the train under cover of nightfall.
For ten days they attempted to avoid recapture, with just 500 francs escape money Siddiq had stitched inside the seam of his boots and a few potatoes to quell their hunger. As historian Dr Ghee Bowman remarks, ‘Escaping in France in 1943 for an Indian soldier was difficult. They didn’t blend in. They had nothing to eat. The Germans were looking for them. And they didn’t know where they were going. It was a big gamble.’
Yet Siddiq managed to reach the Pyrenees, and from there made the 4,000-mile journey home to India via Madrid, Gibraltar and Cairo. But while movies such as The Great Escape have immortalised the heroism of white British and US soldiers during the war, very little is known of similar heroics performed by the likes of Siddiq and his fellow black and Asian soldiers.
This anomaly is addressed in Erased: WWII’S Heroes Of Colour – a documentary highlighting these overlooked stories. Luther star Idris Elba, whose grandad was a World War II veteran, narrates, saying, ‘We’ll restore these unsung heroes to their rightful place.’
More than eight million people of colour served with the Allies during the war, and with this in mind the documentary attempts to re-evaluate four of its greatest battles – Pearl Harbor, Dunkirk, D-day and the Battle of the Bulge – through recorded interviews and re-enactments.
A cook with the American Navy, Doris Miller, 22, was serving on USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii when the ship was torpedoed by the Japanese in December 1941. He was sent to the control tower to help the captain, who was seriously wounded. In addition, as the ship’s executive officer noted in his report, ‘[Doris] was instrumental in hauling people through the oil and water along the quarterdeck, saving the lives of a number of people.’ But he didn’t stop there.
To help defend against the relentless aerial attack, Doris raced to a deck gun and returned fire – despite black sailors in the navy having no gunnery training. Official records had him shooting down one enemy plane, while eye witnesses credited him with between two and six hits. As Doris said later, ‘I just thought I’d better start hitting those planes before they hit me. I forgot all about
the fact that I and other Negroes can only be messmen and aren’t taught how to man an anti-aircraft gun.’ In May 1942 he was awarded the Navy Cross – the US Navy’s second-highest military decoration.
Also on board the USS West Virginia was George Bland, 19, who alongside Doris was one of the 1,000 black sailors among the fleet at Pearl Harbor, all working below deck. He chafed at his treatment at the hands of the white officers and as his son Frank says in the documentary, ‘He couldn’t breathe without someone saying, “Hey, n ****** , do this. Pick up that.”’
Yet when the ship was attacked, George risked his life to help pull men out of the fires and recalled later being haunted by the sight of flesh falling off people’s bodies. When his daughter-in-law wondered how he could help those who’d insulted him, he responded, ‘These were God’s children. It broke my heart that I couldn’t save them.’
The series also shines a spotlight
on the 761st Tank Battalion – aka the Black Panthers – the first African-american armoured unit to see combat in the US Army. Their efforts during the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest US battle of the war, proved pivotal to Europe’s liberation from the Nazis.
Yet prior to seeing action, there was little faith in their ability to acquit themselves in battle. An astonishing 1925 report entitled The Use of Negro Manpower In War asserted that ‘the cranial cavity of the Negro is smaller than the white.’ And it added, ‘An opinion held by practically all officers is that the Negro is a rank coward in the dark.’
‘They said we couldn’t use tanks,’ said Staff Sgt Johnnie Stevens of the 761st after the war. ‘We had to prove to the world we could do anything that anybody else could do.’ And they did exactly that. In November 1944, tasked with liberating the French town of Vic-surseille, they drove the Germans out within hours. Their reputation grew, and as historian Professor Yohuru Williams explains, ‘Their white counterparts wanted the 761st attached to their unit because they’d heard about the proficiency of these fearsome fighters.’
Despite the hostility these soldiers faced, many African-americans stationed in Britain remarked on how well they were treated. ‘The kind of reception they got in Great Britain really filled their souls,’ says Professor Yvonne Latty of Temple University. ‘It empowered them.’
Back home it was a different story. Pearl Harbor hero George Bland was thrown off a bus while on leave in North Carolina in 1944, after refusing to move to the back to make way for two white German Pows. As social historian Professor Matthew Delmont remarks, ‘One of the great ironies of the war was that you had the world’s greatest democracy, the US, fighting against the world’s worst racist, Adolf Hitler, yet we had the same kind of racial ideologies.’
Of the countless stories of World War II heroes recounted over the decades, those featured in the documentary have largely gone unheard. But as Professor Latty says of the men of colour who fought for freedom, ‘Their stories deserve to be elevated and not erased.’