BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : BLACK SOLDIERS IN WHITE ARMIES : RACE, CLASS AND WAR - WHY DO THEY FIGHT WHITE MEN WAR ?

                           BLACK       SOCIAL       HISTORY                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                     Black Soldiers in White Armies: Race, Class and War

African origin soldiers have been part of British and American armies for over 250 years and yet the full story of their military service is still not widely known. Five thousand African Americans fought for their new nation’s liberty in the American War of Independence in all-black units. Over two thousand African Caribbeans of the West India Regiment fought against German and Turkish forces in Africa and the Middle East during the First World War, with several of them being mentioned in dispatches and one winning the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

It is a story of forgotten heroes, like William Hall, the first African origin soldier to win the Victoria Cross, or Africanus Horton, one of the first Africans to qualify as a medical doctor and serve as a British officer, attaining the rank of Surgeon Major. Then there is Benjamin O Davis Sr, who rose from Buffalo soldier to be the first African American general in the US Army in WW2, and his son, commanding officer of the 99^th Pursuit Squadron in Europe, became the first African American general in the USAF.

But there is scandal too. Clashes between white officers and black soldiers exposed racial and class divides. In Liverpool during WW1, a riot broke out when soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment were placed in a hospital with non-Christian colonial troops who did not speak English. In Taranto, black soldiers mutinied because they were being treated as ‘coolies’ to unload ships and not as fighting troops. This anger came to a head in 1918 when they were not awarded the pay rise given to British soldiers because the War Office considered them colonial troops.

From Buffalo Soldiers to the 369th ‘Harlem Hellfighters’, from black bandsmen to war heroes in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, this is the first popular history book to tell the epic story of African origin soldiers in British and American armies in their words, taken from personal journals, diaries and interviews. In the same style as Tim Newark’s acclaimed Highlander andThe Fighting Irish, each chapter focuses on one soldier and tells the story through his first-hand experience

Based on archival research and veteran interviews, this book reveals some startling facts.

US President Barack Obama’s paternal grandfather served in the King’s African Rifles. As did Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

  More black African soldiers fought with the British against the Mau Mau than with them.

  Many famous black sportsmen from Tottenham football star Walter Tull to  champion boxer Nigel Benn, the ‘Dark Destroyer’,  and Olympic medallist Kriss Akabusi have served in the British Army.