The Battle of Bamber Bridge is the name given to an outbreak of

racial violence Ethnic violence is a form of political violence which is expressly motivated by ethnic hatred and ethnic conflict. Forms of ethnic violence which can be argued to have the characteristics of terrorism may be known as ethnic terrorism or ethnica ...

involving American soldiers stationed in the village of

Bamber Bridge Bamber Bridge is an urban village in Lancashire, England, south-east of Preston, in the borough of South Ribble. The name derives from the Old English "bēam" and "brycg", which probably means "tree-trunk bridge". The population was 13,945 at ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, in

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

during the Second World War. Tensions had been high following a failed attempt by US commanders to racially segregate pubs in the village, and worsened after the 1943 Detroit race riot. The battle started when white American

Military Police Military police (MP) are law enforcement agencies connected with, or part of, the military of a state. In wartime operations, the military police may support the main fighting force with force protection, convoy security, screening, rear recon ...

(MPs) attempted to arrest several

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

soldiers from the

racially segregated Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

1511th

Quartermaster Quartermaster is a military term, the meaning of which depends on the country and service. In land armies, a quartermaster is generally a relatively senior soldier who supervises stores or barracks and distributes supplies and provisions. In m ...

Truck Regiment, at the Ye Olde Hob Inn

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

for being out of uniform. In a confrontation on the street afterwards, a white MP shot and killed Private William Crossland. More military police then arrived armed with machine guns and grenades, and black soldiers armed themselves with rifles from their base

armoury An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are most ...

for protection. Both sides exchanged fire through the night. Although a

court martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

convicted 32 African American soldiers of mutiny and related crimes, poor leadership and the racist attitudes of the MPs was acknowledged as a cause.

Background

During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Bamber Bridge hosted American servicemen from the 1511th Quartermaster Truck regiment, part of the

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Force ...

. Their base, Air Force Station 569 (nicknamed "Adam Hall"), was on Mounsey Road, part of which still exists now as home to 2376 (Bamber Bridge) Squadron of the

Royal Air Force Air Cadets The Royal Air Force Air Cadets (RAFAC) is a volunteer-military youth organisation sponsored by the Royal Air Force that manages both the Air Training Corps and RAF Sections of the Combined Cadet Force. The organisation is headed by a former ser ...

. The 1511th Quartermaster Truck was a

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

unit, and its duty was to deliver

materiel Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context. In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the specifi ...

to other Eighth Air Forces bases in Lancashire. The 234th US Military Police Company were also in the town, on its north side. The US Armed Forces were still racially segregated, and the soldiers of 1511 Quartermaster Truck were almost entirely black, and all but one of the officers were white, as were the MPs. Military commanders tended to treat the service units as "dumping grounds" for less competent officers, and the leadership in the unit was poor. Racial tensions were exacerbated by the race riots in Detroit earlier that week, which had led to 34 deaths, including 25 black casualties. The people of Bamber Bridge supported the black troops, and when US commanders demanded a

colour bar Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Internati ...

in the town, all three pubs in the town reportedly posted "Black Troops Only" signs.

Outbreak of violence

On the evening of 24 June 1943, some soldiers from the 1511th Quartermaster Truck Regiment were drinking with the English townsfolk in Ye Olde Hob Inn. Details of how the incident developed differ between sources. Two MPs, Corporal Roy A. Windsor and Private First Class Ralph F. Ridgeway, responded to a report of trouble at a local

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

. The MPs had standing orders to arrest soldiers who were out of camp without a pass, were disorderly, or were not in proper uniform. On entering the pub, they encountered one soldier, Private Eugene Nunn who was dressed in a field jacket rather than the required class A uniform, and asked him to step outside. An argument ensued, with local people and British servicewomen of the

Auxiliary Territorial Service The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS; often pronounced as an acronym) was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 Februa ...

siding with Nunn. One British soldier challenged the MPs by saying, "Why do you want to arrest them? They're not doing anything or bothering anybody."

Staff Sergeant Staff sergeant is a rank of non-commissioned officer used in the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. History of title In origin, certain senior sergeants were assigned to administrative, supervi ...

William Byrd, who was black, defused the situation but, as the MPs left, a beer was thrown at their jeep. After the MPs picked up two reinforcements, they spoke to Captain Julius F. Hirst and Lieutenant Gerald C. Windsor, who told the MPs to do their duty and to arrest the black soldiers. A group of MPs intercepted the soldiers on Station Road as they returned to their base at Mounsey Road. As a fight broke out, the MPs opened fire, and one bullet struck Private William Crossland of the 1511th in the back and killed him. Some of the injured black soldiers returned to their base, but the killing caused panic as rumours began to spread that the MPs were out to shoot black soldiers. Although the colonel was absent, acting CO Major George C. Heris did his best to calm the situation. Lieutenant Edwin D. Jones, the unit's only black officer, managed to persuade the soldiers that Heris would be able to round up the MPs and see that justice was done. However, at midnight, several jeeps full of MPs arrived at the camp, including one improvised armoured car armed with a large machine gun. That prompted black soldiers to arm themselves with weapons. Around two thirds of the rifles were taken, and a large group left the base in pursuit of the MPs. British police officers reported that the MPs set up a

roadblock A roadblock is a temporary installation set up to control or block traffic along a road. The reasons for one could be: *Roadworks *Temporary road closure during special events * Police chase *Robbery *Sobriety checkpoint In peaceful circumstances ...

and ambushed the soldiers. The black soldiers warned the townsfolk to stay inside when a firefight broke out between them and the MPs, which resulted in seven wounded. The fighting stopped around 04:00 the next morning with an officer, three black soldiers, and one MP having been shot and two other MPs beaten. Eventually, the soldiers returned to the base, and by the afternoon, all but four rifles had been recovered.

Arrests and courts-martial

By one later account, the violence left one man dead and seven people (five soldiers and two MPs) injured. Although a

convicted 32 black soldiers of mutiny and related crimes, poor leadership and racist attitudes among the MPs was blamed as the cause. Two trials were conducted. In August, four of the black soldiers involved in the initial brawl were sentenced to hard labour, one to two and a half years and the others to three, and all to dishonourable discharges, with one of those convictions being overturned on review. The second trial involved 35 defendants. It concluded on 18 September with seven acquittals and 28 convictions. Sentences for those convicted ranged from three months to 15 years, with seven sentences of 12 years or more. Reviews resulted in the release of one man and reductions in all other sentences. Fifteen of the men returned to duty in June 1944 and six other sentences were further reduced. The defendant with the longest sentence returned to duty after serving 13 months. General

Ira C. Eaker General (Honorary) Ira Clarence Eaker (April 13, 1896 – August 6, 1987) was a general of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Eaker, as second-in-command of the prospective Eighth Air Force, was sent to England to form and ...

, commander of the

, placed most of the blame for the violence on the white officers and MPs because of their poor leadership and use of

racial slurs The following is a list of ethnic slurs or ethnophaulisms or ethnic epithets that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or racial group or to refer to them in a derogatory, pejorative, or oth ...

. To prevent similar incidents happening again, he combined the trucking units into a single special command. The ranks of that command were purged of inexperienced or racist officers, and the MP patrols were racially integrated. Morale among black troops stationed in England improved, and the rates of courts-martial fell. Although there were several more racial incidents between black and white American troops in Britain during the war, none was on the scale of that of Bamber Bridge. Reports of the mutiny were considerably censored, with newspapers disclosing only that violence had occurred in a town somewhere in

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

. The author

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his Utopian and dystopian fiction, d ...

, who lived in the Bamber Bridge area after the war, wrote about the event briefly in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' in 1973 and in his autobiography, ''

Little Wilson and Big God ''Little Wilson and Big God'', volume I of Anthony Burgess's autobiography, was first published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction ...

''. Popular interest in the event increased in the late 1980s after a maintenance worker discovered bullet holes from the battle in the walls of a Bamber Bridge bank.

Commemoration

In June 2013, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the incident, the

University of Central Lancashire , mottoeng = "From the Earth to the Sun" , established = as Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledgere-established 1992 (University status granted) , type = Public , chancellor ...

held a symposium. It included a screening of the 2009 documentary ''Choc'late Soldiers from the USA'' which was produced by Gregory Cooke, and a performance of ''Lie Back and Think of America'', a play written by Natalie Penn of Front Room, which had played at the

Edinburgh Fringe Festival The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

. In June 2022, a memorial garden commemorating the battle was created opposite the pub where the Battle of Bamber Bridge started. The incident inspired the plot of the film ''

The Railway Children Return ''The Railway Children Return'', known as ''Railway Children'' in the US, is a 2022 family drama film directed by Morgan Matthews and written by Danny Brocklehurst. It is a sequel to the 1970 film ''The Railway Children'', itself based on the E ...

''.

Notes

References