GUEST POST: “We prepare the way” – Anya Page on a Black American regiment in wartime Suffolk
It was a black and white photograph of Black American soldiers in a Suffolk pub that began a journey of discovery for writer and independent researcher Anya Page.
Her resulting book, We Prepare The Way tells the story of the 923rd Engineer Aviation Regiment, a Black regiment tasked with building and repairing airfields for the US Air Force during World War Two. Here, she explains how she learned about the crucial role played by these men, and questions why their contribution is largely unrecognised.
The story of the ‘923rd’ is just one aspect of a wider history involving Black GIs in Britain being explored by the museum. Our digital mapping project is investigating and logging the locations of Black GI bases in the UK, while our collaborative project with WW2 ‘brown babies’ families is exploring the role DNA testing is playing in their lives.
In search of the stories of America’s Black World War Two soldiers in Suffolk
In December 2019, I was shown a photograph of cartoonist Carl Giles in a pub with a group of Black American soldiers. The photograph was taken at The Fountain pub in Tuddenham St. Martin in Suffolk by Lee Miller. I was asked whether I knew there had been Black troops stationed in Suffolk during the Second World War. I didn’t, despite having grown up in East Anglia. Why didn’t I know? I was intrigued. I wanted to know more.
Who were the Black GIs in Suffolk during the war, and what was their role? My quest to fill in the gaps in my understanding of my local history began with very little knowledge of the role of an aviation engineer, let alone a segregated military, or the harsh realities of Jim Crow.
The Second World War was a new kind of war, unprecedented in its methods, weapons and geography. To wage such a war required an army of logisticians, builders, and engineers, responsible for the establishment and maintenance of the infrastructure for war. Stationed in Debach (within bicycling distance of The Fountain in Tuddenham) were two battalions of construction engineers, serving with the 923rd Engineer Aviation Regiment (‘923rd’), a Black regiment charged with the task of building and repairing airfields for the United States Eighth Air Force.
At that time the US Army was segregated. Black and white soldiers belonged to separate units, had separate training facilities, and were stationed at separate bases. Around 10% of the US Army comprised Black soldiers, who were mostly assigned to service or quartermaster units, to carry out crucial but unglamourous supply, construction or logistics roles. The enlisted men of the 923rd were Black. Apart from the four chaplains, the officers were white. The 923rd comprised four battalions, each of over 700 men. Not an insignificant number. Which is why it was surprising that there was so little in presented histories about their presence here.
Was geography partly the cause? Were Black battalions less visible because they were stationed in remote, inaccessible places? Large parts of Suffolk were set aside for military purposes. Wartime Defence Regulations were specifically designed to keep civilians away from military installations, camps and airfields.
When we get our one day a week off and go out where the British people can see us, we want to show them what good American soldiers look like.
(Interview in The New York Age, 25 September 1943)
Did the combination of isolated location and the demands of the job result in the presence of the 923rd being overlooked? The aviation engineers worked double shifts, from five in the morning until eleven at night. Did this limit opportunities for contact with the local civilian population? This seemed unlikely, given the enthusiasm of the soldiers themselves to be seen and to sample the hospitality of their new surroundings.
Off limits? Keeping Black and white troops apart
They were the first ones we’d ever seen.
(Interview in East Anglian Daily Times, 4 December 1984)
This was the recollection of a resident of Eye, who was 12 when the Black troops arrived to begin work on the airfield at nearby Brome. In the 1940s, East Anglia was not racially or ethnically diverse, so I expected that the presence of Black soldiers would have been noteworthy.
To keep Black and white troops apart, the US military reserved certain towns and villages for white soldiers on pass, others for Black soldiers. Eye, Stowmarket, Diss, and Rougham were unofficially designated ‘Black’ towns for soldiers stationed in Suffolk. Civilians who did not live or work nearby might then not encounter the Black Americans in their midst. However, Black quartermaster battalions traversed the county delivering munitions and supplies, and Ipswich was host to both Black and white troops, which suggested that geography and mission were not the only explanations for the underrepresentation of Black soldiers in Suffolk’s wartime narrative.
Was recognising the contribution of the Black engineers a reminder of a deeply uncomfortable wartime compromise on the part of the government? For reasons of political expediency, the UK government did not interfere with the arrangements the US made for their Black troops. If the presence of Black American troops was not highlighted, then perhaps the equivocation of the government response to the importation of Jim Crow would be similarly overlooked.
Images: East Anglian Daily Times, 26 October 1942 and Ipswich Evening Star, 26 October 1942. Reproduced with the permission of Suffolk Archives.
The news report featuring radio star Bebe Daniels with the aviation engineers reflected the novelty of the Black soldiers as well as emphasising their remote geographical posting.
Even accounting for wartime censorship, there were few news items in the local press which specifically or overtly featured the Black Americans. Nonetheless, as I began to dig a little deeper for traces of the presence of these Black soldiers, I discovered they had been very much a part of the local community. Tiny fragments and tantalising snippets of information gleaned from church news, event listings and letters in the local papers are, taken together, testament to their involvement.
Hats off sir to the American lads in our midst.
Our Readers Letters, Norfolk and Suffolk Journal and Diss Express, 18 August 1944
Making their presence felt: World War Two Black American GIs in local British communities
The involvement of the 923rd in the community began with their faith. They attended the Baptist Church and Victoria Road Methodist Church in Diss and Turret Green Baptist Church in Ipswich. Two of their chaplains, William M Perkins, a Baptist minister from West Virginia and Methodist minister Henry C Booze from Texas were guest preachers. Many of the men also led prayers and gave readings from the scriptures. Attendance at church led to invitations to fetes, fundraisers and other social events, as indicated by a letter to the Norfolk and Suffolk Journal and Diss Express, which said, “Every fete and dance is patronised and made a success by these […] American lads.” The 923rd also hosted Christmas parties for local children, and one of their number was instrumental in setting up a scout troop in Eye.
The aviation engineers of the 923rd were among the first American troops to arrive in Suffolk. Were they novel simply because they were American, rather than Black Americans? Local police observed there was “practically no colour feeling” in the area (SA, Ipswich A2437 East Suffolk Police Files) and local residents later recalled that discrimination on racial grounds was not so much rejected as never even considered.
The aviation engineers met local people in the pub; they socialised with them in the Red Lion in Eye and the Kings Arms in Haughley and in the eight pubs reserved for Black soldiers in Ipswich (out of around 150). Local residents attended dances and suppers organised by the regiment at the Town Hall in Eye and the Methodist Hall in Diss. They welcomed them into their homes. They took in their laundry. A farm labourer’s son later explained that many people in the villages felt an affinity with the Black soldiers. Living conditions for farm workers in rural Suffolk were not unlike those for many of the soldiers back home. “They are very friendly towards us,” a corporal in the 923rd wrote home.
As I continued my research, I suspected that the presence of the Black engineers had not been forgotten. Rather, not much about their time here had been written down. I wrote to local churches and advertised in village newsletters, inviting people to share their memories of the Black wartime visitors.
Many men would probably like to remain in England after the war, they like it so well.
(The Pittsburgh Courier, 12 June 1943)
Stories of the achievements of Black soldiers were good for morale among the soldiers themselves and their families working for the war effort back home. Accordingly, the US Army facilitated access to the soldiers. Articles filed by Black war correspondents such as Trezzvant Anderson helped my quest to find out more about the individual men who came to Suffolk to build airfields. They also offered an insight into how the soldiers themselves felt about their experiences. “The British people are very democratic,” said William Smedler from Detroit, a heavy equipment operator working on the construction of the airfield at Eye.
Everything I had uncovered suggested that the men of the 923rd found a welcome within the local community. Nevertheless, the reality of their situation was that they faced discrimination and racism within the segregated military. “They get a rough deal for the most part from the white officers, and, as they say, if one comes along who is prone to treat them like humans, the others get hold of him and change him over,” observed an American Red Cross worker in a letter home. She was referring to the 923rd. An officer with the 923rd recalled being haunted by the “shameful treatment” he witnessed his fellow officers inflicting on Black soldiers. They were “openly contemptuous” of the men they led.
Unsurprisingly, morale among Black soldiers generally was low.
Ambassadors of song: how Black GIs fostered Britain’s love of Black music
There was one very particular attribute of the wartime visitors which did receive a lot of publicity, both nationally in the UK and at home in the US. This was their musical prowess. The 923rd was home to jazz trumpeters and swing pianists, quartets and ensembles, dance orchestras and brass bands. There were gospel singers, men who sang in glee clubs and church choirs, or just in the fields while they worked.
The US Army Public Relations Office saw this musical talent as an opportunity to try to improve relations between Black and white soldiers and the public, as well as boosting morale. They announced the establishment of a special chorus, formed from 200 of the enlisted men of the 923rd. Accounts from the soldiers themselves suggest that the chorus had grown organically, and simply needed to be officially recognised and enabled.
The chorus performed at two high-profile fundraising concerts in the Royal Albert Hall in September 1943, followed by a concert tour. There was an enthusiastic response to the performances from the British public and the press, both in the UK and the US, with people praising the superlative, heartfelt singing. Members of the chorus were uplifted by the recognition and appreciation. But their success did little to improve relations between the officers and men of the 923rd. The regiment was being held to ambitious construction schedules, and no allowances were made for the absence of 200 men for public relations and morale building duties, leading to friction and frustration on both sides.
The discovery of recordings of the chorus made by the BBC over 80 years ago was a highlight of my research.
I'm Going Home - The Black American Servicemen Choir at the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Archives) in The Black American Servicemen Choir at the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Archives) (soundcloud.com)
Listen to recordings made by the BBC of the Black American Servicemen Choir, which comprised members of the 923rd Engineer Aviation Regiment, a Black regiment stationed in Suffolk during World War Two. They performed at two high-profile fundraising concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in September 1943.
Nevertheless, the US Army were pleased with the morale boosting message of the chorus. They made a film of the chorus while the 923rd were serving in France. It was called I’ve Been Workin’ on an Airfield.
Unheralded and overlooked: Black GIs in Britain
The men of the 923rd served their country in time of war but were denied equal status in their homeland. “Give us a chance,” said Sergeant John W Houston of West Virginia, in a June 1943 interview with The Pittsburgh Courier, “and we will equal all others.” Eye Airfield was the first airfield in the European Theatre of Operations to be completely constructed by an all-Black regiment. It was completed ahead of schedule. The motto of the 923rd was, ‘We Prepare the Way’. That was exactly what they did. The more I learned about the aviation engineers, the more I realised that without the war service of the 923rd and men like them – quartermasters, stevedores, mechanics and drivers, largely unheralded and overlooked in popular histories – the Allied victory over fascism would not have been possible. I knew it was important to highlight their stories.
I contributed research to Suffolk Archives’ online exhibition 'Workin' on those airdromes' (shorthandstories.com), but there was still so much more to tell. During the pandemic I began writing it all down, pulling together all those fragments. Before I knew it, the stories became a chapter, a book. Such was the richness of these overlooked histories of the men who often sang as they laboured day and night in the Suffolk mud, they ensured that We Prepare the Way wrote itself really.
* Anya Page is a writer and independent researcher who has worked as a social history researcher for Ipswich Museum and Suffolk Archives. She is the author of ‘We Prepare the Way’: The story of the 923rd Engineer Aviation Regiment during the Second World War, published by Suffolk Archives (2023).
Follow Anya’s work on Instagram @pages.from.the.past
Learn more
Read Anya Page’s book, We Prepare the Way, (2023), published by Suffolk Archives.
Visit Britain’s ‘Brown Babies’, our digital exhibition about the children fathered by Black GIs curated by Professor Lucy Bland.
Learn about our project to digitally map the location of Black GI bases in Britain
Additional sources and further reading
FILM (8mins) | I’ve Been Workin’ On An Airfield, 1944 film showing Black GIs at work in Britain, IX Engineer Command on YouTube
AUDIO (3mins) | The Black American Servicemen Choir at the Royal Albert Hall, BBC Archives
ARTICLE | How a Black War Correspondent Fought to Tell the Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, history.com
ARTICLE | Carl Giles at War (1939-1945), The Political Cartoon Society
BOOK | M. A. Huddle (ed.), Roi Ottley’s World War II: The Lost Diary of an African American Journalist, (Kans: University Press of Kansas, 2011)BOOK | Graham Smith, When Jim Crow met John Bull: Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain, (London: Taurus, 1987)
BOOK | Wendy Webster, Mixing It, Diversity in World War Two Britain, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)