Dan Snow's History Hit - History of Britain's Black Airmen

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

When you think of some of the remarkable feats of airpower throughout history, you might think of the Dambusters, or the Battle of Britain. But what about some of the untold stories of Britain's remarkable black airmen? Since the early 20th Century, black airmen played vital roles as pilots, ground crew, and even resistance fighters across the world wars and beyond. But what do we actually know about these exceptional figures?In this episode, James is joined by author K.N. Chimbiri to shine a light on some of the incredible men who helped shape Britain's future. Looking at the vital contributions these individuals made to the war effort, and even world history, what can we learn from Britain's black airmen?Kandace's book The Story of Britain's Black Airmen is available here.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!Download the History Hit app from the Google Play store.Download the History Hit app from the Apple Store.

When you think of the history of the Royal Air Force, you think of the Dam Busters, the Battle of Britain, and the almost unbelievable losses of Bomber Command. But you rarely focus in on the individual stories, and you hardly ever focus in on the individual stories of Britain's Black Airmen. Well, I'm your host James Rogers, and for today's episode of Warfare, I wanted to celebrate the inspiring contribution Black Airmen have made to British aviation. As author and historian Kandasi Chabiri explains, from pilots to ground crew and with tales from across the globe, the story of Britain's black airmen is an important part

of the history of flying, one that actually goes back to before the First World War. Enjoy. Hi Kandasi, welcome to the War to the warfare podcast how you doing today i'm doing very well thank you james well it's great to have you on the podcast because you've got a new book out called the story of britain's black airmen with amazing illustrations by the grenadian illustrator elizabeth lander and each one of those really helps to bring this history to life. But tell us, what made you want to write this book now? I actually didn't want to write the book now. I wanted to write the book several years ago. It's always the case.

I wrote a book called The Story of the Windrush. And it was a self-published book originally. And I wrote it to come out in 2018 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush ship at Tilbury Docks in June 1948 and I wrote the book, I self-funded it, had it published, chose all the photos, did everything and the book arrived. I was really excited. And I was looking at the book one day and I was looking at this photo that I had chosen to go into the book. I chose the photo because it showed a group of men on board the Empire Wind

Rush when it had just arrived. And I chose it because there was a gentleman in the photo called Sam King. He was standing at the back of the group, right at the back and he looked kind of shy and I just really loved that photo and I chose it because he was in it and I had talked about him in the book and that was the only reason and my only focus for choosing that photo and then I was looking at it and I saw that there was a tall black man in RAF uniform in the same photo, and he was at the front of the group. And I had seen him before, but my mind at the time was so focused on Sam King and the arrival of the Windrush that I hadn't really been giving any thought to the fact that, I mean, I mentioned it in the book,

and I knew that Sam King had served as ground crew during the Second World War, but I really wasn't putting a lot of thought into that side of the story. I was more focused on the Windrush generation, the story from 1948 roughly onwards, not about the contributions people had made during the Second World War. But as I looked at that photo, and I realised that I knew who that man was, and I realised that the tall black man in the RAF uniform was Johnny Smythe. And I knew that he had

been a navigator for the RAF during the Second World War. I knew that he'd been shot down. I'd heard a little bit about him. And then I just became fascinated, maybe a bit obsessed with the photo. I just kept looking at it and I was just thinking, this is so amazing. I mean, even there are others in the photo as well. But I was just so amazed that I could see two men who I knew had really interesting histories, really interesting life stories.

One was still in uniform. One had obviously already been demobbed. One had served as ground crew. One had served as air crew, but both had served during the Second World War. And I just was thinking about the connections of their lives in that moment and that's when I got the idea that we needed to have a book about the contributions of Black airmen during the Second World War. So that's how the idea started from a photo in an existing book. I love that because it's so strange but here on this podcast we've actually

done an episode that focused in took a deep dive in to the history of flight lieutenant John Smythe OBE and we had his son Eddie on the pod and I mean the history is remarkable I became absolutely hooked by it not only was he an RAF navigator from Sierra Leone who was shot down and captured by the Nazis, but his post-war history is almost as fascinating, more fascinating than his wartime history because he trains as a barrister, he has this leadership role on Empire Windrush, and then he goes on to have this time as Queen's Counsel and as the Attorney General of Sierra Leone. He even goes on to meet JFK. So a remarkable man, a remarkable history. And it's actually because of this that, you know, I've become fascinated with this history

of Britain's Black Airmen. I want to do a deeper dive. So we've got an expert like you on the podcast. And it's funny that we start with this same figure. Now, when we're looking at this particular history, then, if we do want to do this deeper dive into the broader history, where is it that we should start? Is it in the Second World war or the first world war where do you start when looking into this well when i started at first i was only going to start with the second world war and as well as 2018 being the you know 70th anniversary of the arrival of the windrush ship it was also the year of the 100th anniversary of the RAF. So 2018 RAF 100. And so that was my starting point. And I was very disappointed as well to see that we had all these RAF 100 celebrations and lots of books and TV programs. And I saw no mention of Britain's Black Airmen

during the Second World War. I didn't see any of this. And a few mentions I did see, some of them were actually incorrect. They got nationalities wrong. So it was disappointing. So that was actually where I was going to start. But then as I started to do the research, I realized that although not many, there were some earlier Black Airmen. And I thought it wouldn't be right to just limit the story to be only about the navigators. I thought there were others as well. There were many men who served in the Second World War as ground crew. And then, as I said, there were also earlier airmen. And so I realized I should start at the beginning

and start at the beginning of aviation in Britain and there were black men contributing from the very beginning not many as I said but they were there so I felt I had to change the focus of the book slightly Okay so you say the start of air power in Britain well arguably air power starts for the first time in 1903 with Orville and Wilbur Wright down in, I think it was one of the Carolinas, when they do their first ever flight. When does this history start in

Britain then? The earliest airman I've traced who is of African ancestry is 1913, so 10 years. Wow. Yeah, so very early. And the RFC, Royal Flying Corps, is formed, I think, in 1912. And this gentleman, Alexander Patterson, joins in 1913. So he's there from the beginning. That's incredible. All right. I want to hear all about Alexander Patterson. What's his role? What does he do? So Alexander Patterson is an interesting person to know about because he isn't coming like most of the Irmen from other parts of the empire. He's actually Black and British. He's born here. His mother was a white English nurse, who used to work for the royal family for a short time. And his father was a mariner from Barbados

because obviously we have these connections between the sea and port cities, which has obviously happened for hundreds of years as part of Britain being the centre of an empire. And he's born here. He grew up in Southampton and he works around the docks. He does different jobs, but he also spends five years studying mechanical engineering. And when he finishes studies, he then applies to join the RFC and he's accepted. So he joins in 1913. So just a couple of years, just a year or so before the First World War. And he joins on the technical side. And this would obviously be at the time a new technology. And that's how he is already contributing outside of warfare.

That is incredible. And like you say, prior to the First World War. Okay, so he's got a technical background. He goes in, I'd say, as an engineer, I guess. Yes. Okay, so what's his role during the First World War? Very hard to know exactly what he did. I mean, I have been able to verify his progression.

He is being promoted quite quickly. He is contributing, but it's really difficult to know exactly what he did. I don't think he was a combat pilot. Almost certainly, he is contributing on the technical side. He does get sent back to Britain after about a year in France. And his role seems to have been helping other men who are going to be combat pilots to understand engines, to understand what sounds to listen for when they're flying in the planes. And obviously planes at that time are very dangerous.

They're so dangerous. Yeah. When you look into some of the histories of those planes, they would stall in midair and then you'd have to reset and i mean yeah i'm going a bit over the top but almost rebuild the engine yeah as you're like plummeting to earth and so alexander's role would have been preparing these pilots for kind of hearing all the weird things that this new engine this new technology is doing yeah i mean when i was looking into this because i didn't really know a whole lot i'm not coming from any technical background myself. When I read some of this,

I just thought, are these people really thinking? Are they getting in these planes? They were so unsafe at that time. And I just thought, wow, but that's what they did. So that's the history. Well, they were certainly daredevils. I was looking to the history of General H.H. Arnold, who ends up being the first head of the US Air Force. He's one of these the history well they were certainly daredevils um i was looking to the history of general hh arnold who ends up being the first head of the u.s air force he's one of these pioneers of air power and he started off wanting to be a pilot but he had this like near-death experience where his plane was crashing to earth and he just about restarted a stalling engine and he landed it and then vowed never to fly again i think he might have gone up in a plane once or twice afterwards, but he actually moved himself to a kind of backroom admin role.

So it's certainly not the role I would have wanted. No. So, yeah, so this is Alexander Pattinson. And what I thought was quite fascinating about him as well was that his story wasn't even known to some people who are his descendants. His story came to life maybe in the 70s or 80s when his now, that would be his grandson, was doing the family tree and then found out about his grandfather. And then he traced down some of the family who were in Southampton and had some

more of the information. So not all of the family actually even knew about this man and his contributions. Well, we're really glad that you're able to do that deep dive into his history, because that could have well been lost to time. So it's great to see it documented. Now, in regard to this, I can imagine that there weren't many black airmen in what would later become the Royal Air Force, but was the Royal Flying Corps at this point. But were there others in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War? I would say certainly yes, there would be. Even since writing the book, I have been seeing more and more photos that people have been sending me, or they've seen online, you know, those postcards that they used to do. And sometimes you can see Black Airmen there.

Now, sometimes it's difficult to tell the exact ethnicity, you know, are they African? Are they Caribbean? They could also be South Asian. But we could certainly see that there are men in these photos who are not all white. So definitely there are others and we don't know their names and their histories. I don't think that there necessarily would have been loads and loads, but they are there and they are integrated. They are serving alongside white airmen as well. But as to how many, even Alexander Patterson, his race wasn't recorded. It's only because of the family doing the family tree. And then we can obviously trace like his service number. We can trace everything that he did.

And then going and obviously the family did know about him. They still had his records. And that's how it all came to life. So almost certainly there would have been more. But how many? Hard to say. I was reading the book. I've read the book.

I can recommend the book there's one person that really stuck out to me it was sergeant pilot robinson clark can you tell us about robbie yeah now robbie is someone that i think people have known about for a couple of years they didn't really know about alexander patterson they're they are different although they're serving at the same time because a Alexander Patterson is obviously Black and British. He's born here, which makes him interesting. Robinson Clarke is coming from Jamaica, which obviously is part of the empire. And he comes when the war breaks out.

So he's coming after when we do expect more opportunity for men who are not white to have a chance to serve. And he, at the time, was a mechanic and a chauffeur. Well, he was a chauffeur, but he could also fix cars, it would seem, while he was in Jamaica. I don't know exactly who he drove. It's been very difficult to find out. Even speaking to people and some of his descendants, they're not sure, but we know that he was a chauffeur and we know that he wanted to come to Britain. He didn't join the BWIR. It seems that he did have in his mind that he wanted to serve in the air service. That seems to have been in his mind. I don't know whether as a pilot or not, but that seems to be what he wanted to do.

So he comes with letters that are written by some of the leading businessmen in Jamaica recommending his skills. So like Alexander Patterson, he had skills that are very valuable at that time, mostly very rare because he can drive a car. And he comes over. He may have funded it himself, or maybe he may have had some help from some of the businessmen who wanted to help him to come over to serve. So he does come and he goes to the RFC and he is accepted. And he goes out to France and he's

serving in a capacity as a driver. But at some point, he's obviously successful in being selected to be trained as a pilot. and so he becomes a pilot and he becomes a combat pilot. Wow that is incredible so he is up in the air in his flying machine over the battlefields. Yes. Do we know anything about his time as a pilot during the first world war? Yes we know quite a lot because he wrote letters back home to his mother in Jamaica. And some of those letters and some of his exploits were mentioned in the Jamaican gleaner at the time. So the gleaner was obviously very patriotic. They were encouraging men to go and serve Britain during its time of need. And so they're proud of the fact that Jamaicans are serving. So these are

being reported in the newspapers and they print some of the letters as well. And then some of the letters are also in the archives and some are also in the RAF Association in Jamaica. They also have some of his letters and some of this information as well. But basically he is a pilot and he is as they were doing at that time mainly doing reconnaissance although of course there will still be dogfights he does get shot up a few times his plane gets shot up a few times and then there was obviously the time when he does get wounded and yeah quite badly wounded although he did recover but after that that's the end of his flying in a combat role i mean sometimes at this point it's crazy to think that you know they could be firing with a rifle or a pistol out of the plane at each other they could be throwing bombs

over the edge of planes it really wasn't a highly skilled science at this point it was lobbing things over the edge or taking your gun out and shooting at people but very dangerous but still very very dangerous oh my word incredibly dangerous and that is highlighted by one of the quotes from robbie that you include in the book and i'm gonna have to read it out because and you know my eyes opened wide as i was reading it he says i was doing some photographs over enemy lines and he says when about five German scouts came down upon me, and before I could get away, I got a bullet through the spine. He then managed to pilot the machine nearly back to the aerodrome, but had to put her down as I was too weak to fly anymore. My observer escaped without any injury. Now, not only does that highlight just how dangerous it was to

be a pilot at that point, I mean, he got a bullet in the bloody spine, but also he's a bit of a hero. He is a hero. And that's why I, you know, just thought, well, he also has to be included in the book. And why don't we know more about him? And why has he been so forgotten? I couldn't agree more. Well, let's go through some more of these histories. Now, take us from this time of the Royal Flying Corps through to the period of the RAF, when the Royal Air Force, the world's first independent air force, is formed.

Who should we focus on in this period? So in this period, there is actually now a reduction in the option T's for black airmen because, you know, 1918, you have the First World War now coming to an end. So you don't need so many men on the whole. You don't need so many aircraft. So now you are finding that the RAF again is becoming a little bit, you know, perhaps more elite as it were. I think when you have war, you have more opportunity for people who might not have that opportunity before. It's a sad fact, but it's true. So I actually found that those men who

wanted to fly were actually learning to fly in Canada or in the US, ironically. So that's why that little chapter in the book, I had to put that in, but airmen from the Caribbean are going to America or Canada, and they're not huge numbers, but that's where they learn to fly more than in Britain. And so does this mean that when we start to pick up this story again in terms of Britain's black airmen, we start to look at the Second World War? Again, a time of supreme emergency where we have to call on everybody in a total war scenario to serve in order to save the country and survive. Yeah. And I think there's this idea that Britain stood alone. And I understand where the idea comes from. And I know it's a very popular idea. But I think we have to be honest that Britain was never completely alone. Maybe they were alone in Europe, but they had an empire. And it's people from that empire who are coming to help

Britain. And look, the airmen, the number of Black airmen that serve is a small number. When you take it as a percentage of the number of people who were in the RAF by the end of the Second World War, I know it's only a small number we're talking about, but they did still contribute. So we do still have about 6,000 airmen coming to serve during the Second World War. And out of that number, about 500 are air crew and about 5,500 are ground crew. But it's still not an insignificant number. It's not one or two. We're still talking about a few thousand men. And some of these men get killed. They get shot down, like you said with Johnny Smythe. A couple of them become prisoners of war as well.

They're having all the same experiences as the white British men. And we really have to pick that story up and make sure we always include them when we're writing these histories about the Second World War and about the airmen, because they were part of it. Well, tell us about some of these figures. Tell us about Cy Grant. Cy Grant, yes. So he was someone that I had heard about before, but I didn't know much about him until I started to do the research for the book. But I think he is a good example because he actually was one of the men that wrote himself. I think with a lot of the airmen of any background, after the war, they often didn't talk about their experiences. They did it, and then that was it. They just went on with their lives. And a lot of them didn't

leave autobiographies. Most of them, we won't really know everything that happened to them. But he was a little different. He did write an autobiography, he did write about his experiences and he wanted people to remember that there were Black airmen during the Second World War like him. And he came from Guyana, at that time known as British Guyana, thought it's part of the British Empire. He comes in 1940. He says he came because he wanted to escape the monotony and the boredom of being in a colonial society, and he wanted to fly. These airmen, like everyone else, they're excited about flying. And he comes over, and he isn't made a pilot. He becomes a navigator instead. And he's shot down on his third mission over Holland. And he also spent some time in a

prisoner of war camp before the war comes to an end. And when he comes back to Britain, he actually becomes reasonably well known because he's on TV and so on. But people don't really realize that he was during the war. I think that he was an airman during the war. I think people just saw him as an entertainer. And lots of people said, oh, he's on TV. Oh, I didn't know that he was an airman. I didn't know they had any black airmen, and much less one that was shot down. So he was someone that I felt was really good to include in the book. And he's actually written a lot himself about his experiences and his feelings as well. What did he do on TV? He used to play in this program apparently where he sang

calypso he didn't want to do it but apparently he was in this program and then he was in this other thing with puppets that people all seem to know and he did some movies he was in a movie with john collins and oh wow yeah he was quite a successful actor and singer but he does say he always said that it wasn't what he wanted to do he actually also qualified to be a barrister but he said he couldn't find work because of the racism in Britain at the time and that's one of the interesting things for me a lot of these men did study law he studied law Errol Barrow, John Smythe as you said as well, Lily Strachan some of them studied law and went on to use their legal skills

to help with independence movements or civil rights movements here. And I think he wanted to do that as well, but he wasn't successful. And so entertainment wasn't his first choice, but he did live from that and did quite well from it. To be continued... We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. What was life like for a black airman in the RAF during the Second World War? Because I've just come back from the Tuskegee training fields, Motion Field actually over in Alabama.

And one of the things that I found fascinating there was the person in charge of that site made sure that it wasn't segregated. But as soon as they went off to main training in the US Army Air Force, they were most certainly still segregated. That was one of the issues with the US military during the Second World War, as many others. But was it different in the RAF? It was different because the men were not segregated. So all of these men are serving in integrated units. They're serving alongside white men. They're doing the same jobs as them. The RAF, we have to be honest, is more advanced

than the other branches of the services because they are accepting black men now, whereas it was a lot harder, and especially to get in positions of authority, you know, with the army and the navy. But I think we often are guilty of comparing ourselves to America and Tuskegee Airmen and say, well, look, they were segregated, they were treated like this, blah, blah, blah. We didn't do that. So we were great. And I don't think we really were great. And I think we do need to look at this history again. There were some men that did have very bad experiences and they have talked about those. And there were many who didn't have bad experiences and many of them do speak very fondly

of their time in the RAF during the Second World War. But we also have to realize that this was a time when there was a color bar. There were places that they couldn't go. And sometimes it wasn't just the fact that they were treated badly directly. Sometimes it was the indirect discrimination or just being ignored. Many of the men became navigators, and it's's questionable why didn't more of them become pilots did they not have the ability to become pilots were there questions or was there some hesitance that maybe they didn't want them to be in charge of you know the whole crew which included white men so there were questions like that as well they did sometimes face racism and it wasn't

only from Americans you know because there were issues with white servicemen who were over at the time from America but sometimes they did have issues with other men as well who were British and the general public as well so I think it's something that I would like to see historians looking at again, and I'd like to see some more writing about it. I think it's just been this idea that, yes, we didn't tolerate that here. And it was all great. And I don't think it really was great. But I also think that for me, one of the things I also find interesting is how people in the past viewed things. I don't want to say that they accepted things, but I feel that they were born into a world where there were certain ideas

about who you were because of your colour, because of your race, because of your nationality, because of your gender, because of your class. And I think that was just how the world sort of was. So when they were treated a certain way, I don't think they felt it was necessarily right, but perhaps they may not have complained about it as much as we might today. I think that also has to be taken into consideration. So take for example, Erol Barrow. When he comes over, he comes over as part of what we call the second contingent. So Barbados sends these two official contingents. The first one- And this is the Second World War, right?

This is the Second World War, yeah. So the first contingent is a group of men, and they're all white Barbadian men, no black men. They're all white Barbadian, and they come over and they're going to serve in all branches of the armed forces. And then the second contingent comes a few months later and that's a mixed contingent that's got half black half white men and they come over and Errol Barrow's one and another one is a guy called Arthur Waldron and he comes over I think he was a either wireless operator or air gunner one of the two And he's at a dance and he dances with this white lady. And apparently there was some incident with an American serviceman, a white American serviceman

who objected to this. And he writes a letter of complaint and he never gets an answer to that letter. And then on the day that he posted the letter, oh he writes that he doesn't get an answer and then about a week later or so he's actually killed in combat, he was killed in action. So there were cases and not always just involving Americans but there were cases where people did complain about things and sometimes they just were ignored. So we do have some of those examples as well and they went on to enact some pioneering change from the RAF into the US Army Air Service as well because I think I remember reading that Charles Alfred Anderson went on to actually help train the

Tuskegee Airmen so Charles Anderson he's in America so he's an African American so that's before the Second World War that That's that period in between. But it's another gentleman called Albert Forsyth who comes from Jamaica, and he goes to America, and he's one of the men who learns to fly. One of the examples of men that I told you learned to fly in the in-between years. So he becomes a doctor, and it takes him a long time because of the issues in America at the time. And he meets Anderson and the two of them become the Goodwill Flyers. They get a plane with great difficulty. The plane is called the Booker T. Washington and they fly around the

Caribbean region on this flight called the Goodwill flight. And the purpose of it is to show that Black men can fly and also to promote equality and harmony between the races. And then Anderson later on, he becomes one of the men who helps to train the Tuskegee Airmen. So he's a very important figure in their history. But he actually gets to where he gets partly because of the contribution of Albert Forsyth, who has more money and is able to help. And they come together and they have a partnership together. But Albert Forsyth, to me, has been a bit forgotten from history, partly because he is part of Britain's story really as well as America's story but he's not African-American I see I knew there was a connection there yeah and

thank you for clarifying it because that is such an important piece of history but I feel like we've gone and neglected Cy Grant again now so now I want to go back to his story. And I'd love to know about what happened in that incident where he was shot down. I mean, do we know where he was shot down? Tell us all about it. Yeah, he gets shot down in this village. I'm not going to try and pronounce it because I know I won't pronounce it correctly. It's in the book. But he gets shot down over Holland. And you would think that being shot down over Holland would be okay because you think, well, but actually, getting shot down over any of these countries, you never really know because, although again, we always focus on certain sides of the history, but there were men who were shot

down over Holland who they were turned, they were actually killed by Dutch people as well. So not everyone always agrees. There are always two sides in the war, and you never really know. So you get shot down. Candace, I live in Denmark, and I can tell you that the average life expectancy of a resistance fighter here was six weeks, because it was the own population that turned them in, because the government told them that's what they should do. So it doesn't surprise me that these occupied places were still very hostile. And of course, you know, probably upset as well about the bombing that was going on at this point. Yes, exactly. So he does get shot down over Holland and he hides out in a field for a while. And then eventually he decides to get

someone's attention. And the villagers were really, really nice to him. They cleaned him up. They fed him. They kept asking him, when is the invasion going to happen? When is the invasion? When are we going to be liberated? And obviously he doesn't know that. That's not, you know, he's not, that's not his pay grade.

And even if he did know that, it's probably not information that you should be sharing. So he is treated well, but they tell him we're going to have to hand you over to the authorities now. And of course he doesn't want that, but what can they do? Too many people have seen him. And as you said, you can't really assume that everyone is going to be helpful. They are going to be people who may be collaborators people will talk and what will happen to them if they don't hand him over so they hand him over to a local policeman who takes him to his house gives him tea they're also really nice to him and they also want to know when the invasion is going to happen and then um yeah then they hand him over to the nazis and he's

then transported to one of the second-luft camps. The thing that fascinates me about that period as well, and we had Ben McIntyre to talk about Kolditz on the podcast and some of the hidden histories from Kolditz as well, is that it was of course a lot more difficult for people of colour, for black men to escape during this period because you're in occupied Europe, it's largely white and it's a lot harder to go on the run and to blend in. Exactly. And he did realise that, I think, at one stage, even though he was telling the villagers not to hand him in,

I think he realised, well, what are you going to do? It's not like you can exactly blend in and pretend to be a local. So, yeah. And he was a commissioned officer, wasn't he? He was, yeah. He was also made a commissioned officer. I think that means technically he could try and escape without being shot. Because if you weren't a commissioned officer wasn't he he was yeah he was also made a commissioned officer i think that means technically he could try and escape without being shot because if you weren't a commissioned officer you carried a lot more risk if you tried to escape from the camps because you

could be shot on sight and so on and so forth and we know that some commissioned officers were shot as well but it would have been almost impossible for him to actually try and escape so does he i assume he spends the war in that prison camp yeah Yeah, he does. And he's in a camp with other officers. When he wrote, and I read, and he said that he was the only black man in the camp, I thought, well, that's strange. I'm sure that there were some Tuskegee Airmen there. But then I realised what happened. He was the only black man in the camp when he was there. But later on, as more and more Americans, you know, now obviously Americans have joined the war. And as more and more Americans you know now obviously Americans have joined the war and as more and more Americans are getting shot down including some of the Tuskegee Airmen

they are what so this is what I found interesting because we often focus on the fact that the Geneva Convention said you know you can't make men work and you can't do this you can't do that but I believe it also said that they should be kept with people of their own nationality and their own race. But the Nazis don't do that. So the black airmen like Johnny Smythe and Cy Grant, they are just grouped with others of their nationality. So as more and more Americans get shot down, the Nazis then move the British officers to another camp so they can have that other camp just for the Americans. And so the Tuskegee Airmen, many of them who were shot down, get put into camps alongside white Americans. So they don't serve together because they are

segregated, but when they get shot down, theis put them all in together so there were actually black men in the same camp as saigon but he wouldn't have seen them because he would have been moved by the time they arrived so i thought that was something quite interesting as well but that's obviously not in the book but these are just you know some of the interesting things that i just found quite fascinating when i was doing all this research and again we're talking about officers here officers yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah at that period of history and in terms of the way in which I mean there's so many strange inconsistencies it's like the German generals who were captured high-risk generals who were moved to the US and Canada because then they can't escape back to

Europe well the ones in the US are then waited on, served upon by black American citizens. And it's just such a remarkably damaging history, isn't it? Yeah. And even the idea of the men who did serve during the Second World War, the black airmen, this is at a time when it's empire. It's a time when people are agitating for better conditions, where people are talking about, you know, the beginnings of some of the independence movements and the conditions in the Caribbean at the time are so bad. I'm Matt Lewis.

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Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. people from history hit wherever you get your podcasts you know but yet they still come and serve and there's the color bar here as i said as well so there are a lot of inconsistencies and things that's like it's a bit hard to get your head around it really is but sy grant's story

doesn't end there either and this is in itself you say, he goes on to become a television personality and he writes his memoirs. And if I'm right in remembering, isn't it those villagers who once took him in, washed him up and cared for him, who then go looking for him again to find out what happened to Cy Grant? Yeah, this is what I thought was one of the most

beautiful parts of this story. And that's why I had to end the book with this story. So at the time, there was a young boy called Jus. He was 11 at the time. And actually, when the plane was shot down, I didn't put this in the book, obviously. But when the plane was shot down, a part of it actually killed a farmer's wife, a part of the plane, you know. killed a farmer's wife, a part of the plane, you know. So yeah, part of the plane broke and it went through the roof and it killed the wife of a farmer, you know, while they were sleeping. You know, so these things would have been traumatic. These villagers would have been

seeing these planes flying over on their way to bomb Germany on their way back. They had, you know, they had contact with others as well on both sides, for sure. Oh, and Holland was heavily bombed before it was taken in the early stages of war as well. I mean, Rotterdam was just completely obliterated. And this village is reasonably near to Schiphol, so there were also some Nazis stationed nearby, apparently. But anyway, Joost, he was 11 years old at the time it happened, and he obviously heard about it. But he also had lots of confusing stories, and he decided that he wanted to know a bit more. But he grew up, he actually worked for an airline.

I think he worked for a Dutch airline, I think, for a while. And later on, then he decided that he would start to piece together the true story of what happened before it was too late. So he spoke to all the villagers that he could find, asked them what they remembered. He was very, very methodical, and he wrote it in a very factual way. And he then reached out to them. I think two of the men on the plane hadn't survived, and he reached out to their families,

and he reached out to the families of the survivors as well, and people like Cy Grant and yeah, he put it all together in a little booklet, a lovely little booklet about the story of the Eremen and there's actually a little video on YouTube of when Cy Grant went back and met Justus, who by that time was in his 60s. Yeah, he went back and met Jews, too, by that time. Oh, wow. He was in his 60s. Yeah, he went back and they met. A very, very touching little video that was done for BBC. And he was very emotional because, yes, the farmer's wife died. Yes, it was very hard. But I think they do still see the bombers as men who were brave

and were trying to help liberate them from Nazi rule. So even though they did suffer, they do see these men as heroes. Candace, I couldn't think of a better way to end this episode of the Warfare podcast. I mean, you end it better in your book, actually. I'm going to read a little quote from it. You say that by aiming for the skies, many of them help to bring about changes that are still making our world a better place. And it's on that note, Candace, that I want you to tell us what's the name of the book and where we can buy it. So the name of the book is The Story of Britain's Black Airmen, and it's widely available in the UK. It's available from any good bookseller and it's available online and outside the UK.

People can get it from the book depository with free worldwide delivery amazing well Candace thank you so much for coming on the warfare podcast you are of course always welcome thank you very much for having me thanks for listening but before you go a reminder that you can now follow along online on twitter at historyHitWW2, on Instagram at JamesRogersHistory, and on TikTok, also at JamesRogersHistory. You can also subscribe to our free Warfare Wednesdays newsletter via the link in the show notes. you