Under Fire

Black Britain in Wartime 1939–45

Stephen Bourne

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780750994354
• eBook ISBN: 9780750995832
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

During the Second World War all British citizens were called upon to do their part for their country. Despite facing the discriminatory 'colour bar', many black civilians were determined to contribute to the war effort where they could, volunteering as air-raid wardens, fire-fighters, stretcher-bearers and first-aiders. Meanwhile, black servicemen and women, many of them volunteers from places as far away as Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana and Nigeria, risked their lives fighting for the Mother Country in the air, at sea and on land.
In Under Fire, Stephen Bourne draws on first-hand testimonies to tell the whole story of Britain's black community during the Second World War, shedding light on a wealth of experiences from evacuees to entertainers, government officials, prisoners of war and community leaders. Among those remembered are men and women whose stories have only recently come to light, making Under Fire the definitive account of the bravery and sacrifices of black Britons in wartime.

1

3 September 1939

Following Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933, the shadow of war hung over Europe. For British civilians across the empire, the war really began on 1 September 1939, the morning Hitler’s troops marched into Poland. Following the toll of Big Ben, at 11.15 a.m. on Sunday, 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made a BBC Radio broadcast to the nation. After months of uncertainty, Chamberlain informed the nation that Britain had declared war on Germany.

Those who heard the voice of Chamberlain on that fateful morning never forgot their feelings of horror and dread of the unknown. Within minutes, air-raid sirens could be heard, and some thought that death and destruction was imminent. It was a false alarm. There would be no air raids until the following summer.

Jamaican-born Pauline Henebery and her English husband had just moved into a flat in Hampstead when they heard Chamberlain’s famous speech. Pauline recalled, ‘And then the air-raid warning sounded immediately after Chamberlain’s speech, and we thought let’s get out. The flat was right on the edge of the Heath, so we climbed up Parliament Hill.’¹ From the top of Parliament Hill, the Heneberys watched barrage balloons rising across London:

It was almost magical, although the implications were frightening. But it was just amazing to see it, to see these great grey shapes rising up. They had a children’s story-book image about them and they were covering the whole – or so it looked – the whole of London. It was not really an air-raid warning. I think it was probably done to alert people to the importance of what had happened, and I don’t think that any of us at that time really believed the Germans were flying over London and were going to attack us then and there … In a funny sort of way, we really didn’t have any knowledge of what was going to happen, so I don’t think we were frightened. There was a little bit of what I call sick excitement.²

Pauline described herself as a ‘comfortably off’ young housewife when the war started. She was married to Geoffrey Henebery, an insurance clerk, and they had a 2-year-old daughter. Pauline had been born in Jamaica. In 1919, when she was 5 years old, she settled with her middle-class family in St John’s Wood, an affluent part of north London. Pauline’s father, Cyril Henriques, was a successful import and export merchant and wanted his six children to have an English education. Pauline described him as ‘a most interesting man. He was well educated, cultured and had a passion for reading, music and the theatre.’³

Pauline’s parents had just returned to Jamaica and, when the threat of war became a reality, they immediately wrote to her and asked her to leave Britain and stay with them but, Pauline said:

I felt that my roots were here. It was where I’d spent all my childhood from the age of five. It was where my friends were, and most of the family – one of my two brothers and both my sisters were living in England. And now my husband was here.⁴

Pauline didn’t expect to join up:

In those days when you married and had children you stayed at home. I took it for granted this was my role. In any case, at the beginning of the war, I was a pacifist and didn’t entertain any thoughts of joining up.⁵

When Britain declared war on Germany, American visitors and expatriates who had settled there were advised by their government to return home, but the American-born singer and entertainer Adelaide Hall decided to stay. She took a great risk, with the threat of a German invasion and possible air raids. Adelaide explained that she remained in Britain because she was married to a British subject and refused to leave him. Her husband, Bert Hicks, was a Trinidadian. Bert tried to persuade his wife to return home to her mother in New York but, she said, ‘I wanted to stay because I liked England and the people here were very good to me. They were very kind. I didn’t want to desert them, or my husband. So, I stayed.’⁶

Adelaide and Bert had only recently taken over a West End nightclub called the Old Florida, which they relaunched as the New Florida. It was situated in Bruton Mews, off Conduit Street, close to Bond Street and Berkeley Square. Adelaide had a small flat above the club, and Bert had an office. Though primarily a private membership club for the armed services, Adelaide’s appearances in the New Florida’s late-night revues attracted many celebrities of the day as well as members of the royal family. The Nigerian pianist and composer Fela Sowande was employed as Adelaide’s accompanist. Fela was quiet and unassuming. Adelaide said, ‘He wore spectacles, and Bert said he looked more like a medical student than a musician!’⁷

Joseph Bruce, born in British Guiana (later Guyana), a British colony in South America, had been a merchant seaman. He settled in London in the Edwardian era. He earned a living as a labourer, and then as a coach painter. After making his home in Fulham, West London, he married Edith Brooks. Their mixed-race daughter Esther was born in 1912. The Bruce family integrated into the tightknit working-class community of Dieppe Street, near North End Road but, in 1918, Joseph’s wife died. He raised Esther on his own.

After leaving school, Esther worked as a seamstress. For several years she had a job at the famous department store, Barkers of Kensington, until a new manager took over. He promptly sacked her for being ‘coloured’. Following this distressing experience, Mary Coy Taylor, who ran her own dressmaking business in her house in Markham Square, Chelsea, offered Esther a job. Esther described her as kind and generous.

At the outbreak of war, Joseph tried to persuade Esther to leave Britain, and make the journey to British Guiana, to live with his mother. She refused. Esther was a young woman of 26 and had a mind of her own. She refused to leave her father and the community in which she had been raised. Although she had been corresponding with her grandmother in British Guiana, Esther had never met her. Esther looked upon the Fulham community in which she lived as her extended family.

One of the first black people to be seen in British cinemas in wartime was a popular figure in the 1920s and 1930s. This was the flamboyant racing tipster – and showman – Ras Prince Monolulu. Almost everyone in Britain heard about him, and he couldn’t be mistaken, with his headdress of ostrich feathers, multicoloured cloak and gaiters, tartan shawl wrapped around his waist, a huge shooting stick-cum-umbrella in his hand, and a lion-claw necklace round his neck. Then there was his catchphrase, ‘I gotta horse!’, which he shouted at the top of his voice.

In the 1930s Monolulu, the entertainer Leslie ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson and singer and actor Paul Robeson were among the most famous black men in Britain. One week after the outbreak of war, Monolulu was seen in London Carries On, a British Movietone News newsreel dated 11 September 1939. The film’s commentator, Leslie Mitchell, informed cinema audiences that Monolulu has ‘evidently adapted himself to the new conditions’. Monolulu is seen amongst a London crowd, encouraging the use of gas masks, and adapting his famous catchphrase, ‘I gotta gas mask to protect you!’ He added, ‘Are we afraid of Hitler? Are we downhearted?’ To which the cheerful crowd replied, ‘No!’ The film is in keeping with the spirit of the times. War had just been declared, and morale boosting propaganda was needed. Monolulu was a reassuring figure.

Esther Bruce didn’t like her gas mask:

I hated mine. It smelled of rubber. I only wore mine once. In the war we had the blackout and you couldn’t see each other in the street so if you walked into someone you’d say: ‘Sorry, mate’. Sometimes it was only a lamp post but you still said sorry! And then you’d laugh at yourself and say: ‘What’s the matter with me? It was only a lamp post!’⁸

The war had hardly started when Adelaide Hall began entertaining the troops. On 17 October 1939 she starred in a variety concert at the RAF station in Hendon. Other artistes on the bill included the famous comedy actor Will Hay, who introduced the show.

The BBC broadcast part of the show, the very first wartime concert broadcast live on the air. Part of the concert, including Adelaide, was filmed by British Paramount News, and this newsreel has survived in the Imperial War Museum’s collection. In the film, Adelaide can be glimpsed enjoying herself onstage performing a singalong number with the troops. It’s called ‘I’m Sending You the Siegfried Line (to Hang Your Washing On)’, a variation on the more famous wartime favourite, ‘We’re Gonna Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line’.

On 26 October 1939, a matter of a few weeks or so after the war started, Earl Cameron, a young sailor from Bermuda, arrived at Woolwich Docks in the East End of London. Later in the war, Earl left the navy, settled in London and became a professional actor, but he never forgot his first impression of the metropolis:

At night-time, everything was blacked out. We were issued gas masks and forced to carry them with us at all times. To be honest, I don’t think they would have been of much protection if a full-scale gas attack actually happened from the Germans. England, at that time, was barely prepared for a full attack from the enemy. The Germans soon took a large part of Europe, including Holland, France and Belgium. This was, of course, before the great Winston Churchill had come on the scene. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, appeared to have had no idea how to handle Adolf Hitler. I can recall one of the evening newspaper’s headlines in early December saying ‘Peace by Christmas’. Little did one realise that the world was facing more than five years of the most terrible war that civilisation would ever encounter.⁹

2

The Colour Bar

In 1939, black British citizens had more social freedom than African Americans. Unlike in America, mixed marriages had not been outlawed in Britain. In most social situations, black and white could mix freely. For example, there was no enforced racial segregation on buses or in cinemas as there was in the United States. However, racist attitudes existed in all walks of life, and there were many places, such as housing, hotels, clubs, public houses and restaurants, that operated what was then known as the ‘colour bar’. So, there was nothing in law to prevent landlords and landladies from barring black tenants, hotel managers from refusing black guests or public houses from excluding black customers. Such practices were not outlawed until the 1960s.

In 1952, when he reflected on his trip to Britain in the 1940s, the African American journalist Roi Ottley observed:

In brief, there is nothing in law to prevent Negroes from being first-class British citizens. But they do meet discrimination … as the English draw social lines sharply, even indeed refusing accommodations to lower-class white persons. This is English snobbery – but a formidable reality to which all classes seem to genuflect.¹

In 1939, the colour bar also existed in the armed services, but this hadn’t always been the case. For example, in the First World War a number of black British men were recruited into various army regiments and some, such as Walter Tull (1888–1918), were promoted. In 1915, the Jamaican pilot William Robinson Clarke (1895–1981) joined the Royal Flying Corps (which later became the Royal Air Force) and he was decorated for his bravery and heroism.²

After the First World War, the RAF stopped recruiting non-whites. For example, in 1938, Sydney Kennard, the son of an English doctor and his black wife, had applied to join the RAF but he had been refused entry, even though he had been to America to study aviation and was given his pilot’s licence. He paid his way back to England, with the intention of joining up, but they wouldn’t accept him.

In the late 1930s, the British Army’s adjutant general, Sir Robert Gordon-Finlayson, had recommended to the Army Council that commissions for all the armed services should be reserved for British su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Author’s Note
• Introduction
• 1939 Register of England and Wales
• 1 3 September 1939
• 2 The Colour Bar
• 3 Dr Harold Moody
• 4 Conscientious Objector
• 5 Evacuees
• 6 The Call of the Sea
• 7 The London Blitz
• 8 Liverpool, Cardiff, Manchester and Plymouth
• 9 Keeping the Home Fires Burning
• 10 Ivor Cummings
• 11 Learie Constantine
• 12 The BBC
• 13 Una Marson
• 14 Royal Air Force
• 15 Prisoners of War
• 16 Lilian and Ramsay Bader
• 17 Auxiliary Territorial Service
• 18 ‘They’ll Bleed and Suffer and Die’: African American GIs in Britain
• 19 ‘A Shameful Business’: The Case of George Roberts
• 20 Flying Bombs
• 21 Front-Line Films
• 22 Mother Country
• 23 VE Day
• 24 If Hitler Had Invaded
• Appendix 1: Members of the Royal Air Force in Memoriam
• Appendix 2: Interviews
• Notes
• Further Reading
• About the Author