“THE EXCITEMENT MUST BE INTENSE”: LOCAL REACTIONS

Most people in Northern Ireland had never seen an American before, and few, outside the docks areas of Belfast and Londonderry, would have had any contact with black people.Footnote ⁴ The new arrivals, especially the African Americans, were seen as exotic (with many locals apparently surprised that black GIs had Irish or Ulster-Scots names).Footnote ⁵ Black troops and locals interacted in a variety of ways; while the general pattern is positive, attitudes could become conditional where sex was involved. There was some enmity, including brawls, and instances of unofficial segregation; the response undeniably included racism, both casual and violent, but people were generally welcoming, and this welcome was, for the most part, extended from both sides of the sectarian divide.Footnote ⁶ Within available contemporary accounts, racist terminology is used casually and probably, by and large, unconsciously, and reflects neither a white supremacist mindset nor the internalization of American ideological racism. An incident encapsulating both violence and colour-blindness occurred in March 1943. Three African American soldiers left a dance in Belfast, where their “conduct was exemplary,” according to police, and became involved in a brawl with local men.Footnote ⁷ Compensation was paid to the local men by the American military and the black soldiers’ commander apologized to the lord mayor for the incident, “involving coloured soldiers of this command,” assuring him that “the coloured soldiers concerned have been tried by courts martial.”Footnote ⁸ While the American commander consciously stressed race, the lord mayor's secretary replied without any reference to it, demonstrating a broadly colour-blind attitude towards the presence of black troops.Footnote ⁹

Locals, it cannot be denied, did use racist language, often referring to African Americans as “Darkies” and while this could, very generously, be viewed as the equivalent to “Jock” or “Taff” in the context of the times, “Nigger” and “Sambo” were routinely used as well.Footnote ¹⁰ “Nigger” has a shared Anglo-American heritage and was commonly used to describe indigenous peoples throughout the British Empire, but it was more specific to people of African origin, and more pejoratively employed in an American context.Footnote ¹¹ ‘Sambo’ had identifiably American roots. It was originally a derogatory term for someone of African and Native American heritage but was later used to describe the supposedly servile attitude of African American slaves.Footnote ¹² Yet locals had preexisting notions about black inferiority, created by Britain's possession of an overseas empire. The paternalistic nature of British imperialism actually led many Britons to view themselves as much more tolerant than Americans, and notions of racial hierarchies were legitimized by the enduring credibility of eugenics and scientific racism.Footnote ¹³ The Northern Irish were not, therefore, dealing with race in a vacuum.

White American troops had a vested interest in the maintenance of segregation; locals, however, did not, and the concept of a racial caste system was alien, perhaps ironic considering the sectarian conflicts and de facto segregation which permeated and defined Northern Irish society and arguably paralleled aspects of American racial problems.Footnote ¹⁴ Latent institutional racial prejudice in both Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK was amply demonstrated by lengthy debates at governmental level in Westminster, with the Colonial Office extremely uncomfortable about the imposition of a colour bar and the War Office most ready to accommodate American racism, but its form and practice were nowhere nearly as entrenched as they were in America.Footnote ¹⁵ Nevertheless, historian Allison Gough asserts in her work on race, gender and sexuality in Second World War Britain that “a wave of racism” from ordinary Britons “swamped” the United Kingdom in 1943 and 1944.Footnote ¹⁶ While this sweeping assessment has some merit, it can be, nonetheless, challenged. The problems which accompanied the GIs, regardless of race, elsewhere in the UK were mirrored in Northern Ireland, but it is the infrequency of serious flashpoints in Northern Ireland, in particular, where racial problems appear much less often in government reports than from other regions, that is perhaps most noteworthy.Footnote ¹⁷

Informal segregation was occasionally instituted. Romie Lambkin, in an account of her time in Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), recalled, “To our utter disgust, the Ulster Hall has now put up a ‘No Coloured Troops’ notice. We won't go there again, I can tell you.”Footnote ¹⁸ Similar signs appeared in Antrim town, while in Omagh, County Tyrone, a number of cafes, the town's ballroom, and two cinemas reportedly operated a whites-only policy.Footnote ¹⁹ The motivation of landlords and business owners who displayed such signs was, perhaps in the first instance, a pragmatic economic decision, as they were faced with a choice of alienating either black troops or the much more numerous white troops who sought to impose American-style segregation; the People's Voice, an African American newspaper, reported white southerners “forcing” British (though not specifically in Northern Ireland) businesses to put up Jim Crow signs, with one landlord stating, “I'm afraid to take it down as we don't want our place wrecked by those who have demanded that I have it there.”Footnote ²⁰ On the one hand, then, there was an inescapable racist subtext to the actions of some proprietors. On the other, however, the actions of those who defied attempts to impose Jim Crow and made African Americans welcome are, Schaffer contends, “probably as well explained by anti-Americanism as by anti-racism” – in other words, refusing to do what the Americans ordered rather than objecting to racism.Footnote ²¹

The authorities, alongside self-appointed moral guardians, were concerned about the impact of this influx of young men, particularly the prospect of so-called “brown babies,” and the anticipated violence as white Americans, African Americans, British soldiers and local men simultaneously sought the affections of Northern Ireland's womenfolk. A Belfast woman who had lived in America wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, the President's wife and a tireless advocate of civil rights, on the matter:

Mrs. Roosevelt agreed, but her entreaties to the military to address the situation were unsuccessful.Footnote ²³

John Campbell, a boy during the war, recalls that many in North Belfast, one of the few religiously mixed areas of the city, viewed African American soldiers suspiciously: “most of the locals were frightened of the black soldiers who moved about in groups. When they came down our street the women who would be chatting to each other would hastily go inside and close the door.”Footnote ²⁴ Campbell suggests that this ill feeling, particularly evident at the tail end of the “occupation,” might have been due to the murder of Harry Coogan by Wiley Harris, a black GI, in 1944.Footnote ²⁵ White troops freely distributed candy and gum to children and were enormously popular, but Campbell remembers that “we steered clear of the blacks … On one occasion, we shouted at a group, asking if they had any gum. One soldier turned to us, took out his penis and waved it, as his mates laughed uproariously.”Footnote ²⁶ Such behaviour was not, of course, racial in itself, but it clearly led to the children associating it with black troops. Campbell, therefore, supports Gough's assertion that resentment towards African American troops rose as the war progressed, although his experiences were attributable to specific events rather than innate prejudice. By contrast, Robert Fawcett, a teenager in Antrim during the war, remembers befriending and running errands for the black GIs stationed in the town.Footnote ²⁷ Admittedly, Fawcett's account relates to the very early stages of the American presence, rather than their final months, but it is supported by Sam McAughtry, a noted chronicler of Belfast life in the period.Footnote ²⁸

Sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland were emphasized, though not exacerbated, by the American presence. Protestants welcomed the GIs, while Stormont wanted them to view the state positively. There was a fear among some unionists, articulated privately by Stormont MP Dehra Parker, that African American troops were associating primarily with Catholic girls, which was viewed as a recipe for trouble, as the soldiers were “talkative” and there was paranoia about Catholics acting as a fifth column.Footnote ²⁹ Whether or not Parker's concerns were accurate or widely held, however, this juxtaposition of race and sectarianism reveals a unique feature of the American presence in Northern Ireland. Yet in all the debates about the arrival of black troops and the impact of the Americans more generally, neither the British, American nor Northern Irish authorities discussed the possibility of solidarity between black soldiers and the Catholic population.

Northern Ireland's Catholic population and African Americans, therefore, did not identify with each other's plight. There was, instead, concern that US troops of Irish extraction would be seduced by Irish nationalism and cause problems with the British. The American military issued A Pocket Guide to Northern Ireland instructing its troops not to involve themselves in local problems or fight “old wars” if they had Irish ancestors. Even this, however, was secondary to fears about friction between British and American troops encapsulated by the oft-repeated adage “overpaid, oversexed and over here.” While there was some sympathy among Irish Americans in the US forces for Catholics, fears about collaboration were unfounded; indeed, the main preoccupation for Irish nationalists remained partition and the American presence was another reminder that part of Ireland remained “occupied” by the British.Footnote ³⁰

Eire's Prime Minister, Eamon de Valera; the head of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Joseph MacRory; and the Irish nationalist press all condemned the deployment of American forces in Northern Ireland.Footnote ³¹ Catholics were consequently more ambivalent about the Americans, and some Irish nationalist areas, notably Belfast's Falls Road and parts of Londonderry, were placed out of bounds by the US military, for fear of attacks on its personnel.Footnote ³² The renewal of Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorism in 1942 was specifically linked to the arrival of the Americans in an utterly failed attempt to embroil US forces in Northern Ireland's internal problems.Footnote ³³ Irish nationalists, therefore, objected to foreign soldiers on Irish soil, but whether or not this manifested itself through racism in the case of African American troops is difficult to gauge, although it is probable that there was a racist element to it.

African American soldiers took little interest in local politics and showed no preference for either side of the sectarian divide. They were highly conscious of their own oppression, symbolized by the “Double V” campaign (victory over racism at home and fascism abroad), but seemingly unaware of the experience of another oppressed group.Footnote ³⁴ Black troops sent to Northern Ireland, therefore, were less interested by the problems of another minority than they were by the positive treatment they received from the population; the general lack of a colour bar was the most striking aspect of their experiences, and it was the feeling that equality was attainable that they took back to the States at the end of the war.Footnote ³⁵

The exception to the positive reception to black troops came when sex entered the equation. Protestants were no more enthusiastic than Catholics about their daughters and sisters dating any American, black or white. Women in both communities risked ostracism for associating with GIs, but throughout the UK girls seen with black soldiers were viewed as “especially immoral or degraded,” according to Rose.Footnote ³⁶ Local men would often become embroiled in brawls with US troops, including black troops, over women. Under these circumstances African American soldiers, ordinarily more popular than their white counterparts, became “racial others,” suggesting the conditionality of the British welcome.Footnote ³⁷ One black GI did recognize both sectarian tensions and racism; asked by a priest if he was Catholic, he replied: “Holy snakes, no, it's bad enough being a Negro in Ulster.”Footnote ³⁸

“NOT EVERY NEGRO IS A PAUL ROBESON”: THE PRESS AND BLACK GIS

The local press rarely reported on black troops but it did, nevertheless, play a role in shaping perceptions. Race was generally only referred to in stories in the British press, whether positively or negatively, when African Americans were involved and this has been attributed to the latent racial prejudice. Race was, arguably, primarily a marker for readers to contextualize the story and merely reflected the reality of both the American military's segregation and racial mores of the time. The arrival of black troops in Northern Ireland in June 1942 garnered little reaction in the local press, which was more excited by the landing of an armoured division. The Down Recorder stated, almost in passing, about the latest wave, “There are a number of negroes for the supply services.”Footnote ³⁹ The Mid-Ulster Mail also observed that they were destined for a largely service role: “They are a combat force, and are fully armed and equipped … [but] part of their duties will consist of the maintenance and construction of military establishments,” and they were commanded mainly by white officers.Footnote ⁴⁰ The Dungannon Observer ran the same report, with the addendum that “their presence in Northern Ireland has created the utmost interest. They strike observers as being exceedingly competent.”Footnote ⁴¹

Belfast's unionist papers, the Newsletter, the Northern Whig and, particularly, the Belfast Telegraph, offered heart-warming stories about the Americans. Beyond Belfast, Northern Ireland's press paid little attention to black soldiers, and, as in Belfast, in unionist papers at any rate, good-news stories about the Americans more generally predominated.Footnote ⁴² What is more, the salaciousness in which some mainland papers occasionally indulged in reporting Americans, particularly black Americans, and local women (with the blame for moral laxity placed firmly on the latter) is absent from Northern Irish newspapers.Footnote ⁴³ The Telegraph ran a number of well-intentioned, positive stories on African American soldiers during 1942 which pandered to stereotypes and uncritically relied on simplistic clichés about blacks. Stories about white American troops were never written in dialect; however, the Telegraph felt the need to illustrate the apparent speech patterns of African Americans. In July it wrote that “the dusky doughboys have been winning all hearts by their cheery ways. As for the men themselves, their unanimous verdict seems to be: ‘We sho like it here.’ ”Footnote ⁴⁴ The rest of the article was culled from Life magazine, but provided a local audience with a general appraisal of race in the United States, conceding that African Americans had “never had a square deal” although some progress had been made.Footnote ⁴⁵

In October 1942 the Telegraph reprinted an article from the Irish Christian Advocate magazine by a Methodist minister, identified only as “M,” who had visited African American troops, once again described as “dusky Doughboys.” The article is revealing in a number of interesting ways; for example, it was largely reliant on a white southern view of blacks and readily and unquestioningly accepted stereotypes.Footnote ⁴⁶ The troops were led by “a man of splendid character from Florida,” demonstrating the lack of African American officers, and it was not unusual for black troops to be commanded by white southerners, the “logic” being that they supposedly “understood” African Americans better than northerners. The CO portrayed his men as childlike and credulous.Footnote ⁴⁷ They were also, it seems, desperate for female company: “ ‘You want to do something to make the boys feel at home?’ concluded the CO with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You drive into the camp with a load of piccaninnies – would the boys be happy?’ ” The term “piccaninny,” offensive even by contemporary standards, was generally used to describe black children, but here it can be safely assumed to mean black women.Footnote ⁴⁸ M visited the camp a number of times until a black chaplain was appointed.

An article about an all-black choir making its first public appearance in Northern Ireland followed a similar approach:

Once again, stereotypes about African Americans abound, but the writer did at least try to understand the music in its cultural and historical context.Footnote ⁵⁰ The Mid-Ulster Mail helpfully noted the variations in skin tones for its readers: “Some are so light in the complexion as to pass for Indians or Latins, but others are full-blooded Negroes.”Footnote ⁵¹ These stories portrayed African Americans as infantile, superstitious, loyal, musical and naive, and clearly propagated stereotypes of black people. Moreover, they demonstrated the initial curiosity value of the black troops; when they returned in much greater numbers in 1943 and 1944 the press showed little interest, suggesting that the novelty value of these exotic outsiders had faded.

The African American press reported the arrival of black troops in Northern Ireland enthusiastically and this followed the agenda, embraced by many black newspapers, set out in the Pittsburgh Courier's “Double V” campaign.Footnote ⁵² The Double V campaign allowed the black press to continue to demand civil rights while loyally supporting the war effort. The result of this was positive coverage of black troops alongside continued criticism of American racism, especially in the military. At the same time, black papers were reluctant to cover crimes committed abroad by African American troops, whereas successful appeals in capital cases featured prominently, as did American attempts to introduce Jim Crow practices in the United Kingdom.Footnote ⁵³ The murder of a black GI by Military Police in Antrim in September 1942 and the subsequent investigation by General Benjamin O. Davis, the first African American general, was given considerable coverage. This murder confirmed that racial tensions within the US military remained high, but Davis was heavily criticized in the black and liberal white press for not confronting them, instead claiming that there was “no serious friction” between the races in Britain.Footnote ⁵⁴

The rest of the coverage from Northern Ireland was tame fare generated from either pool reports or written by George Padmore, a London-based Trinidadian and leading pan-Africanist. The Amsterdam News, for example, reported that “dispatches from Ireland are high in their praise of the Negro soldiers there and of their attitude and the attitude of the native Irish toward them,” adding, “the officers are pleased with the cordiality of the Irish toward their men.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Like the local press, black newspapers’ interest in African American troops in Northern Ireland waned during the second phase of the “occupation.”Footnote ⁵⁶

“THE CIVIL WAR IN IRELAND”: RACIAL FRICTION IN THE AMERICAN FORCES

African American troops, by and large, revelled in their newfound celebrity and social and sexual freedom. “The Irish treat us as if we were one of them,” said an unnamed black soldier; the Northern Irish were also “fine people, never hear of discrimination and stuff like that.”Footnote ⁵⁷ Some even tried to accentuate their exoticism by claiming to be Native Americans, a recurrent and resented theme in white correspondence: “They have all the natives convinced that they are ‘full blooded American Indians,’ ” complained one white soldier.Footnote ⁵⁸ What is also confirmed in many letters, morale reports and official documents is that the African American soldiers were often much more popular than whites. “The morale of the men is very high as they are well pleased with the hospitality accorded them by the Irish people,” wrote one. “They know nothing of race and we are treated royally,” he continued, “In fact they lean toward the American colored soldier with high respect.”Footnote ⁵⁹ Despite the popularity of African American troops there was an underlying current of racism, particularly where sex was involved. One local woman reported,

Stormont does not appear to have kept any records of births of mixed-race children, although there were some such births; the tendency in the rest of the UK, from both official and unofficial sources, was to exaggerate the numbers.Footnote ⁶¹

An affirmative experience was not, however, universal, lending weight to Gavin Schaffer's assertion that ordinary Britons' view of themselves as tolerant was often belied by their actions.Footnote ⁶² One African American soldier complained at length to the Northern Ireland government that “we have so much segregation, prejudice and strife. Some time we doubt the allied cause.” He confirmed that bars in Antrim were segregated and asserted,

There were, he claimed, even reports of trouble with British soldiers and sailors who called the African American troops “Black Bastards [and] son-of-bitchs [sic].” It is noteworthy, if not entirely accurate, that he believed that this racism and racist terminology had been imported by white Americans, and suggests that African American soldiers had come to expect better treatment from their hosts. In contrast to his experiences in Antrim and Belfast, “Carrickfergus is the only town in Northern Ireland that we like, because when we visit there we are treated like human.”Footnote ⁶³

The worst treatment, however, came from white comrades determined to impose Jim Crow: “I would like to get away from this place. It gets worse everyday,” said one black GI, continuing,

Another grumbled, “I began to wonder whether I had been sent overseas to fight against our white soldiers or against the Nazis.”Footnote ⁶⁵ These complaints reached Eleanor Roosevelt but, despite her entreaties, the military authorities were disinclined to tamper with the racial status quo in the middle of a war, claiming that it would impair military efficiency and damage morale.Footnote ⁶⁶

Many white American servicemen simply viewed their black comrades with contempt, and their actions reflected a desire to protect the privileges associated with whiteness. Morale reports, for instance, stated that 90 percent of white troops’ comments on black troops were negative, particularly over the issue of the latter dating white women, most notably WACs.Footnote ⁶⁷ This resentment was most starkly illustrated in Northern Ireland by the Antrim murder, but an incident in Londonderry, a major American naval base, reinforces the point. A black messman, walking with a local girl, was accosted by a white sailor. The messman said, “I'm an American.” The white sailor replied, “for me you're just a nigger and will always be a nigger.”Footnote ⁶⁸ The attitude of white personnel seethed with hostility, jealousy, bitterness and hatred; many could not fathom why white women would want to date black men.Footnote ⁶⁹ They also resented the locals’ refusal to endorse Jim Crow or embrace white supremacy, and sought to force it upon them. A white lieutenant asserted in August 1942, for instance, that it was “necessary to lay down the law to the Irish and the coons.”Footnote ⁷⁰

White troops believed that African Americans were acting provocatively by violating southern taboos on interracial sex, and this, in turn, led to attacks as whites attempted to reestablish racial hegemony. The recurrent themes of race and sex feature in much white correspondence. One officer declared “that he was tired of hearing that the men were getting into fights with the black soldiers stationed in the town, because they were squiring white girls.”Footnote ⁷¹ As for the women who associated with black troops, Colonel Arter of the Public Relations Office (PRO), US Forces, Northern Ireland, in a meeting with Belfast's unionist newspaper editors, “stated that in the opinion of the American soldier any white girl who associated with a coloured man was beneath the lowest rung of the social scale.”Footnote ⁷² Northern Irish women's apparent fondness for black GIs was sometimes offered as reassurance for concerned sweethearts:

“Belfast is overrun with girls,” wrote a white sergeant, “But what kind are they. I would not be caught at a dog fight with any of them. They will go out with a Negro just as quick as they will with a white man.”Footnote ⁷⁴ Another soldier perfectly encapsulated white jealousies and fears: “Two negroes … snapped their fingers at the girls and they got up and left … the negros [sic] are making hay while the sun shines.”Footnote ⁷⁵

These accounts, as well as demonstrating antipathy towards black GIs, also powerfully illustrate the hostility directed towards the women who associated with them. Threats of violence and echoes of the lynching of “uppity” blacks in the Deep South were also prevalent. A quartermaster commented, “The girls really go for them in preference to the white boys, a fact that irks the boys no end … No doubt there will be some bloodshed in the near future.”Footnote ⁷⁶ Another agreed: “those from the South want to go out and carve up the colored boys immediately. The civil war has started among the American troops in Ireland.”Footnote ⁷⁷ Another writer made it clear that this disruption of institutional racism was temporary and the Southern way of conducting race relations would be reimposed after the war: “I have seen nice looking white girls going out with a coon. They think they are hot stuff. The girls are so dumb it is pitiful. Wait'til Georgia gets those educated Negroes back there.”Footnote ⁷⁸ This soldier's frustration demonstrates not only his anger at African Americans but also the failure of the Northern Irish to adopt segregation.

Graham Smith argues that racial violence between black and white Americans was so serious that it temporarily became more of a problem than sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics.Footnote ⁷⁹ The US military attempted to deal with this friction by designating particular establishments and towns, or even nights of the week in smaller places, by race.Footnote ⁸⁰ This was, in reality, segregation; the police throughout the UK were to have no part in enforcing unilateral American ordinances, yet did little to actually challenge them.Footnote ⁸¹ The Northern Ireland government had set up some forty-five hospitality committees for the Americans by D-Day in 1944 and sought information from locals and US military officials about how to treat African American soldiers. Like the police, local officials often deferred to the Americans about entertaining black troops, which included, in effect, facilitating segregation, while the unofficial British line was that African Americans should not be billeted in homes and mixed events were to be avoided; the latter was adhered to, but the committees were more flexible about the former.Footnote ⁸²

“NOT THE USUAL SYMPATHY WITH THE VICTIM”: THE WILEY HARRIS COURT MARTIAL

At least five civilians were killed by American servicemen in Northern Ireland during the war. In one case, the apparently accidental shooting of a bus driver in May 1942, the soldier responsible was acquitted; in two other cases, the murder of a publican, Edward Clenaghan, and a deaf mute woman, Minnie Martin, in September and October 1942, the soldiers (who had all been drunk) were found guilty of manslaughter, received long sentences and dishonourable discharges.Footnote ⁸³ In two other cases, however, both were executed. In September 1944, Pvt. William Harrison – a white serviceman erroneously described as black in some sources – raped and murdered a seven-year-old-girl, Patricia Wylie, in Tyrone. This was one of the most notorious crimes committed by an American in the UK during the war and the death sentence was assured the moment he confessed.Footnote ⁸⁴ In all cases, police optimistically reported that the killings had only a temporarily negative impact upon relations between the Americans and locals, with previous goodwill restored when justice was seen to have been done.Footnote ⁸⁵

The execution of Pvt. Wiley Harris is more problematic. Unlike the Clenaghan and Martin cases, the court martial refused to accept the lesser charge of manslaughter. The defendant was also African American, reinforcing the strong perception that black soldiers received harsher treatment, inadequate defence and a system rigged to secure guilty verdicts.Footnote ⁸⁶ The concern here, however, is less to do with systematic racial injustice in the American military than with the generally colour-blind response of the people of Northern Ireland to a particular incident. The Harris case also illustrated the hands-off policy of Stormont and encapsulated many of the problems the presence of American, and particularly African American, troops caused.Footnote ⁸⁷

Harris, a twenty-six-year-old Georgia native, murdered Harry Coogan, a pimp, outside an air-raid shelter in North Belfast in March 1944. Coogan had arranged for Harris and Eileen Megaw, a prostitute (all three had been drinking heavily), to go to the shelter while he kept lookout. Before the transaction could be completed, Coogan warned the couple that the police were coming.Footnote ⁸⁸ The two left the shelter and, discovering no police, Harris asked Megaw to return. She refused and also refused to return his money, at which point Coogan punched Harris, who retaliated by stabbing his assailant sixteen times.Footnote ⁸⁹ Harris was undoubtedly guilty and incriminated himself in a statement the day after the murder.Footnote ⁹⁰ The court martial refused either to downgrade the charge to manslaughter or to accept that Harris had acted without malice aforethought. It decided instead that, under the strictest interpretation of the law, his crime was premeditated as it decided that Harris was already armed when struck, something he denied, and the ferocity of his retaliation.Footnote ⁹¹ The trial, moreover, emphasized that Harris was bigger than Coogan and that Coogan had come to the aid of Megaw as he believed that Harris was about to stab her.Footnote ⁹²

The trial, which was open to the public and held at Victoria Barracks, Belfast, attracted considerable local curiosity, “indicated by hundreds of people, who before 9am queued up for admittance to the improvised court house,” reported the Irish News, Belfast's nationalist daily.Footnote ⁹³ Belfast's newspapers took a keen interest, but this was because of Harris's nationality and his crime rather than his race; indeed, the amount and tone of the coverage was similar to the previous capital cases involving Americans. While his race was usually mentioned in newspaper reports (generally as “coloured” rather than “Negro”), it rarely featured in headlines and was never emphasized.Footnote ⁹⁴ Race was not used in a way which pandered to stereotypes depicting blacks as violent, uncivilized and sexually predatory, as was still common in some American newspapers (and is, incidentally, how he was depicted by the Review Board, which later confirmed the death sentence, whereas Coogan's actions were portrayed as almost chivalric).Footnote ⁹⁵ The Northern Whig, for example, did not mention Harris's race during the trial, suggesting that the coverage was, while accepting the mores and latent prejudices of the times, fundamentally colour-blind.Footnote ⁹⁶ Indeed, only the Irish News mentioned that Coogan had referred to Harris as a “nigger” before striking him.Footnote ⁹⁷ This again suggests that the racial aspect was not what piqued the curiosity of the papers (which withheld the more salacious details) or their readers.Footnote ⁹⁸ A similar pattern is apparent at the trial when locals were testifying. Generally they referred to Harris simply as “the soldier” or “the coloured soldier,” whereas certain members of the court, notably Harris's own defence counsel, often referred to him as “the negro soldier” or simply as “the negro.”Footnote ⁹⁹

The American military was, therefore, much more conscious of Harris's race than were the people of Belfast; moreover, his defence counsel, a Lieutenant De Witt, may have been wary of displeasing his superiors by offering too rigorous a defence. Lilly and Thomson's research into the American use of the death penalty in the UK during the war analyses a number of cases, including those of both Harris and Harrison. They argue that “vigorous defence efforts were not only discouraged, but considered egregiously hostile acts toward command.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ There was also a long white American tradition of protecting white womanhood from the supposed depravations of black men and, arguably, this tradition was continued in the Harris case. In Northern Ireland, however, the coroner's inquest blamed Coogan and also, explicitly, Megaw, demonstrating that the intersection of race and sex preoccupied the Americans while the loose morals of young women offended local sensibilities.Footnote ¹⁰¹

The coroner's inquest revealed additional conflicting perspectives. Sitting after the trial but before the announcement of the verdict, the coroner warned jurors against using Harris's race to determine his guilt and concluded that there was no premeditation in the killing. The Irish News reported,

Love instead condemned Coogan, declaring that his “conduct was a disgrace,” before admonishing parents and shifting the blame for incidents of this sort onto their daughters. The foreman of the jury said that it found no premeditation.Footnote ¹⁰³

If the purpose of the death penalty announced in May was to set an example and to maintain good relations between the Americans and the Northern Irish, then petitions for clemency from local people, Protestant churches, trade unions and unionist politicians may have surprised the American authorities.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Central to these pleas were the characters of Megaw and Coogan. Coogan was not seen as a sympathetic victim and the overarching sentiment was that he probably got what he deserved, while Harris was seen to have acted in self-defence. There was certainly resentment at the killing, as Coogan's funeral, described by the Irish News as “a deeply touching spectacle of sympathy,” was, like the court martial, attended by hundreds of people.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Yet the police claimed that the furore soon died down when Harris was arrested and court-martialed, but it was significant that the police report referred to tensions specifically between locals and black troops, rather than Americans in general.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Clearly, even accepting that locals did not internalize or support attempts to import Jim Crow or white supremacy, on this occasion they viewed a black GI, rather than an “American,” as responsible for this killing.

The pleas for clemency to the Americans and the Northern Ireland government came, it must be emphasized, predominantly from the Protestant and unionist community. The silence of Catholics and Irish nationalists (Coogan was the former, if not the latter) was probably less to do with antipathy towards Harris and Americans more generally than with the dictates of local politics. The Irish News tended to ignore the American presence and, as noted, many of the key spokesmen of Irish nationalism publicly declared the Americans to be an “occupying” army due to partition. In other words, regardless of attitudes to the Americans, Irish nationalists, who viewed the state as an illegitimate British creation, maintained that Americans had no right to be in Northern Ireland.Footnote ¹⁰⁷

Stormont refused to become publicly involved in the case, although its instinct was for clemency and it would have spared Harris's life had it had jurisdiction.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ A “Loyal and Law-Abiding Citizen” wrote to Prime Minister Sir Basil Brooke pointing out not only the provocation Harris faced but also the fact that he may have been persecuted because of his race: “There is also the question in many minds as to whether such a severe sentence would have been imposed on a white U.S. soldier in similar circumstances, possibly the answer is ‘Yes’ but still the doubt remains.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹ The writer also believed that the people of Belfast “feel a certain responsibility in the present case, and not the usual sympathy with the victim.”Footnote ¹¹⁰ Various unions telegraphed Brooke, but Sir Robert Gransden, the Stormont Cabinet Secretary, replying on the Prime Minister's behalf, told them, “this is not a matter in which he could take any official action.”Footnote ¹¹¹ Few of the appeals emphasized Harris's race or questioned his guilt.

The entreaties were, ultimately, in vain and Harris was executed on 26 May.Footnote ¹¹² After the sentence had been carried out, General John C. H. Lee responded robustly to the pleas for clemency, telling the Duke of Abercorn, Northern Ireland's Governor General, that “death or imprisonment for life … are regarded by American public opinion as requisite and appropriate.” He continued, “Every protection provided by our Constitution, laws and justice was shown Private Harris … In view of all the facts presented, none the least being the brutality exhibited in the commission of this crime, the execution of this sentence was deemed requisite to justice.”Footnote ¹¹³ Yet, despite Lee's claims, viewing this case alongside similar killings carried out by white American soldiers in Northern Ireland (and, indeed, in the rest of the UK), where culprits received long prison terms and dishonourable discharges, it is hard to escape the conclusion that skin colour was a contributory factor in Harris's execution.

“THEY LOOKED ON US AS AMERICANS”

In many ways, the responses of the people of Northern Ireland to African American soldiers were identical to those of the rest of the United Kingdom, indicating that there was no unique or regional reaction to this “friendly invasion.” Even the sectarian tensions which set Northern Ireland apart did not overtly affect this response as black troops fraternized with both communities. The often patronizing approach of the local press was an unfortunate by-product of the attitudes of the era, but this was offset by the absence of negative or racist stories, something not always true of newspapers on the mainland.Footnote ¹¹⁴ Stories of a racially sensitive nature, as demonstrated by the Antrim murder and the Harris case, did not emphasize race, and all of this points to a largely colour-blind response to black troops.

Racism was a factor in Northern Ireland, as it was elsewhere: some establishments did attempt to impose a colour bar and black troops were periodically the victims of racist abuse and violence, as illustrated by the common and injudicious use of the term “Nigger” and the casual use of “Darkey” and “Sambo” in everyday conversation. The pattern which emerges, however, is that this was a casual prejudice borne of ignorance rather than the ingrained, ideological commitment to Jim Crow imported by many white Americans. This certainly does not excuse racism in Northern Ireland; it was very clearly present, but the strong sense is that black troops were viewed, first and foremost, as Americans, something very clearly emphasized by Harris's court-martial; yet, at the same time, they were deemed “others” when it came to interracial sex.

The relative lack of racism towards African American GIs in the United Kingdom as a whole, however, must be understood partly in the context of the transient nature of their presence, described by Janet Gardiner as an “interlude.”Footnote ¹¹⁵ They were welcomed because it was a temporary expedient required for victory; this was not true of the mass immigration from the Commonwealth that the UK mainland would see in the 1950s and 1960s, when the permanent presence of nonwhites created hostility from the existing population.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Setting this caveat aside, however, the response of the Northern Irish grew from the close association with African American troops. The experience of black servicemen in Northern Ireland also acts as a microcosm for the exportation of American racism during the war and demonstrates how both they and sympathetic populations resisted it. What is abundantly clear is that African Americans stationed abroad defied America's racial and sexual politics in a manner which would have been impossible in civilian life back home. As a consequence, they emerged from the war with a new militancy and sense of self-worth that would bear fruit amid the tumult of the 1950s and 1960s as many black veterans, citing the attitude of their wartime hosts, were no longer prepared to accept second-class citizenship and became prominent in the civil rights movement. The experience of black troops abroad had, therefore, long-term, positive consequences for race relations in the United States, and Northern Ireland is an important chapter in this catalytic period for American civil rights.

The impact of African American troops upon Northern Ireland was fleeting. Some so-called “brown babies” were left behind, the only visible reminder of their being there, and Northern Ireland's racial tolerance – by and large – during the war reflected the transient nature of their presence. Northern Ireland was not transformed into a tolerant society by its exposure to black servicemen; its population was as inward-looking and segregated after the war as it had been before it. Only its unionist rulers rose above their prior parochialism by recognizing the usefulness of good relations with the American government in their propaganda battle with Eire.

By the early summer of 1944, most American troops had left and Northern Ireland began to prepare for the post-war world. In July, the USS Mason, the only ship in the American navy with an all-black crew, docked in and departed from Belfast without comment from the local press. Its sailors went ashore with some apparent apprehension, but found the people of the city as welcoming and tolerant as most of their comrades in the army had; indeed, it was the lack of novelty about their presence which struck many in the crew: “the Irish people didn't look on us as our skin color,” recalled one, “They looked on us as Americans – American fighting men.”Footnote ¹¹⁷ The experience of the Mason's crew during its fleeting visit acts as a fitting postscript to the experience of African American servicemen in Northern Ireland.