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In the the village of Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, in Northern England an incident happened in 1943 which highlighted questions of race, but also nationalism.
In 1943 American soldiers from the racially segregated 1511th Quartermaster Truck Regiment was stationed in Bamber Bridge in England. The soldiers were mostly African Americans. During their free time the soldiers used to frequent the pubs in the town. They ate, drank and flirted with the local girls. But the White soldiers and officers recented seeing Black soldiers flirt with white girls, even if those girls were not American and did not live in America. So they complained to the pub owners and demanded that they should segregate their pubs. The Englishmen did of course not like that Americans came to their country and tried to give them orders. So they promptly forbid White American soldiers to frequent the pubs while they let the Black soldiers come and enjoy, together with English girls and English men.
Then the White Americans came up with other tricks to hinder the Black soldiers to go and flirt with the English ladies. Among other things they began to nitpick the Black soldiers uniforms. So at one occasion the military police attempted to arrest a Black soldier because he had not his uniform on him. The soldier opposed the arrest and a brawl took place. More Black soldiers and also local Englishmen came to the soldiers help and the Military police had to retreat. Later though they returned in force and armed. Some Black soldiers also armed themselves and a shootout took place that left a Black soldier dead and several people injured.
Later this lead to trials and convictions for mutiny. Most of the convictions were later retracted.
This incident showed that some English people, even if they lived in a colonial and racist society, still fought on the side of Black Americans against American racists. Also the fact that the Americans had tried to tell them what to do probably also contributed to the Battle of Bamber Bridge.
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