The white US soldier who shot lifeless Allen Leftridge and Frank Glenn was acquitted of any wrongdoing. However, Leftbridge’s widow was denied any navy advantages.
(AP Archive)
Black American troopers Allen Leftridge and Frank Glenn, who served within the US military on the peak of World War II, had been shot lifeless by a white colleague as a result of the duo had been noticed chatting up with white feminine Red Cross employees at a camp in France, newly found navy information reveal.
In a segregated military, many white American troopers didn’t need black males conversing with white ladies. And the 2 white troopers concerned within the murders had been acquitted in a court-martial and absolved of their actions.
The victims’ households had been additionally ceaselessly subjected to racial discrimination. Leftridge’s widow was denied navy advantages as a result of her husband’s loss of life was dominated not within the line of obligation “due to his own misconduct”.
Frank Glenn’s loss of life was, nevertheless, dominated within the line of obligation, archived paperwork present, and his widow was awarded a “gratuity”.
This forgotten story of racism within the navy has been revealed in Studs Terkel’s oral historical past, ‘The Good War’, primarily based on an interview by freelance journalist Alfred Duckett.
Duckett was a Black battle correspondent who served in Leftridge’s regiment and later labored for Martin Luther King Jr. Duckett later met with Leftridge’s widow, Sarah, and the couple’s daughter.
According to Duckett, the Black troopers had been answerable for watching over German prisoners. Some white US officers, nevertheless, had been involved that these Black males would usually work together with white Europeans.
“There was an almost psychotic terror on the part of white commanders that there would be a great deal of association with the white women,” Duckett reported. One white military chaplain, he continued, warned Europeans that Black troopers had tails.
He claimed that the commander had issued an order prohibiting Black troops from interacting with French civilians.
When Leftridge disobeyed this order by coming into a Red Cross tent the place ladies had been serving troopers doughnuts and low and conversing with a French girl who was serving espresso and doughnuts, they had been shot within the again and killed by a white navy official.
Duckett died with out clearing Leftridge’s identify, and many years earlier than, speak of reparations revived. “We’ve come a long way,” he mentioned. “But racism is just as alive today, maybe even more virulent.”
Leftridge’s daughter, Carolyn Holman, is carrying on her mom’s efforts and persevering with to ask military officers to clear his identify and compensate her household for again funds that ought to have been despatched to her mom.
It’s unclear how a lot Sarah Leftridge would have obtained, or how a lot her heirs may obtain proper now, had the Army modified its thoughts. A $300 gratuity in 1945 is price about $4,900 right this moment.
According to an announcement from spokeswoman Madison Bonzo, the military “puts a high priority on honouring the legacy of all our soldiers and their families, especially when there may be an error or injustice.”
“The army is standing by to assist the Leftridge family through the Army Board for Correction of Military Records at the Army Review Boards Agency, should they decide to submit a records correction request,” The Washington Post quoted the military as saying.
Source: TRTWorld and companies
