{"id":780,"date":"2014-05-27T14:11:44","date_gmt":"2014-05-27T14:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/?p=721"},"modified":"2024-11-05T12:09:10","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T12:09:10","slug":"professor-wynn-meets-with-dilton-marsh-history-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/2014\/05\/27\/professor-wynn-meets-with-dilton-marsh-history-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Wynn Meets with Dilton Marsh History Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-723\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/446\/2018\/05\/thevillageatwar01.jpg\" alt=\"thevillageatwar01\" width=\"294\" height=\"211\" \/>On Wednesday 21<sup>st<\/sup> May, I visited Dilton Marsh, Westbury, in Wiltshire to talk about Black GIs in Britain during World War II. \u00a0I\u00a0had previously supported the society\u2019s successful application for a Heritage Lottery fund grant of \u00a317,600 to support a project on \u201cThe Village at War\u201d which will collate and preserve local memories of the wartime experiences in the community.\u00a0 This micro study aims to provide local people and schools with an insight into the impact of war on a small, largely agricultural community, and will include the role of women in the Land Army, the changes in agriculture, and the effects of the\u201d invasion\u201d of American GIs who were camped in the area for several months prior to the D-Day landing.<\/p>\n<p>Amongst these troops was the 960<sup>th<\/sup> Quartermaster Service Company \u2013 222 African Americans commanded by five white officers \u2013 who were in Dilton Marsh from February to October 1944. When they landed in Europe the 960<sup>th<\/sup> were put to work digging graves, something African American troops had experienced from the time of the Civil War onwards.\u00a0 While this was a cause of some resentment among the black soldiers, they could take pride in the fact that they were involved in creating the beautiful U.S. military cemetery in Margraten in the Netherlands where it is carefully tended by local Dutch people.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00a0provided an overview of the experience of\u00a0 black GIs in Britain and the of the problems posed by the introduction , and sometim<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-722\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/446\/2018\/05\/thevillageatwar02.jpg\" alt=\"thevillageatwar02\" width=\"257\" height=\"194\" \/>es imposition, of American-style racial\u00a0 segregation in the United Kingdom.\u00a0 The History society is trying to discover the extent of segregation and how it impacted on their community and to know more about the wartime relations between black soldiers and the white villagers.\u00a0 They have contacted the US National Archives and have had some responses from Veteran\u2019s organizations. As Neil pointed out, these experiences formed part of both British and African American history and helped to shape race relations both the UK and USA in the coming years. \u00a0I\u00a0will also contribute a filmed interview on the CD that that the society will be putting together on this subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday 21st May, I visited Dilton Marsh, Westbury, in Wiltshire to talk about Black GIs in Britain during World War II. \u00a0I\u00a0had previously supported the society\u2019s successful application for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,765,772,183,113],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-african-american-history","tag-american","tag-neil-wynn","tag-second-world-war","tag-world-war-two"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3304,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions\/3304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}