Hello, my name is Sandra and I work with community heritage projects with a social enterprise, Culture Healing Communities, in Durham.
More than a year ago we started to look into the matter of Black troops in the North of the country, as we could only see references to the South of the country.
We were aware that the North has a rich military heritage, but could not find anything regarding Black troops, either African-American or from the Commonwealth.
I have to say, I have been around this for 18 months now, day after day, week after week, going through thousands of records, phishing out the information where I could find it.
But this is all historical, and we wanted to know about people, individuals, both those that were fighting and the ones that met them, along with families and friends.
Of course, most of the veterans have died, and sometimes the descendants are also deceased.
Most of the records, as we have uncovered through NARA and MoD, were destroyed, and what we have now it's memories that are not being collected or told.
So, next month, June, as we once again speak about D-Day, as 80 years have passed, we will not forget, and we will launch a website with our findings.
But we cannot do this alone, and we are in desperate need of people that can remember, that can tell us about a memory, a finding, a photo, an article, that may have a connection to someone, and that can be with us in a journey to keep these memories somewhere.
Because when we will be gone, then we will have nothing to show to our future generations, about the sacrifices, the ugliness, the carnage... but also about people that have shown kindness to others.
So, please, help us: does anyone remember seeing WW2 Black Troops (African-American or from the Commonwealth) in the areas that include Yorkshire, Northumberland, Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, between 1942 and 1944? If yes, could you please share with us? Thank you, Sandra
