* “A Clockwork Orange” was inspired by the home invasion by American GIs in England during WWII of the house of Anthony Burgess’s future wife. Anybody known more about this incident?
* The “Ultra Violence” from the Novel a Clockwork Orange was partially based on the personal experience of the author, from Wikipedia “his pregnant wife Lynne was beaten and raped by four American deserters in her home and perhaps as a result she lost the child” Burgess was stationed in Gibraltar at the time and was denied leave to see her.
* One of my favorite ironies of history
1. Emmett Till’s father Louis was forced to go into the Army after he strangled Emmett Till’s mother after she found out he was cheating.
2. Louis Till father was hung after being found guilty of murdering one woman and raping two others while serving in Italy.
3. Ezra Pound of all people served prison with Louis Till and wrote about it in his Pisan Cantos:
Till was hung yesterday
for murder and rape with trimmings
——————–
OT but related to Pound, Marshall McLuhan who is often cited by new-agish techno-utopianists was quite reactionary in his politics:
“I am resolutely opposed to all innovation, all change, but I am determined to understand what’s happening because I don’t choose just to sit and let the juggernaut roll over me. Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you’re in favour of it. The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk about is almost certainly to be something I’m resolutely against, and it seems to me the best way of opposing it is to understand it, and then you know where to turn off the button. (101-2)”
Marshall McLuhan liked Wyndham Lewis and met and corresponded with Ezra Pound. In the 1930s he wrote an editorial entitled “Is Fascism the Answer?” where he attacked parliamentarianism.
* Black soldiers were overrepresented in rape statistics during the WWII era.
The rate of execution for black soldiers was even higher for the rape of civilians, for which 25 blacks (87 percent) and 4 whites (13 percent) were put to death. In 28 murder convictions, 22 blacks and 6 whites were executed. Of the 12 executed for murder and rape, 8 were black and 4 were white. The other execution was that of Eddie Slovik, a white, for desertion. The United States Army Center of Military History in Washington says very little information is available on the subject. But one historian there, Russell J. Parkinson, was able to confirm the basic data that Mr. Lilly is using. “There’s clearly a black preponderance,” Mr. Parkinson said, after reviewing the execution records and finding Mr. Lilly’s quest a worthy avenue for scholarship.
Blacks were 7% of U.S. soldiers during WWII, but were 87% of those executed for rape. If I’m doing my math right (someone here should double check), black WWII soldiers were 89x more likely to be executed for rape than white soldiers. That’s a stunning statistic.
* “You know, ’70′s Steelers RB star Franco Harris was born to a WW2 black soldier and Italian mother.”
I can see the Italian in his facial features. I notice that on average Italian/Negro mixes have more Caucasoid looking noses & lips than Northern European/Negro mixes.
Gus Fring from Breaking Bad who is Italian and Black has more Caucasoid looking facial features than Barack Hussein Obama who is WASP and Black. Colin Kaepernick also has more Caucasoid looking facial features than Hussein. Colin’s biological mother is Italian. Italian genes do a better job than Northern Euro genes of softening extreme Sub Saharan African facial features.
* In an American military cemetery in France. In what is known as “Plot E” there are 96 markers with numbers and no names. Eighty of these graves belong to African-American soldiers including Louis Till, all of them executed for rape and murder.
Here’s a partial list of some of the “Greatest Generation” of Americans sent to “liberate” Europe and buried in Plot E of Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in France.
Till is buried in grave #73, buried near him in grave #62 is Private William Harrison, a black soldier of the U.S. Army Air Corps, He was convicted by a court martial for sexually assaulting and strangling to death 7-year-old Patricia Wylie in a field at Killycolpy, near Stewartstown, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland on 25 September 1944.
Also buried in Plot E are Corporal Robert L. Pearson and Private Parson Jones, both black soldiers of the 1698th Engineers, they were hanged on 17 March 1945. They were convicted by a court martial at Chard in Somerset for raping heavily pregnant Joyce Brown at Bonfire Orchard in Chard on 3 December 1944.
Private Aniceto Martinez, a 24-year-old Hispanic soldier, was hanged on 15 June 1945. He was convicted by a court martial at Lichfield in Staffordshire for raping 75-year-old Agnes Cope in her home at 15 Sandy Lane, Rugeley in Staffordshire on 6 August 1944.
Private Wiley Harris, Jr, a 26-year old black soldier, serving with the 626th Ordnance Ammunition Corp, was hanged on 26 May 1944. He was convicted by a court martial for stabbing to death Harry Coogan, a pimp, at Earl Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 6 March 1944.
Private John C. Leatherberry, a 21-year old black soldier, serving with the 356th Engineer General Service Regiment, was hanged on 16 March 1944. He was convicted by a court martial at Ipswich in Suffolk for strangling and battering to death 28-year-old taxi-driver Henry Claude Hailstone in a country lane south west of Colchester in Essex on 8 December 1943.
Private Madison Thomas, a 23-year old black soldier, was hanged on 12 October 1944. He was convicted by a court martial at Plymouth in Devon for raping Beatrice Maud Reynolds in a field at Albaston, near Gunnislake in Cornwall on 26 July 1944.
Private Lee A. Davis, an 18-year-old black soldier, was hanged on 14 December 1943. He was convicted by a court martial at Marlborough in Wiltshire for fatally shooting 19-year-old Cynthia June Lay and raping Muriel Fawden near Savernake Hospital, Marlborough on 28 September 1943.
The men accused of killing Till were combat veterans of World War Two and Korea with heroic and honorable service records. Don’t expect that to make it into the movie.
* How are they going to make a full-length movie about this incident? There’s not really much content there. Unless it’s going to be a Passion of the Till kinda thing, with gruesome extended torture scenes.
* All of the black World War Two soldiers in question were in service/support units, most of the rapes occurred in the U.K, they were far from the stress of combat white soldiers were under.
I was in the U.S. Army for 20 years I was “badly trained, poorly led and treated as less then human” for most of that time. It didn’t turn me into a rapist, I guess that’s just my white privilege.
