Very little in the way of source material is available on Pfc. William Crossland and the World War II incident at Bamber Bridge. There are no books about him or Bamber Bridge, no movies, nor documentary series. The US Army has remained tight-lipped about the incident at Bamber Bridge and the case against the Black soldiers who were court-martialed. Newspaper accounts, a few eye-witness reports, and a handful of articles are the only material from which to construct a picture of what took place. Interest in private Crossland and Bamber Bridge rose in 2023, which marked the 80th anniversary of the event.
Bibliography
Bernard C. Nalty. Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military. (NY: Macmillan, 1986).
https://archive.org/details/strengthforfight0000nalt/page/n3/mode/2up.
Periodicals
Anthony Burgess. “In the Other England, the Land of Cotton, Nobody Say ‘Baaaaath’” in The New York Times. January 28, 1973
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/28/archives/in-the-other-england-the-land-of-cotton-nobody-says-baaaaath.html.
Lauren Frayer and Fatima Al-Kassab. “This WWII battle wasn’t against Nazis. It was between Black and white GIs in England.” National Public Radio: All Things Considered. June 21, 2023.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/21/1183045605/black-army-soldiers-england-wwii-battle.
Derek Rogerson. “When race riots sparked a gun battle on the streets of Bamber Bridge” in Lancashire Post. June 22, 2018.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180622185801/https://www.lep.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/when-race-riots-sparked-a-gun-battle-on-streets-of-bamber-bridge-1-9218634This article was retrieved through the “wayback machine.”
University of Central Lancashire. “Sollis Marks 70th Anniversary of Battle of Bamber Bridge” in
Univ. of Central Lancashire News and Events, Case Studies. June 2013.
https://web.archive.org/web/20151115172324/
https://www.uclan.ac.uk/about_us/case_studies/sollis_marks_70th_anniversary_of_battle_of_bamber_bridge_report.phps This article was retrieved through the “wayback machine.”
Filmography
“The Railway Children Return” (2022)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14592998/s
This reboot of the classic film adaption of E. Nesbit’s 1906 novel caused a furor in England because it included a new storyline and character drawn from the Battle of Bamber Bridge between Black and white US soldiers.
“Choc’late Soldiers form the USA” (2013)
Narrated by Shemar Moore, this short documentary (58 minutes), explores how white English citizens and Black American soldiers crossed a racial divide to form friendships during World War II.