The "Townsville Mutiny" incident.

[a425couple]

Well, so far the story seems much more of a
"tease", than a solid reliable read:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-10/historian-reveals-details-on-townsville-mutiny/3821906
"Secret documents lift lid on WWII mutiny by US troops in north
Queensland
by Josh Bavas Updated February 10, 2012 13:24:42
An Australian historian has uncovered hidden documents which
reveal that African American troops used machine guns to attack
their white officers in a siege on a US base in north Queensland in 1942."

[a425couple]

Post by a425couple
Well, so far the story seems much more of a
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-10/historian-reveals-details-on-townsville-mutiny/3821906
"Secret documents lift lid on WWII mutiny by US troops in north
Queensland

Here is a cite that seems much more informative:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/defence/cover-up-of-townsville-mutiny-black-gis-turned-on-officers/story-e6frg8yo-1226268277783
Cover-up of Townsville mutiny: black GIs turned on officers
by: Jamie Walker From:The Australian February 11, 201212:00AM

This one 'wanders' and speculates a bit:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10784814

I'm a bit surprised (but will accept) the following quote,
"the black engineers were not allowed into the city under strict
segregation agreed after negotiations between the US military
and the federal and Queensland governments.
The nation still held strictly to the White Australia policy despite
the desperate needs of the war, leading to segregation in poor
conditions and discrimination that later sparked riots between
black and white GIs in Brisbane."

In the memories of a fair number of "colored" / black /
African American US Army personel, they were quite
happy with how they were treated by the UK citizens
when they were on liberty in England.

But, obviously England is not the same as Australia.
And the perceptions also varied greatly depending
on where the US citizen "colored" servicemen
grew up.

[David Wilma]

I want to know more. One guy with a machine gun might not qualify as a
mutiny.

This is not to dismiss the treatment of African Americans in the
segregated U.S. Army. I have read of "race riots" stateside including
one here at Fort Lawton in Seattle in 1944.

[Don Phillipson]

Post by David Wilma
I want to know more. One guy with a machine gun might not qualify as a
mutiny.

Google helps, e.g. led within 10 hits to Lyndon Johnson's nearly
contemporary report at http://www.ozebook.com/test/townsville-mutiny.pdf
citing a longer narrative unavailable here (probably in the LBJ Presidental
Library.) Then a Congressman, LBJ made a long tour overseas in 1942
and was in Australia a month or two after the Townsville Mutiny. He writes
here it was a big mistake to send negro US troops to Australia.

[a425couple]

Post by David Wilma
I want to know more.

Yes. Now, & over time I'm confident we will learn more.

Post by David Wilma
This is not to dismiss the treatment of African Americans in the
segregated U.S. Army. I have read of "race riots" stateside including
one here at Fort Lawton in Seattle in 1944.

Yes. I imagine you have already read, but I'll post
these links to make it easy for others (& reduce my
need for lots of summarizing)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lawton_Riot
In Seattle "Colored" US troops were housed next to
Italian POWS. Fight broke out. Later an Italian was
found lynched. Leon Jaworski = prosecuted it.
"After five weeks - the longest United States Army court-martial
of World War II - the court found 28 of the defendants guilty of rioting"
"On October 26, 2007, the ABCMR ruled unanimously that
Leon Jaworski had committed "egregious error" in his prosecution
of the Fort Lawton case, particularly by refusing to make the Cooke
Report available to the defense. The board, calling the trial
"fundamentally unfair", overturned the convictions and ordered
that defendants be issued retroactive honorable discharges."

I do not see it here & now, but recall a fair amount of
ill feelings, that captured 'enemy' POWs were treated
better than US troops that were "colored".

Interesting tie in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Jaworski
"He was a friend of fellow Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson,
representing him in a lawsuit--"

A totally different one, but on same general subject:
Agana race riot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agana_race_riot
Marines on Guam, 1944 after US recapture.
"On December 24, a group of nine African American Marines
from the 25th Depot Company had been given 24-hour holiday
passes (for exemplary service) to go into Agana, Guam.
However, while in the city white Marines opened fire on the black
Marines while they talked to Asian women, forcing them to run for
their lives."
"Racial tensions continued on Christmas Day, when an African-American
enlisted man walking back to camp from Agana was shot dead by two
drunk white Marines. Within hours, another black enlisted man was shot
and killed by another drunken white enlisted man in Agana.[3]
After the reports of the shootings reached the African-American company,
after midnight on the morning of 26 December, a jeep with white service
members opened fire on the African-American depot. Camp guards
returned fire injuring a white MP officer.
Many black Marines were court-martialed and received prison terms.
No white Marines were charged in connection with the events."

[Chris]

Post by a425couple
I do not see it here & now, but recall a fair amount of
ill feelings, that captured 'enemy' POWs were treated
better than US troops that were "colored".

In _Yank: The Army Weekly_ edited by Steve Kluger, they have a letter
written by a US Soldier travelling under orders via train in Louisiana
or Texas (the book is not accessible at the moment so this is all from
memory). He complains that he was not allowed to eat his food in the
restaurant, but had to order it from a window and eat in the Colored
Waiting Area, while he could see a large group of German PoW's eating
sitting down in the same restaurant that refused him. This letter
attracted a good deal of letters from other soldiers, as even those
used to the segregation of the American South at that time thought it
was obscene.

Chris Manteuffel

[Bay Man]

Post by David Wilma
I want to know more. One guy with a machine gun might not qualify as a
mutiny.
This is not to dismiss the treatment of African Americans in the
segregated U.S. Army. I have read of "race riots" stateside including
one here at Fort Lawton in Seattle in 1944.

Black & white US soldiers attacked each other in Lancashire, England. In
Huyton Liverpool, they regularly would trash pubs fighting each other.

[Don Phillipson]

Post by Bay Man

Post by David Wilma
This is not to dismiss the treatment of African Americans in the
segregated U.S. Army. I have read of "race riots" stateside including
one here at Fort Lawton in Seattle in 1944.

Black & white US soldiers attacked each other in Lancashire, England. In
Huyton Liverpool, they regularly would trash pubs fighting each other.

This seems to miss two points:
1. Bar fights among soldiers occur in all armies, but N.American
soldiers (Canadian and US, black and white) are supposed (rightly
or wrongly) to fight each other more often than British or French
soldiers.
2. Before sending Negro troops overseas, the US Army attempted to
get allied governments to support in their homelands the types of
segregation current in the USA. The Australian government agreed
in 1942 while the British government did not, and warned US Army
authorities ordinary British people would not approve. The "colour
bar" was a topic of current journalism in Britain in wartime (cf. the
presence of a African soldiers, sailors, students, etc.) and it seems
the British government forecast popular opinion accurately.