A Medal for Leroy (11 page)

It was a phone call from Michael Foreman that set me thinking about writing this book. Had I read or heard about Lieutenant Walter Tull, he asked me, the only black officer to serve in the British Army in the First World War? I hadn’t. But I did my research, and discovered how this extraordinary young man had grown up in an orphanage in London, had played football for Spurs, then joined up with his pals when the war began in 1914. As a soldier he was much respected, and brave beyond belief, his actions on the field of battle worthy of a medal for gallantry. He never received one. He died leading his men in attack in 1918. He has no known grave.

Walter Tull’s life was the inspiration for Leroy in my story. I have not attempted to portray the actual Walter Tull in
A Medal for Leroy
, but you will find many of the aspects of his life incorporated into my character Leroy. And many of the themes in the book, and the issues raised, spring from the life and death of this brave young man. This is why the book is dedicated to his memory.

A story is much like a river. My river in this book is the life of Leroy, and his family. But many smaller autobiographical streams flow into it. I did have two aunties, Auntie Bess and Auntie Julie with whom I grew up, who were inseparable. My Uncle Pieter was killed in the RAF in 1940, as a young man of twenty-one, and only recently were the true circumstances of his death unearthed. Many families, including mine, live with unspoken, often deliberately hidden secrets, as happens in this story. And I think it’s true that many of us, certainly me, are fascinated to discover more about the lives of our parents and grandparents and even our great grandparents, because like it or not they make us who we are.

Michael Morpurgo

Walter Tull died in March 1918, one of over 400,000 soldiers killed or wounded in the sixteen-day-long Battle of the Somme. Like so many killed in the First World War, his body was never recovered and lies in a field somewhere in France; instead of a grave, Walter Tull’s name is listed with more than 34,000 others on the Arras Memorial in France.

He was an exceptional soldier. His grandmother had been born a slave in the Caribbean, and his Barbadian father and English mother died when he was still a boy. He grew up in an orphanage in London yet went on to become the first black player at Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town – and the third ever black professional football player in the UK. British football fans were unused to seeing black players in those days, and sometimes shouted racist abuse at Tull.

When war broke out in 1914, the British Army unofficially rejected many black applicants by saying they failed their medical exam. But it was impossible to reject a footballer for being unfit, so Tull joined his colleagues in the ‘Footballers’ Battalion’ and was promoted three times before reaching the battlefield.

At this time the Army rules stated that officers (those in authority) must be of ‘pure European descent’ and that black soldiers could hold an ‘honorary rank’ but not ‘exercise any actual command or power’. However, Tull’s excellent conduct in his first battle at the Somme, where only 79 of his regiment of 400 soldiers survived, impressed his superior so much he recommended Tull train to be an officer.

Despite official Army law, in May 1917 Tull became the first black combat officer in the British Army.

He led a successful night attack over the River Piave in Italy, and all of his soldiers returned safely, even though they were under heavy fire. His Commanding Officer praised his gallantry and coolness and recommended him for a Military Cross (a medal for junior officers who show gallantry fighting the enemy).

But Tull was never given the award. The Ministry of Defence does not hold the recommendation and we don’t know why he was overlooked. Even though Tull didn’t get the recognition he deserved, being commissioned as a black officer was exceptional for the time.

Two doctors from the West Indies applied to join the Royal Army Medical Corps but the War Office rejected them, in spite of their solid reputations, because they were not of ‘pure European descent’.

The situation was not much better for black American soldiers in the First World War. Before the USA joined the war, a number of American men had volunteered to fight. One group was the Lafayette Flying Corps – American pilots who fought for France. When America joined the war in 1917, any American volunteers were transferred to the US Army. On transfer, Eugene Bullard – the world’s first black military pilot – who had flown in around twenty combat missions, was forbidden to fly for the US Army. He served the rest of the war as a foot soldier.

One black American soldier’s recognition came posthumously. Like Tull, Freddie Stowers was also the grandson of a slave, showed heroism and gallantry, and died in battle in 1918. He was recommended for a Medal of Honor – the highest American military decoration – shortly after his death but the recommendation ‘somehow got misplaced’. After an Army review, in 1991 President Bush presented Stowers’ Medal of Honor to his surviving sisters.

Today, black American and British soldiers are no longer denied the honours they earn. In 2005 Johnson Beharry, a Grenadian soldier in the British Army, was the first living soldier since 1969 to receive the Victoria Cross – the highest British military decoration. The award recognised his ‘extreme gallantry and unquestioned valour’ when he drove his crew to safety from an ambush in Iraq while seriously injured.

Walter Tull

Johnson Beharry

And some effort is being made to right past wrongs. In 2006 a Maori sergeant was posthumously given the Victoria Cross, sixty-three years after his recommendation was ‘inexplicably’ revoked by a government official during the Second World War.

About the Author

MICHAEL MORPURGO OBE is one of Britain’s best-loved writers for children. He has written over 100 books and won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Whitbread Award. His recent bestselling novels include
Shadow, An Elephant in the Garden
and
Born to Run.

Michael’s stories have been adapted numerous times for stage and screen, and he was Children’s Laureate from 2003 to 2005, a role which took him all over the country to inspire children with the joy of reading stories.

Other titles by Michael Morpurgo include:

Little Manfred

Shadow

An Elephant in the Garden

Running Wild

Kaspar

Born to Run

The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips

Farm Boy

The Butterfly Lion

Sparrow – the story of Joan of Arc

Outlaw – the story of Robin Hood

Copyright

First published in hardback and paperback in Great Britain by
HarperCollins
Children’s Books
in 2012
HarperCollins
Children’s Books
is a division of HarperCollins
Publishers
Ltd,
77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB

For videos, audio, interviews and more, visit www.michaelmorpurgo.com

The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk

1

Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2012

Illustrations copyright © Michael Foreman 2012

© WireImage/Getty Images (Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry)

© Lordprice Collection/Alamy (Play the Greater Game poster)

© Image Courtesy of The Advertising Archives (Red Cross poster)

Photograph (Walter Tull) by kind permission of Pat Justad

HB ISBN 978-0-00-748751-6

TPB ISBN 978-0-00-736358-2

EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007487523

EPub Version 1

Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

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