SIMON BARBER: Forgotten Senegalese died fighting to liberate France
Little-remembered African conscripts were mowed down on the Italian island of Elba 75 years ago
20 June 2019 - 05:07
Let us now praise some unfamous men: the several hundred African conscripts killed or wounded fighting on the orders of their French overlords to liberate the Italian island of Elba from the Nazis 75 years ago last Monday.
The big news in Marina di Campo this week was that the beach had been resanded in time for the tan-seeking summer crowds. That it had once been littered with dead and dying Senegalese tirailleurs (riflemen) — grandfathers, perhaps, of the immigrants now pushing Europe to the xenophobic right — went unremarked...
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