Document - 06/04/2009

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events. Mike investigates why black African soldiers, who had shed their blood for France and formed two thirds of Charles de Gaulle's Free French army, were denied the glory of liberating Paris in August 1944. Documents written in the lead up to the liberation indicate just how far the Allies went to ensure that the troops marching into the capital were white. The Tiralleurs Senegalais - soldiers from West Africa who had signed up to fight for France - were turned away from the capital, stripped of their uniforms and made to languish in holding camps before being shipped back to their own countries.