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Black GI's Clash With MP's In Okinawa
More than 250 black GIs clashed with military police in the Okinawan town of Koza August 30. The town supplies a U.S. base on the American-ruled island.
At least one black soldier was arrested and scores were injured -- including three MPs and two agents of the CID.
The August 31 Mainichi Daily News said the riot began about midnight when black GIs refused to be searched during a spot check of public bars by CID men looking for narcotics. Black GIs surrounded a seven-man CID squad at one bar. The agents fired blank cartridges into the crowd. They were rescued by a group of MPs.
"Within minutes," the Mainichi Daily News said, 'Negroes streamed out of the bars into the street until their number swelled to about 250. The mob overturned two MP patrol cars and set two others on fire, fighting a running battle with military police with stones and bottles."
U.S. military authorities called on the Ryuku police as reinforcements to suppress the fighting.
GI Press Service, vol. 1, no. 10