Carl Giles

One of the more famous residents of East Anglia was Carl Giles. Giles moved from London to Ipswich in 1943, where he worked as a war correspondent and cartoonist for the Reynold News and the Daily Express newspapers. A motorcycle accident had left him blind in one eye and deaf in one ear, so he was rejected for war service but did serve in the Home Guard.

His work reflected the lives of those involved in the war. He developed a fondness for the American G.I.s in particular, and enjoyed portraying them smoking cigars, smiling, and going around with pretty girls giggling on each arm. He appreciated their humour, their brashness, their laughter and their style of life. Some of the local G.I.s included the first batch of US soldiers to arrive in East Anglia. They were the members of a segregated African American engineering battalion from the southern states of the USA who were constructing the runways for a new airfield in Debach. Giles had become close friends with many of the Black G.I.s and spent nights playing jazz music with them in local pubs, especially The Fountain in Tuddenham on the outskirts of Ipswich.