The daughter of an American GI, who spent the Second World War stationed in Burton, thought she knew everything about her father.

But on his deathbed he revealed a secret which sent Rachel James on a 12-year search for her "lost" brother and sister.

As his life slipped away, her father confessed: while he lived in wartime Britain he had fathered two children, children he had to leave behind on his return to America in 1945.

In the 12 years that have followed the confession, Rachel (53), from Ohio, has tried in vain to trace her lost brother and sister.

"I don't know what really prompted me to begin my search," she says, "but suddenly I came to understand that I had a brother and sister I didn't know and I felt a deep sadness for my father and the children he left behind at the end of the war.

"So I began a transatlantic search to make a bridge for time and memory to cross."

Rempson Miller, born in South Carolina, spent his war serving in the 3264th Quartermaster Service Company, formerly the 244th Quartermaster Battalion, Company C.

He was an African-American and saw battle in France in 1945.

While in Burton, his regiment was stationed in Wetmore Road, in a building Rachel believes is now called The Maltings.

"He was wounded in France," Rachel says.
"Along with those wounds, he had to deal with the memories of the horrors of war. He spoke of seeing comrades die, one in his arms.

"He had to help pick up body parts of the slain, crying as he did so.

"Some of them were just teenage boys who had wanted so badly to go home. I was also told that he helped save the lives of some civilians. He saw many hungry children, especially in France.

"I believe that he sometimes gave his rations to these children and did without food himself. He spoke of being hungry.

"My father spoke of unimaginable horrors of war. But he never told me his secret.

"When he came home, his spirit was broken. He was hospitalised for seven months. We never knew the real reason for his torture."

But not only did Rempson return with physical wounds, he had his emotional scars too, the pain of having to desert two children.

Later, this would resurface in his last moments.
Says Rachel: "As my father lay dying he spoke of the past.
"His words were not directed to me, but he spoke as if he had to audibly release the memories.

"I did not listen carefully, in fact sometimes I did not listen at all because his words seemed unreal and about things I could not or did not want to comprehend at the time.

"He spoke of the 'babies that he left overseas'. They were always on his mind and in his heart.

"He knew that he would never see his children again because there were barriers that could not be crossed.

"He described how his 'babies' that he had held in his arms and sang a lullaby to had faded in the distance as he was transferred home. But the memories never faded, they grew ever stronger until his death.

"I never got their names, although I thought the name Iris was mentioned, I could never be sure that is what he said."

Rachel was one of four children but, as her father's revelations sank in, she knew she needed to find out about the other two.

She knew they were probably born between the spring of 1943 and 1945, but knows no more.

First, she pieced together Rempson's war records to find where he was stationed. Then, she wrote to several war babies' organisations, children's societies and adoption agencies to ask for help.

"I had to spread my story in hope that his children knew his name because I did not know theirs," she says.

"My information was sent to various agencies and I began to receive letters from many places asking for my help in locating American GI fathers from the Second World War."

Rachel was able to help with this. She reunited a few families, from Britain, Australia and elsewhere.

A few years ago, she got a call from a woman in Lichfield asking her to find her father-in-law. He was discovered in Washington.

Says Rachel: "She and her husband came over to meet his 81-year-old dad for the first time.

"Newspaper reporters from London came with them to cover the story.

"With grateful hearts, the family sent me a copy of the article.

"A picture showed him looking so much like his father and both of them looking so happy as they greeted each other for the first time at the father's door.

"The dad had not known that he left a child, who, by the way, is his only child."

But Rachel's own siblings could not be found.

"Having found out that my father's unit was stationed in Wetmore Road, I advertised there and received quite a few letters, mostly from 'war babes', wondering if they were my siblings," she says.

"But they did not turn out to be, so over the years, as the letters have poured in, my heart has poured out to the senders, some who have never touched or heard the voice of another person who was biologically related to them.

"They were the consequences of a climate created by war, the time, and of distance and circumstances separating men from what sometimes, in normal circumstances, would have been marriage and a family.

"Some looked back but could not go back or even reach back.

"In the Forties and Fifties the way back was blocked for certain ones, but that is another story."

Over the last 12 years, Rachel has chased a number of failed leads which have taken her closer, but have never reached the target.

About a year ago, she received an e-mail from a lady who was born in Burton during the war.

Rachel says: "She told me her story and said she remembered sitting on the lap of a man in uniform when she was a small toddler.

"She said she felt sure he must have been her father.

"Her grandmother cared for her until she was 12 years old. She was then sent to live with her mother and her mother's husband.

"She said she always blamed herself because her mother was not happy. Her stepfather could not accept that she had had a child by an Afro-American soldier."

This was a potential breakthrough for Rachel, but this lead has got no further because the internet site which handled the e-mail has since closed down.

"I don't remember her name," Rachel says.

"I would like very much to find this woman. She may be my sister, I could have got that close."

At other times, Rachel's hunt has stirred memories, including those of a Burton man who remembers the GIs.

He wrote in a letter: "They came over here in the early Forties, young and fresh faced, first time away from home for most of them.

"They came to help us out. They were polite and well mannered. They gave us rations, and most important, they gave us hope.

"People of my age group will never forget."

The letter writer's kind words have stirred Rachel on.

Rachel is still searching. She is married and lives with her husband and their daughter, but has three other children. She is a licensed sign language interpreter who loves to garden and read novels.

She says: "There are many people in England that I want to thank for helping in this search and one day, when this journey ends, I want them all to know that their help along the way made it possible.

"I especially thank my husband and children who have supported me in what seems impossible, but impossible things are happening every day and even every hour.

"A famous man once said: 'I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible'.

"The words: 'You will reap if you don't tire out', are always before me in another important aspect of my life so I apply it to this search."

Rachel will never accept defeat, because she believes she will succeed one day - she just hopes that she does not find her siblings when it is too late.

In the meantime, she hopes her siblings have had a good life, but if they should ever make contact one day, Rachel has something for them.

"I want to deliver the words to my father's children - my siblings - that I believe he wanted to say," she says.

"The words: 'I did love you and I am sorry that you had to grow up without me'.

"I want to give them an inheritance, a 'welcome home.'"