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Idris Elba helps uncover the WWII soldiers of color who never got their due

More than 8 million people of color served with the Allies but little is known of their sacrifices. That fuels National Geographic docuseries “Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color,” which focuses on how some fared at D-Day, Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Bulge.

That helped fuel the actor’s push to narrate and executive produce the four-part National Geographic docuseries “Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color,” which premieres Monday, days ahead of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies landed on the coast of France, on June 6. The series also highlights stories like that of Doris Miller, a mess attendant aboard the USS West Virginia who after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor raced to an unattended anti-aircraft gun and fired at the planes until forced to abandon ship. The series points out that many soldiers of color who fought the Nazis in Europe went home — the Indians back to British colonization and Black Americans to bitter racism — and began agitating for change because of what they’d witnessed and earned.

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