World War II and West African Soldiers in Asia, 1943–1947

Coates, Oliver

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-96496-6_9

World War II and West African Soldiers in Asia, 1943–1947

Oliver Coates⁵

Chapter
First Online: 09 October 2018

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Part of the book series: African Histories and Modernities ((AHAM))

Abstract

This chapter examines the lives of the 73,290 West Africans who fought in South Asia during World War II. Focusing on their daily lives and activities in Asia, it will outline the social, economic, and cultural encounters that shaped these men’s time in India. Eschewing any homogeneous interpretation of India’s influence on African servicemen, this chapter will instead defend the importance of quotidian encounters with Indians, and Africans’ discovery of new commodities. Highlighting the diversity of soldiers’ experiences, as well as the sheer geographical range apparent in their interactions with Indians, we will contend that the chaotically administered world of wartime India enabled African soldiers to challenge the strictures of British Army discipline, as well as the constraints of life in their home colonies. Engaging with recent accounts of African military service overseas, as well as of wartime India, this chapter underscores the importance of African soldiers’ service outside the boundaries of Africa and defends its significance as a unique moment of cross-cultural encounter in Africa’s colonial past.

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Notes

1.
David Killingray, “The Idea of a British Imperial African Army.” Journal of African History 20, no. 3 (1979): 421–36, 433, fn.85.
2.
Biyi Bandele-Thomas, Burma Boy. (London: Jonathan Cape, 2007); Babatunde, R. “Bombay’s Republic.” In African Violet and Other Stories, eds… (Oxford: New Internationalist, 2012).
3.
Judith Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985., p. 345; Stein, Burton. A History of India. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), p. 353; Bayly, Chris and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire and the War with Japan. (London: Penguin, 2005), 39.
4.
David Killingray, Fighting for Britain: African Soldiers in the Second World War. (Oxford: James Currey, 2010), 93.
5.
N. J. Miners, The Nigerian Army, 1956–1966. (London: Methuen, 1971), 28.
6.
Killingray, “The Idea,” 433, fn.85.
7.
Judith Byfield, “Preface.” In Africa and World War II, edited by Judith Byfield, Carolyn A Brown, Timothy Parsons and Ahamad Alawad Sikainga, xvii-xxiii. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Killingray, David, and Richard Rathbone. Africa and the Second World War. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986).
8.
David Killingray and Rathbone Richard, “Introduction.” In David Killingray and Richard Rathbone, Africa and the Second World War, edited by David Killingray and Richard Rathbone, 1–19. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), p. 1.
9.
Timothy Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King’s African Rifles, 1902–1964. (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1999), 105; Stapleton, Timothy Joseph. African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923–80. (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2011); Jackson, Ashley. Botswana 1939–1945: An African Country at War. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
10.
Rathbone and Killingray “Africa”, p. 2.
11.
Jackson, “Botswana,” 57.
12.
Rathbone and Killingray, “Africa,” 1.
13.
James Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (California University Press, Berkeley 1958).
14.
Coleman, “Nigeria,” 230, 254.
15.
Basil Davidson, Modern Africa: A Social and Political History, (London: Longman, 1989), 95.
16.
Richard Reid, Warfare in African History. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 152.
17.
Geoffrey Nwaka, “Rebellion in Umuahia, 1950–1951: Ex-Servicemen and Anti-Colonial Protest in Eastern Nigeria.” Transafrican Journal of History 16 (1987): 47–62; Schleh, Eugene, “The Post-War Careers of Ex-Servicemen in Ghana and Uganda.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 6, no. 2 (1968): 203–20, 210; Killingray “Fighting”, 218.
18.
Ibid., p. 94.
19.
Ibid., p. 93.
20.
Ibid., p. 93.
21.
Ibid., p. 95.
22.
Ibid., p. 108.
23.
Yasmin Khan, The Raj at War: A People’s History of India’s Second World War. (London: Vintage, 2016) 239; Raghavan, Srinath. India’s War: The Making of Modern South Asia 1939–1945. (London: Penguin, 2017) 297.
24.
National Archives Ibadan, CSO 26/4 Marriage of Soldiers of RWAFF to Non-Natives, OAG Nigeria to Resident Minister Achimota, 7th November 1944.
25.
Amadi, Levi Onyemuche. “The Reactions and Contributions of Nigerians During the Second World War: Agents of Political Integration in Nigeria, 1939–1945.” Transafrican Journal of History 6/7 (1977–78): 1–11.7, 9.
26.
J. H. Morrow, “Black Africans in World War II: The Soldiers’ Stories.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 632 (2010): 12–25, 21.
27.
Chima Korieh, “Life Not Worth Living:” Nigerian Petitions Reflecting an African Society’s Experiences During World War II. (Durham: Caroline Academic Press, 2014), p. 5.
28.
TNA CO 820 55 3 Sabben Clare Minute 14 Jan 1944; CO 820 55 3, Extract from Note for the Secretary of State’s Talk with General King on December 7th 1944.
29.
TNA, WO 203/2268 Report on the morale of British, Indian, and Colonial Troops of Allied Land Force for the months of February, March and April 1945.
30.
RHO mss.afr.s.1734 (55) Bonser Personal Papers p. 8.
31.
IWM, 80/49/1, Papers of Lieutenant Colonel C.C.A. Crafrae, p. 87.
32.
Ibid., p. 8.
33.
TNA, WO 203/2268, “Report on the morale of British, Indian, and Colonial Troops of Allied Land Force for the months of August, September and October 1944.”
34.
IWM 80/49/1, Crafrae, p. 95.
35.
Antoinette Burton, Africa in the Indian Imagination: Race and the Politics of Postcolonial Citation. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), p. 4.
36.
Nico Slate, Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 191.
37.
Gerald Horne, The End of Empires: African Americans and India. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012), p. 163.
38.
Khan “Raj”, 242.
39.
Quoted in Raghavan “India,” 298.
40.
Horne “The End”, 163.
41.
Jave Majeed, Ayranism and Empire, History Workshop Journal, Vol. 58, 1 (2004), pp. 312–316; Bayly Susan, Case, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 255.
42.
RHO, mss.afr.s1734 (357), Ronald Ryder RWAFF Papers, Responses to questionnaire.
43.
‘Nigerian Soldier Meets His Cousin In U.S. Army Unexpectedly in Indian City,’ Nigerian Daily Times, 17th February 1944; TNA, CO 820 55 3, Tadman to Rolleston, 5th February 1944.
44.
TNA, CO 820 55 3, Tadman to Rolleston, 5th February 1944.
45.
TNA, CO 820 55 3, Tadman to Rolleston, 5th February 1944.
46.
Misra “Vishnu”, 231.
47.
RHO, mss.afr.s.1960, Hibbert Papers, ‘Nigerians in South Africa and India.’
48.
Ibid.
49.
Ibid.
50.
Ibid.
51.
Ibid.
52.
Killingray “Fighting”, 246.
53.
RHO, mss.afr.s.1734 (357), R Ryder, History of the 4th West African Auxiliary Group Sierra Leone Regiment, 1941–1945.
54.
TNA, WO 203/2268 Report on the morale of British, Indian, and Colonial Troops of Allied Land Force for the months of May, June, and July 1945.
55.
TNA, CO 820/55/3, Report on Welfare in 21st (EA) Infantry Brigade Welfare Economy and the Significance of Education among Askari serving in Ceylon, 23rd June 1943.
56.
TNA, CO 820/55/11 Duke of Devonshire’s visit to African troops in Burma and India, Proposed African questions for Duke of Devonshire, March 1945.
57.
Khan “Raj.” 149.
58.
RHO mss.afr.s.1734 (357), Ryder, History of the 4th West African Auxiliary Group, Sierra Leone Regiment, 28 (f.39).
59.
IWM 03/23/1, Private Papers of Major J. J. Cherns; ‘A Walk Through the Valley’ manuscript, 111.
60.
Ibid., 112.
61.
Misra, Maria. Vishnu’s Crowded Temple: India since the Great Rebellion. (London: Penguin, 2008), 221.
62.
IWM 03/23/1, Private Papers of Major J. J. Cherns, “A Walk,” p. 119.
63.
TNA, CO 820 55 3 Tadman to Rolleston, 5th February 1944.
64.
TNA, CO 820 55 3, Tadman to Rolleston, 5th February 1944.
65.
TNA, CO 820 55 3, Tadman to Rolleston, 5th February 1944.
66.
TNA, CO 820 55 3, Tadman to Rolleston, 5th February 1944.
67.
Ibid.
68.
TNA, CO 820 55 3, Tadman to Rolleston, 29th October 1944.
69.
Ibid.
70.
RHO, mss.afr.s.1734 (357) Ryder, Mutiny in India by Sierra Leone Troops of 4 (WA), Auxiliary Group, Autumn 1945.
71.
Ibid.
72.
Ibid.
73.
Ibid.
74.
Ibid.
75.
IWM 03/23/1, Private Papers of Major J. J. Cherns, “A Walk,”.
76.
RHO, mss.afr.s.1734 (357), Ryder, Responses to Questionnaire.
77.
Killingray “Fighting,” 133.
78.
TNA WO 203/ 6288, Morale Reports, Report on the Morale of British, Indian and Colonial Troops of Allied Land Forces, South East Asia for the months of August, September, and October 1945; IWM 03/23/1, Private Papers of Major J. J. Cherns, “A Walk,” p. 115.
79.
Ibid.
80.
Ibid.
81.
Ibid.
82.
Timothy Burke, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe. (Durham: Duke University Press 1996), 101.
83.
Khan “Raj”, 151.
84.
TNA CO 820 55 3, Collins to Rolleston.
85.
Burke “Lifebuoy”, 101.
86.
Killingray “Fighting”, 83.
87.
Parsons “Rank”, 104.
88.
TNA WO 173769 6 NR Mob Instruction No 10, 23rd September 1943.
89.
IWM 03/23/1, Private Papers of Major J. J. Cherns, “A Walk,” p. 21.
90.
RHO mss.afr.s.1734 (357), R Ryder, ‘History of the 4th West African Auxiliary Group,’ p. 6.
91.
‘Nigerian Soldier Describes Journey to India,’ Nigerian Daily Times, 31st January 1944.
92.
TNA, CO/820/55/3, Welfare of Colonial Troops, Tadman to Rolleston, 14.9.44.
93.
RHO, mss.afr.s.1960, Hibbert Papers, ‘Nigerians in South Africa and India’.
94.
Ibid.
95.
Ibid.
96.
IWM 80/49/1, Crafrae, p. 87.
97.
IWM 03/23/1, Private Papers of Major J. J. Cherns, “A Walk.”
98.
Killingray “Fighting,” 93.
99.
Killingray “Fighting,” 93.
100.
IWM 97/2/1, Private Papers of Captain F.C. Davies, 68.
101.
RHO mss.afr.S.1734 (55) Terence W Bonser, 8.
102.
Ibid.
103.
IWM 97/2/1, Davies, 69.
104.
IWM 97/2/1, Davies, p. 65.
105.
IWM 03/23/1, Private Papers of Major J. J. Cherns, “A Walk,”.
106.
TNA, CO 820 55 3 Tadman to Rolleston, 29 10 44.
107.
RHO mss.afr.s.1734 (61), Breadmore papers.
108.
Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong. Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol Inghana, C.1800 to Recent Times. (Oxford: James Currey, 1996), 111.
109.
TNA, WO 203, 6288, Report on Morale, August September October 1944.
110.
Killingray “Fighting”, 103.
111.
‘Nigerian Soldier Describes Journey to India,’ Nigerian Daily Times, 31st January 1944.
112.
IWM 97/2/1, Davies, p. 85.
113.
TNA,WO 203/2268, Draft Morale Report 22 2 46.
114.
TNA, CO 820/55/3, Tadman to Rolleston, 29 10 44.
115.
TNA, WO 203/2268, Draft Morale Report 22 2 46.
116.
TNA, CO 820/55/3, Tadman to Rolleston Public Relations Services WAEF, May 1944.
117.
Ibid.
118.
TNA, WO 203/2268 Report on the morale of British, Indian, and Colonial Troops of Allied Land Force for the months of August, September and October 1945; ‘Nigerian Troops Thrilled by Music’ Daily Comet, 29th March 1945.
119.
TNA, WO 203/2268, Report on the morale of British Indian and Colonial Troops of Allied Land Force for the months of August, September October 1944.
120.
Jackson “Botswana”, 120.
121.
Byfield “Preface”, xviii.

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Oliver Coates

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Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
Kenneth Kalu
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
Toyin Falola

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Coates, O. (2019). World War II and West African Soldiers in Asia, 1943–1947. In: Kalu, K., Falola, T. (eds) Exploitation and Misrule in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96496-6_9

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96496-6_9
Published: 09 October 2018
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