This splendid book, with marvellous illustrations derived from
the Imperial War Museum, will delight Old Africa hands. Its
distinguishing quality is its use of old soldiers' reminiscences, many
of them recorded by the BBC Africa Service in 1989, for the fiftieth
anniversary of the outbreak of Hitler's war. But Killingray also
analyses official views, noted from the files of The National Archives
at Kew.
Historians of modern Africa have ascribed great importance to the
Second World War. Colonial Africa seemed so stagnant before 1940, and in such a hurry
after 1945, that the corrosive or stimulating effects of the war--depending on one's point
of view --seemed obvious. But Killingray joins the increasing number of historians who
doubt that African soldiers themselves did much to accelerate history. War service did
not make them all nationalists. More was due to larger historical processes: Britain's exhaustion, Africa's increased value as a dollar-earner, rapid urbanization, and the rise of
literate nationalisms that recruited comparatively few old soldiers but made the most of
the diplomatic pressures of the Cold War.
Killingray outlines the backwardness of colonial Africa in 1939, to show the
environment from which soldiers came. More recruits came from unlettered rural
districts, with scarcely a lorry, than from towns where literacy and machinery were more
common. But Africans seem to have accepted motor transport, trains, uniform,
inoculation, barrack life, time discipline and other cultural innovations as readily any
other soldiers thrust into a modern army--sea voyages alone excepted. This lack of
'culture shock' applied as much to mral recruits, often forced or tricked into service, as
to educated men who had a better idea of why they had joined up. British propaganda
against Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese seems to have been an effective stimulant to
loyalty; more surprisingly, it does not seem to have raised too many unrealisable hopes
at the war's end.
Killingray shows that the African soldiery endured much the same experiences in
much the same way as any soldiers anywhere: boredom, unfamiliar rations, endless basic
training, worries about how wives were behaving (accentuated by poor postal services or
illiteracy), or the army's issue of condoms for off-duty purposes: 'Do Europeans like
wearing shoes in the bath?' was one soldier's astonished reaction. But where British
troops might have resented class distinctions, African soldiers met racial differentiation,
in rank, pay, and conditions. In general, such discrimination does not seem to have
caused great bitterness --but British officers nonetheless insisted that white South
Africans must not command West Africans. The alleged radicalising effect of meeting
African-American troops also seems to have been a myth. But Killingray has not
noticed an instance of discrimination visible in Commonwealth war cemeteries where
South African dead rest: not only in segregated plots, but with messages from bereaved
parents engraved on almost all white headstones, some on the coloured and, at the back,
none at all on the black (mostly medical orderlies), whose parents appear to have
received little consideration.
There is a chapter on indiscipline. The Mauritius Regiment and a Somali battalion of
the King's African Rifles (KAR) were disbanded for what were more strikes than
mutinies; Ashanti recruits, despite their warrior past, were the most frequent deserters --
but not in face of the enemy. The chief complaint of non-white South Africans was that
they were not permitted to take armed, combatant roles--and in Kenya Michael Blundell
restored order in his Pioneer battalion only by promising that they would become
riflemen. Delayed leave was the surest cause of unrest among African troops; their
sexual relations with white women the chief cause of concern among their officers.
Killingray concludes that the 'industrial relations' of African armies were just that:
African soldiers behaved like workers in uniform.
We read little of the experience of battle --in Ethiopia, North Africa, Italy,
Madagascar or Burma. By and large Africans earned their officers' respect--although
one KAR battalion broke and ran when first under Japanese fire. Killingray is more
interested in how soldiers reacted to their often slow demobilisation and 'reabsorption' into civilian life. Colonial authorities worried lest they be contagiously dissatisfied with
the slim opportunities available in still backward economies for the drivers, clerks,
mechanics, and so on that many had become. Such worries were misplaced. The
ex-servicemen's protest against price inflation in Accra in 1948, and the lethal police
panic it caused, arguably lit the fuse of sub-Saharan Africa's nationalisms. But it is
entirely misleading as a basis for generalisation. Most demobilised soldiers were content
to return to rural life and, in the words of a KAR marching song, 'look after our cattle for
ever.'
Readers who served in any part of Africa will find stories and people of interest here.
Killingray is most at home in West Africa. Any who served in Kenya will be surprised
to read that the 'white highlands' were carved mainly out of Kikuyuland rather than
Maasailand. But it is the personal experience and reflection of individual African
soldiers that gives this book its historical strength and emotional appeal.
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