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Africa and World War II

This volume considers the military, economic, and political significance of Africaduring World War II. The essays feature new research and innovative approachesto the historiography of Africa and bring to the fore issues of race, gender, andlabor during the war, topics that have not yet received much critical attention.It explores the experiences of male and female combatants, peasant producers,women traders, missionaries, and sex workers. The first section offers threeintroductory essays that give a continent-wide overview of how Africa sustainedthe Allied effort through labor and resources. The six sections that follow offerindividual case studies from different parts of the continent. Contributors offera macro and micro view of the multiple levels on which Africa’s contributionsshaped the war as well as the ways in which the war affected individuals andcommunities and transformed Africa’s political, economic, and social landscape.

Judith A. Byfield is Associate Professor of History at Cornell University, teachingAfrican and Caribbean history. She is coeditor of Gendering the African Dias-pora: Women, Culture and Historical Change in the Caribbean and NigerianHinterland (2010) and author of The Bluest Hands: A Social and EconomicHistory of Women Indigo Dyers in Western Nigeria, 1890–1940 (2002). She isa former president of the African Studies Association (2011) and is on the edi-torial board of the Blacks in the Diaspora series published by Indiana UniversityPress.

Carolyn A. Brown is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University. She isthe author of We Are All Slaves: African Miners, Culture, and Resistance at theEnugu Government Colliery, Nigeria, 1914–1950 (2001). She is coeditor, withPaul Lovejoy, of Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Interior of theBight of Biafra and the African Diaspora (2010). She is on the editorial boardof Cambridge University Press’s African Studies series and is a senior editor ofthe labor journal International Labor and Working Class History.

Timothy Parsons holds a joint appointment as Professor of African History in thehistory department and in the African and African American studies program atWashington University in St. Louis, where he also directs the international andarea studies program. His primary publications include The Rule of Empires:Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They AlwaysFall (2010); Race, Resistance and the Boy Scout Movement in British ColonialAfrica (2004); and The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern EastAfrica (2003).

Ahmad Alawad Sikainga is Professor of History at the Ohio State University.He is the author of City of Steel and Fire: A Social History of Atbara, Sudan’sRailway Town, 1906–1984 (2002); Slaves into Workers: Emancipation andLabor in Colonial Sudan (1996); Western Bahr al-Ghazal under British Rule,1898–1956 (1990); and Sudan Defense Force: Origin and Role, 1925–1955(1983). He is coeditor of Post-War Reconstruction in Africa (2006) and CivilWar in Sudan (1993).

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Cambridge University Press978-1-107-05320-5 - Africa and World War IIEdited by Judith A. Byfield, Carolyn A. Brown, Timothy Parsons and Ahmad Alawad SikaingaFrontmatterMore information

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Edited by

JUDITH A. BYFIELDCornell University

CAROLYN A. BROWNRutgers University–New Brunswick

TIMOTHY PARSONSWashington University in St. Louis

AHMAD ALAWAD SIKAINGAOhio State University






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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataAfrica and World War II / Judith Byfield, Cornell University, Carolyn A. Brown, Rutgers

University–New Brunswick, Timothy Parsons, Washington University in St. Louis,Ahmad Sikainga, Ohio State University.

pages cmisbn 978-1-107-05320-5 (hardback) – isbn 978-1-107-63022-2 (Paperback)

1. World War, 1939–1945 – Africa. 2. Africa – History – 1884–1960. I. Byfield, Judith A.(Judith Ann-Marie), editor, author. II. Brown, Carolyn A. (Carolyn Anderson), 1944–

editor, author. III. Parsons, Timothy, 1962– editor, author. IV. Sikainga, Ahmad Alawad,editor, author.

d766.8.a473 2015940.53′6–dc23 2014027894

isbn 978-1-107-05320-5 Hardbackisbn 978-1-107-63022-2 Paperback

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We would like to dedicate this volume to several mentors,

colleagues, and friends who passed in 2014: Jacob Ade Ajayi,

George Bond, Patrick Chabal, Ali Mazuri, and Ivor Wilks.

Together they helped pioneer the field of African Studies and

we hope to continue in their footsteps.











Contents

List of Contributors page xi

Acknowledgments xv

Preface xviiJudith A. Byfield

one. introduction

1 The Military Experiences of Ordinary Africans inWorld War II 3Timothy Parsons

2 Producing for the War 24Judith A. Byfield

3 African Labor in the Making of World War II 43Carolyn A. Brown

two. colonial subjects and imperial armies

4 The Military, Race, and Resistance: The Conundrums ofRecruiting Black South African Men during the SecondWorld War 71Louis Grundlingh

5 The Moroccan “Effort de Guerre” in World War II 89Driss Maghraoui

6 Free to Coerce: Forced Labor during and after the VichyYears in French West Africa 109Catherine Bogosian Ash

7 No Country Fit for Heroes: The Plight of DisabledKenyan Veterans 127Timothy Parsons

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three. mobilizing communities and resourcesfor the war effort

8 Women, Rice, and War: Political and Economic Crisis inWartime Abeokuta (Nigeria) 147Judith A. Byfield

9 Africa’s “Battle for Rubber” in the Second World War 166William G. Clarence-Smith

10 Freetown and World War II: Strategic Militarization,Accommodation, and Resistance 183Allen M. Howard

11 Extraction and Labor in Equatorial Africa and Cameroonunder Free French Rule 200Eric T. Jennings

12 The Portuguese African Colonies during the SecondWorld War 220Malyn Newitt

13 World War II and the Transformation of the TanzanianForests 238Thaddeus Sunseri

four. race, gender, and social change in a time of war

14 Wrestling with Race on the Eve of Human Rights: TheBritish Management of the Color Line in Post-FascistEritrea 259Giulia Barrera

15 To Be Treated as a Man: Wartime Struggles overMasculinity, Race, and Honor in the Nigerian CoalIndustry 276Carolyn A. Brown

16 “A White Man’s War”: Settler Masculinity in the UnionDefense Force, 1939–1945 303Suryakanthie Chetty

17 African Soldiers, French Women, and Colonial Fearsduring and after World War II 324Ruth Ginio

18 World War II and the Sex Trade in British West Africa 339Carina Ray

five. experiencing war in africa and europe

19 American Missions in Wartime French West Africa:Travails of the Sudan Interior Mission in Niger 359Barbara M. Cooper






Contents ix

20 Fighting Fascism: Ethiopian Women Patriots 1935–1941 383Hailu Habtu and Judith A. Byfield

21 Defending the Lands of Their Ancestors: The AfricanAmerican Military Experience in Africa duringWorld War II 401Daniel Hutchinson

22 French African Soldiers in German POW Camps,1940–1945 420Raffael Scheck

six. world war ii and anticolonialism

23 Popular Resistance and Anticolonial Mobilization:The War Effort in French Guinea 441Elizabeth Schmidt

24 Sudanese Popular Response to World War II 462Ahmad Alawad Sikainga

25 Ugandan Politics and World War II (1939–1949) 480Carol Summers

seven. conclusion

26 Conclusion: Consequences of the War 501Ahmad Alawad Sikainga

Index 509











List of Contributors

Giulia Barrera, Directorate General of Archives, Rome, ItalyAn archivist and an Africanist historian, Barrera has published finding aidsand articles on archival matters as well as articles on interracial sexualrelations, mixed race children, women’s history, and the construction ofracial hierarchies in colonial Eritrea.

Catherine Bogosian Ash, Independent Scholar, Detroit, MI, USABogosian Ash has taught courses on the history of women, colonialism, andpopular culture and protest in Africa at Wayne State University. She haspublished articles on forced labor in French West Africa and the evolutionof a labor army in postcolonial Mali.

Carolyn A. Brown, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USAAn historian of labor slavery and urban social history, Brown’s publica-tions include We Are All Slaves: African Miners, Culture, and Resistance atthe Enugu Government Colliery, Nigeria, 1914–1950 (Heinemann, 2003),which won the Book of the Year Prize from the International Labor HistoryAssociation, and the coedited volume with Paul Lovejoy, Repercussions ofthe Atlantic Slave Trade: The Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the AfricanDiaspora (Africa World Press, 2011).

Judith A. Byfield, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USAAn associate professor of African history, Byfield’s publications include TheBluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Indigo Dyers inWestern Nigeria, 1890–1940 (Heinemann, 2002) and Cross Currents: Build-ing Bridges Across American and Nigerian Studies (Bookbuilders [Nigeria],2009).

Suryakanthie Chetty, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South AfricaChetty teaches courses on colonial South African and African history as wellas courses on “Empires of the Modern World.” She has published articles

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on settler masculinity and South African propaganda practices during theSecond World War.

William G. Clarence-Smith, School of Oriental and African Studies, Univer-sity of London, London, UKA professor of the economic history of Asia and Africa and chief editor ofthe Journal of Global History, Clarence-Smith’s publications include Slaves,Peasants and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840–1926 (Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1979) and Islam and the Abolition of Slavery (Oxford Univer-sity Press, 2006).

Barbara M. Cooper, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USAA professor of history, Cooper’s publications include Marriage in Maradi:Gender and Culture in a Hausa Society in Niger, 1900–1989 (Heinemann,1997) and Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel (Indiana UniversityPress, 2006), for which she won the Melville J. Herskovits Prize of theAfrican Studies Association.

Ruth Ginio, Ben Gurion University, Negev, IsraelGinio, a professor of history, is the author of French Colonialism Unmasked:The Vichy Years in French West Africa (University of Nebraska Press, 2006)and coeditor of Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the TwentiethCentury (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Louis Grundlingh, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South AfricaA professor in the department of historical studies, Grundlingh teachescourses on urban history and the history of leisure and has published numer-ous articles on the racial and politicized experiences of black South Africansoldiers who participated in the Second World War.

Hailu Habtu, Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University, AddisAbaba, EthiopiaAs a senior research Fellow, Habtu has published widely on Ethiopian Chris-tianity, language, and culture. He also teaches graduate courses on Ethiopianoral and written literature.

Allen M. Howard, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USAProfessor emeritus of history, Howard is the coauthor of Community Lead-ership and the Transformation of Freetown, 1801–1976 (Mouton, 1978)and coeditor of The Spatial Factor in African History: The Relationship ofthe Social, Material, and Perceptual (Brill, 2005).

Daniel Hutchinson, Belmont Abbey College, Belmont, NC, USAHutchinson, an assistant professor of history, teaches courses on the historyof the United States, African American history, military history, race, andethnicity, as well as on U.S. foreign relations. He has published articles onthe experiences of prisoners of war during World War I in Alabama.






List of Contributors xiii

Eric T. Jennings, University of Toronto, Toronto, CanadaA professor of history, Jennings’s publications include Vichy in the Tropics(Stanford University Press, 2001), Curing the Colonizers (Duke UniversityPress, 2006), and Imperial Heights: Dalat and the Making and Undoingof French Indochina (University of California Press, 2011). He has alsoreceived the Alf Heggoy and Jean-Francois Coste book prizes.

Driss Maghraoui, Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, MoroccoMaghraoui, a professor of history and international relations, has publishednumerous articles and chapters and is the editor of Revisiting the ColonialPast in Morocco (Routledge, 2003).

Malyn Newitt, King’s College London, London, UKProfessor emeritus of history, Newitt’s publications include, A History ofMozambique (Indiana University Press, 1995) and Portuguese OverseasExpansion, 1400–1668 (Routledge, 2004).

Timothy Parsons, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USAParsons, a professor of African and African American studies, is the authorof The Second British Empire: In the Crucible of the Twentieth Century(Rowan & Littlefield, 2014) and Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Move-ment in British Colonial Africa (Ohio University Press, 2004).

Carina Ray, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USAAn associate professor of African and the Black Atlantic history, Ray is theauthor of Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics ofColonialism in Ghana (Ohio University Press, 2015) and coeditor of Darfurand the Crisis of Governance in Sudan (Cornell University Press, 2009).

Raffael Scheck, Colby College, Waterville, ME, USAScheck, a professor of history, is the author of Hitler’s African Victims: TheGerman Army Massacre of Black French Soldiers in 1940 (Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2006), Mothers of the Nation: Right-Wing Women in WeimarGermany (Berg Press, 2004), and French Colonial Soldiers in German Cap-tivity during World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Elizabeth Schmidt, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USASchmidt, a professor of African History, is the author of several books,including Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, 1946–1958 (Ohio Uni-versity Press, 2007), for which she received the African Politics Confer-ence Group’s 2008 Best Book Award, and Mobilizing the Masses: Gender,Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939–1958(Heinemann, 2005).

Ahmad Alawad Sikainga, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USAA professor of history and African studies, Sikainga’s publications includeSlaves into Workers: Emancipation and Labor in Colonial Sudan (University






xiv List of Contributors

of Texas Press, 1996) and City of Steel and Fire: A Social History of Atbara,Sudan’s Railway Town, 1906–1984 (Heinemann, 2002).

Carol Summers, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USASummers, a professor of history and international studies, is author of Colo-nial Lessons: Africans’ Education in Southern Rhodesia, 1918–1935 (Heine-mann, 2002) and From Civilization to Segregation: Social Ideals and SocialControl in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1934 (Ohio University Press, 1994).

Thaddeus Sunseri, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USASunseri, a professor of African history, is the author of Wielding the Ax:Scientific Forestry and Social Conflict in Tanzania, c. 1820–2000 (OhioUniversity Press, 2009), a finalist for the African Studies Association’s 2010Melville J. Herskovits Award, and Vilimani: Labor Migration and RuralChange in Early Colonial Tanzania, 1884–1915 (Heinemann, 2001).






Acknowledgments

This volume is the outcome of many discussions; a workshop at RutgersUniversity, New Brunswick, NJ, in 2008, Re-Evaluating Africa and WorldWar II; a conference at Cornell in 2009, Re-Evaluating Africa and WorldWar II; as well as the patience and good humor of many colleagues. A projectof this magnitude is only successful because along the way many people andorganizations decide that they want to help. To the tens of people whohelped in multiple ways, big and small, we thank you from the bottom ofour hearts.

We enjoyed support from three institutions over the course of thisprocess – Rutgers University, Cornell University, and Columbia University.We must acknowledge the generosity in spirit and resources from the fol-lowing departments, programs, and institutes. Rutgers University: ARESTYResearch Center for Undergraduates; Center for Race and Ethnicity;Black Atlantic Seminar; Center for African Studies; the Rutgers UniversityLibraries; Department of History; Dean, School of Arts and Sciences;Research Council, Office of Research and Economic Development; VicePresident of Undergraduate Education; Vice President of Academic Affairs.Columbia University: Institute of African Studies. Cornell University:Africana Studies and Research Center; The Carl Becker House; De BaryMellon Interdisciplinary Writing Group; John Henrik Clarke Library; Cor-nell Cinema; Cornell Society for the Humanities; Departments of Anthropol-ogy, Government, History, and Development Sociology; European Studies;Kroch Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections; Mario EinaudiCenter for International Studies; Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies;Institute for Comparative Modernities; and the Institute for Social Sciences.

We also owe an enormous debt to several individuals who went above andbeyond the call of duty to ensure the success of the workshop and conference.They include: Jamila Crowther, Renee DeLancey, Shelley Feldman, SandraGreene, Robert L. Harris, Salah Hassan, Raj Krishnan, Stacey Langwick,Nancy Lawler, Dan Magaziner, Fouad Makki, Gregg Mann, Kwame Siriboe,

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xvi Acknowledgments

Rebecca Snyder, and Nicolas van de Valle. Filmmakers Steve White and JohnF. Schwally shared their outstanding work 761st Tank Regiment and FDR’sSecret Air Force, respectively, with our audiences. We are grateful to thepresenters at both the workshop and the conference and to the many peoplewho shared in the conversations and discussions.

Putting together a volume of this magnitude requires many eyes and manyhands. LaRay Denzer merits extra thanks for adding her editorial acumento the mix. She brought a critical second eye to the articles in this collection,while Laura Ann Twagira rendered order to the materials for the Web siteand Naomi Bland and Moyagaye Bedward helped us stay on top of a tsunamiof details. Our readers offered the right mix of encouragement and advice.Ashley Jackson at Kings College London and David Killingray providedinsight and encouragement at critical moments. Although he subsequentlyleft Cambridge University Press, we have to say a special “Thank you!” toEric Crahan, who strongly encouraged us to pursue this project from thevery beginning, and to his successor, William Hammell, who continued thesupport. Finally, we thank our families, who invariably shared all phasesof this volume and probably do not want to hear another interesting storyabout World War II.






Preface

Judith A. Byfield

The genesis of this volume was a simple Sunday morning conversation withCarolyn Brown. I had attended a preview of the first episode of Ken Burns’sdocumentary, The War, at Dartmouth College, and I shared my observationswith her. We both planned to include chapters on World War II in ourrespective monographs, and as we discussed our mutual concern with thelargely superficial treatment of Africa in European and American accountsof World War II, and our conversion to the idea that World War II deservedmuch greater attention in African studies, the idea for a conference tookroot.

We convinced Gregg Mann and Ahmad Sikainga to join us as co-organizers in the project, and we brought together twenty-six partici-pants from around the globe for a workshop at Rutgers University, NewBrunswick, NJ, March 27–30, 2008. Following that workshop we orga-nized a conference at Cornell University, September 18–20, 2009, as wellas three panels at the 2010 meeting of the American Historical Association.This has been a long process, and along the way the composition of orga-nizers changed as well; Gregg Mann left and Timothy Parsons joined us. Inthe multiple steps that brought us to this point, the numerous meetings andrewrites, our conviction in this project has been reinforced, for each of uslearned something new at the end of the day.

Why Revisit World War II?

In the documentary The War, Ken Burns did an admirable job in illustratingthe complexity and grand scale of World War II as well as the personal expe-riences of individuals who witnessed its horrors and victories. While fullydeserving of the praise it garnered, the series also illustrates the concerns thatdrive this collaborative project – the inadequate attention to Africa’s rolein World War II. This early version of episode one importantly includeddiscussion of Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 but then replicated the

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standard discussion of the North Africa campaigns, largely focusing on theactions of Generals Montgomery and Rommel. The same is true in texts onthe war. The continent and especially sub-Saharan Africa are absent fromthe major works such as The Second World War: A Complete History byMartin Gilbert and A World At Arms: A Global History of World WarII by Gerhard Weinberg.1 Unfortunately, this dominant narrative betraysa superficial understanding of the critical role that Africa and its peoplesplayed in this war. This project seeks to intervene in this narrative by mak-ing available new scholarship that will facilitate a richer understanding ofAfrica’s role and impact on this global conflict. In addition, this volume willbring the historiography of World War II and African historiography intogreater dialogue as it illuminates the distinctive ways in which the drive tosecure Africa’s resources for the war shaped African lives and livelihoods.

A small but critical number of historians have focused on Africa’s rolein World War II;2 however, most Africanist historians gloss over the periodby giving a cursory discussion of the numbers of African troops in SouthAsia and Western Europe or treating it as just a prelude to nationalistmovements in the postwar era. The contributors to this project argue thatAfrica’s contribution to the war was signal to the Allied victory and thatthe war years require more systematic analysis for a number of reasons. Thedemands of the war brought unprecedented interventions into the daily livesof Africans by colonial powers and transformed social and economic rela-tions within households and communities. Additionally, the new importanceof the colonies for the war effort was not lost on the men and women whowere put in the position of sacrificing their lives and economies to give othersin Europe the freedoms that they did not enjoy. For men and women acrossthe continent, the war was not just a distant event; rather, it transformedtheir lives, made them agents in a global struggle for democracy, and left anindelible imprint on their history. The contributors to the volume also utilizeinsights from a variety of fields of inquiry such as spatial analysis, gender

1 Martin Gilbert, The Second World War: A Complete History (New York: Holt Paperbacks,2004); Gerhard Weinberg, A World At Arms: A Global History of World War II (New York:Cambridge University Press, 2005).

2 For example, see Myron Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in FrenchWest Africa, 1857–1960 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991); Ashley Jackson, Botswana1939–45: An African Country at War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999); David Killingray andRichard Rathbone (editors), Africa and the Second World War (New York: St. Martin’s Press,1986); Nancy Ellen Lawler, Soldiers, Airmen, Spies and Whisperers: The Gold Coast in WorldWar II (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002); Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West AfricanVeterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006); G. O.Olusanya, The Second World War and Politics in Nigeria, 1939–1953 (London: Evans Bros.for University of Lagos Press, 1979); Timothy Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: SocialImplications of Colonial Military Service in the Kings Rifles, 1902–1964 (Portsmouth, NH:Heinemann, 1999).






Preface xix

studies, cultural studies, and environmental history. Consequently, this vol-ume will help chart new ways of thinking about and capturing Africa’s rolein World War II.


The contributions to this volume highlight three critical issues – periodiza-tion, colonial policies, and the impact of the war on African individuals andcommunities. Periodization is critical in understanding the consequences thewar imposed on African communities as well as Africa’s impact on criticalmoments during the war. Contributors identify signal events that had themost sustained impact on African communities, such as the fall of Franceand Japan’s conquest of South East Asia. They illustrate Africa’s vital rolein sustaining the Allied cause, especially after the fall of South East Asia.This attention to periodization allows for more comparative analyses bothwithin and across regions and refines our analyses of changes in colonialpolicy. For example, Britain did not make the recruitment of African sol-diers a priority until Japan’s victories in the Far East, and then quicklymoved to put 80,000 British West African troops in Burma.3 France, onthe other hand, relied heavily on West African soldiers in Europe and otherparts of the empire, recruiting more than 100,000 men. These men on thefrontlines were the most visible expression of Africa’s role in the war; how-ever, combat was just one dimension of Africa’s contribution, for as the warexpanded demands on African communities increased significantly. NancyLawler notes that Britain and France in particular “looked to their overseasterritories to continue to fulfill their well-established role in the imperialsystems . . . the colonies were expected not only to support themselves, butto provide resources, both natural and human, for the good of the respectivemetropoles.”4

In many ways African resources sustained the Allied effort especiallyafter 1942 but came at a high cost. What were the consequences for Africancommunities as they supported their war-ravaged metropoles, the war effort,and themselves? Several contributors to this volume explore this question indepth by examining the social, cultural, political, and economic changes onthe continent. One of the most critical areas of concern for colonial officialswas labor. Not only did colonial powers use African soldiers to augmenttheir forces in Europe and Asia, they needed African labor to maintain thoseeconomic sectors in Africa deemed essential to the war effort, such as coalmining and rubber production. In addition, entire communities had to bemobilized to provide rice and other foodstuffs for the troops, starch for

3 For more on African troops in Burma, see John A. L. Hamilton, War Bush: 81 (West African)Division in Burma (Wilby, Norwich, UK: Michael Russell, 2001).

4 Lawler, Soldiers, Airmen, Spies and Whisperers, 1.






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uniforms, and palm products necessary for the manufacturing of soaps andmargarine in Europe.

The mobilization of communities to provide labor, food, and otherresources for the war exacerbated some of the contradictions of colonial-ism, thus making World War II an equally significant watershed in Africanhistory. Colonial regimes faced rising tensions as some communities experi-enced food shortages in the wake of the redeployment of agricultural laboror the redirection of food to troops. Price controls on food, as well as restric-tions on shipping and the movement of imported goods such as kerosene,helped fuel hyperinflation, especially in urban centers. In a period whencontrol was paramount, colonial officials had to devise new strategies andpolicies to secure the resources necessary for the war while keeping the lidon social and economic unrest.

Despite the hardships, many African men and women took to heart thestated aims of the Allied forces and volunteered to support the war in numer-ous ways in order to demonstrate their commitment to the shared ideals ofthe cause. They raised money for local and international charities, prayedfor Allied victories, and financed airplanes. Nigerians, for example, con-tributed £210,999 to the war effort through the Nigeria War Relief Fund.5

Regardless of where or how individuals and communities contributed, thewar changed their lives. Many women shouldered new responsibilities andexercised new freedoms as men and a few women went off to fight. Thepace of urbanization increased, leading to greater pressure on housing andother urban resources as well as an expanded social base for critiques ofcolonial rule. In addition, in Liberia, Senegal, and Nigeria the war broughtmany people into contact with black Americans and helped foster new waysof thinking and new cultural expressions.

In many areas the war exacerbated existing social tensions. Urbanization,for example, made it increasingly difficult for households and communitiesto maintain control over young people, especially young women. In thecities, which were exciting cauldrons of new cultures, political activism,and temptations, women and girls could evade the attempts of fathers andhusbands to restrict their movement. Similarly, young men could evade thecontrol that older men had over their ability to marry. New sexual mores, theanonymity of urban life, and the opportunities for wage earning challengedgenerational privileges, deprived communities of the labor of their youths,and deepened a range of health issues.

The war also intensified political consciousness and awareness of thecontradictions of imperialism. The contradictions became more glaring as

5 Gloria Chuku, “‘Crack Kernels, Crack Hitler’: Export Production Drive and Igbo Womenduring the Second World War,” in Judith A. Byfield, LaRay Denzer, and Anthea Morri-son (eds.), Gendering the African Diaspora: Women, Culture and Historical Change in theCaribbean and Nigerian Hinterland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010).






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the war unfolded for not only did colonial subjects champion the self-determination and democracy of the people who ruled them, but Africa,specifically Brazzaville, became the capital of De Gaulle’s Free France. Thesecontradictions resonated especially strongly with African soldiers for whomthe mystique of white superiority fell victim to the brutality they saw Euro-peans inflict upon each other. Moreover, they cringed under the racial dis-crimination within their own army command as well as that of prisoner ofwar camps. Racism also played out on the continent in different ways, andseveral contributors examine racism in policies and practice. These contri-butions on racism will be significant to the historiography of World War IIfor as John Dowers argues, “apart from the genocide of the Jews, racismremains one of the great neglected subjects of World War Two.”6

People on the home front who saw their sacrifices during the war as adown payment for their own self-determination also came to realize thecontradictions between the ideals of the war and the effort to relegitimizecolonialism. The continuation of wartime economic policies deepened theconditions for social discontent among workers, farmers, traders, and elites.World War II, in many instances, helped galvanize the militant nationalismof the postwar period as African men and women increasingly demandedtheir place in deciding their futures, their rights as workers, and an end tothe indignities of racism. The war also contributed to the pace of decoloniza-tion, for the years of conflict left Britain and France economically weak. Atits conclusion both colonial powers were initially committed to reformingimperialism through development and greater African political participa-tion. However, their weakened economies and the cost of reforms ultimatelycontributed to their willingness to relinquish political control of their Africancolonies.7

Africa supplied troops, funds, and materials, as well as a location fromwhich to plan for a Free France; thus it played a critical role in the Alliedvictory. The themes discussed here – mobilizing troops and resources, theexperience of combat, changing gender roles, racial discrimination, demo-cracy – all resonate with other world regions as well. Thus this volumewill give scholars of North America, Europe, and Asia the tools to integrateAfrica into their discussion of the war. They will have the resources to incor-porate African voices and experiences from different parts of the continent,and to make comparative analyses within Africa and between Africa andother regions.

The insights and resources in this volume will enable us to teach WorldWar II in its global complexity. For example, a global vantage point

6 John Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: PantheonBooks, 1986), 4.

7 Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French andBritish Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).






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complicates the seemingly simple issue of dating the start of the war. Atthe conclusion of the war in Europe, Italy and the United Nations signeda treaty in which all parties agreed that World War II in Ethiopia beganwith Italy’s invasion of the country on October 3, 1935.8 This detail forcesus to problematize the dominant narrative of the war that begins and endsin Europe. In addition, this volume enables us to refine our understand-ing of the similarities and resonances of racial policies and practices amongAllied and Axis forces. Britain, France, the United States, Germany, and Italyshared racial ideologies that demonized and infantilized people of Africandescent, and practiced racial discrimination at home and abroad. Therefore,both Allied and Axis states had to balance their need of black bodies forthe war effort against their desire to maintain racial hierarchies and socialseparation. Finally, a global perspective reminds us that the discussions ofwhat would come in the wake of the war had many contributing voicesbefore competing power blocs reduced those voices to a bipolar Cold War.Ultimately, this volume will help to restore the “world” to the study of theSecond World War.

A Note on Structure

This volume is organized into six sections. The first section offers threeintroductory essays that attempt to give a continent-wide overview of thecentrality of Africa’s human and material resources to the war effort.The remaining sections offer individual case studies from different parts ofthe continent. Section Two, Colonial Subjects and Imperial Armies, exam-ines the experience of African men recruited for the military from FrenchWest Africa, South Africa, Morocco, and Kenya. Section Three, MobilizingCommunities and Resources for the War Effort, examines the largely coer-cive strategies imperial governments used to obtain resources such as rubber,lumber, minerals, or agricultural products from their African colonies andAfrican resistance to them. Section Four, Race, Gender, and Social Change ina Time of War, draws on material from Eritrea, Gold Coast, Nigeria, SouthAfrica, and France to illustrate how the war built on certain ideas about raceand gender and changed gender relations as it created new opportunities,especially for young men and women. Section Five, Experiencing War inAfrica and Europe, examines the wartime experiences of female combatantsin Ethiopia, African American and African soldiers, French women, and mis-sionaries. Finally, in Section Six, World War II and Anticolonialism, casestudies from Guinea, Uganda, and Sudan consider the varied ways in which

8 Richard Pankhurst, “Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia: A History of Their Discussionfrom the League of Nations to the United Nations (1936–1949),” Northeast African Studies,new series, 6 (1999), 109–11.






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the war shaped the anticolonial and nationalist movements that intensifiedafter the war. Together they offer a macro and micro view of the multiplelevels on which African contributions shaped the war as well as the waysin which the war affected individuals and communities and transformedAfrica’s political, economic, and social landscape.






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