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Military and Labour Recruitment in the Gold Coast During the Second World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

David Killingray
David Killingray
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths' College, London
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Extract

During the Second World War the British West African colonies supplied raw materials and manpower for the war effort. The small peacetime army of the Gold Coast increased to nearly 70,000 men, including technical and service corps, and was used in overseas campaigns. Most soldiers were drawn from the supposed martial peoples of the Northern Territories but recruiting was extended to Asante and the south in mid-1940. Although formal conscription was only applied to drivers and artisans, a large number of recruits were forcibly enlisted through a system of official quotas imposed on districts and through chiefs. Opposition to military service, especially for overseas compaigns, was widespread and is indicated by the attempts to evade recruiting parties and also the large number of desertions. In order to release labour for the military and also conserve scarce supplies of raw materials, some gold mines were closed. Wartime shortages, inflation and the lack of jobs after the war led to discontent in the Gold Coast but there is little evidence to indicate that this resulted in a significant number of ex-servicemen being drawn into political activity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , January 1982 , pp. 83 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Relatively little has been written on the Second World War in West Africa. Crowder, Michael ‘The 1939–45 war and West Africa’, in Ajayi, J. F. A. and Crowder, Michael (eds.) History of West Africa, vol. 2 (London, 1974)Google Scholar provides a brief outline. On the Gold Coast see Holbrook, Wendell P., ‘The Impact of the Second World War on the Gold Coast 1939–45’, unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1978.Google Scholar Also Headrick, Rita, ‘African soldiers in World War II’, unpub. paper, University of Chicago, 1976.Google ScholarOlusanya, G. O., The Second World War and Politics in Nigeria 1939–1953, (London 1973)Google Scholar is concerned mainly with political events.

The impact of the First World War in West Africa is briefly examined by Crowder in Ajayi and Crowder, History, ch. 13. On the Gold Coast see Thomas, Roger, ‘Military Recruitment in the Gold Coast during the First World War’, Cahiers d'Études Africaines, XV. 57 (1975)Google Scholar; Killingray, David, ‘Repercussions of World War I in the Gold Coast’, Journal of African History xix, i (1978)Google Scholar, and other articles in that issue which is devoted to ‘World War I and Africa’.

2 West Africa: African members of the armed forces, July 1945.

* These figures do not include West Africans serving in units recruited in the U.K. A number of Sierra Leoneans and Nigerians in the RAF served as flying crews, several receiving commisions. During the war two Gold Coast soldiers became the first Africans to be commissioned in the British Army, Seth Anthony in 1942, then to serve in Burma and end the war as a major, and T. K. Impraim in 1945.

3 CO554/139/33764 Report of G. St. Orde Brown on visit to West Africa, June 1944. Freund, William, ‘Labour migration to the Northern Nigerian tin mines, 1903–1945’, Journal of African History, xxii, i (1981).Google Scholar

4 Serving members of the armed forces, Gold Coast: Oct. 1940, 3,552; Jan. 1941,4,360; Oct. 1941, 12,000; March 1942, 20,800; Oct. 1942, 25,500; March 1943, 32,969; Dec. 1943, 44,585; July 1945, 47,000. Figures taken from various sources, mainly WO173 files.

5 CO98/77 Executive Council 23 May 1940.

6 WO106/2919 Hodson to Lloyd, tel. 10 Dec. 1940.

7 GNA (Accra) ADM12/3/137 Hodson to Lloyd, tel 4 July 1940.

8 FO371/24645/J.2241 War Policy in Africa, revised draft, 18 Dec. 1940, secret. See also Paxton, Robert, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–1944 (London, 1972), 86–97.Google Scholar

9 Haywood, A. and Clarke, F. A. S. provide the military history of the campaigns in their ‘official’ The History of the Royal West African Frontier Force (Aldershot, 1964).Google Scholar

10 Ray, Deborah Wing, ‘The Takoradi route: Roosevelt's prewar venture beyond the Western Hemisphere’, Journal of American History lxii, ii (1975).Google Scholar

11 CO968/75/14564/45 A pt. 1, Manpower for the Middle East, 1942.

12 Ibid. Burns to S/S, cipher tel. 27 April 1942.

13 WO 173/313 Aide-memoire on situation in West Africa by GOC-in-C West Africa, 26 Jan. 1942, most secret. In July 1942 Vichy forces in AOF were reported to be 70,000 men with 125,000 in North Africa. Britain had 7 infantry brigades and no armoured vehicles or heavy artillery. The French had a slight superiority in military aircraft. See Swinton papers, Churchill Coll. Cambridge, II 270/5/6, for copy of West African War Council (SM) (2) Appreciation of situation: Vichy French forces West Africa, July 1942, secret.

14 WO173/369 War Diaries, Gold Coast Area, 1942, secret.

15 CO968/38/13117/7 A Note on manpower requirements Army, by joint secretary for West African War Council (41) 9 Oct. 1942, secret.

16 Rhodes House Library, Oxford. Mss. Afr. s.1608, Beeton diaries, vol. 15, 27 Feb. 1941 with reference to ‘A note on the manpower of the Western Province’, dd. Tarkwa, 10 March 1941.

17 CO968/75/14564/45 A Pt. I, Bishop, Dep. Adj. & QMG West African forces, memo. 30 July 1942.

18 WO32/10141, 1942; WO32/10236, 1942–43 refer specifically to the Gold Coast mines. CO968/75/14564/45A Pts I & II refer to the broader question of labour requirements for the Middle East from East, Central and Southern Africa.

19 WO173/709 War Diaries Gold Coast Area, 1943, secret. General George Giffard opposed the employment of black U.S. port battalions as labour in West Africa in early 1942; see WO216/55 secret correspondence 1940–42. No black U.S. military or civilian personnel served in West Africa during the war.

20 WO193/91 Resmin to S/S, most secret cipher tel. 31 May 1943.

21 WO173/709 War Diaries, Gold Coast Area, secret 1943.

22 CO98/91 Provincial Council minutes 3–5 June 1941, Appendix B; GNA (Accra) ADM51/5/16 Encl. recruiting return from PC's office Koforidua, 8 March 1941.

23 WO 173/709 War Diaries, Gold Coast Area, secret 1942, Appendix A, Recruiting in Northern Territories.

24 GNA (Accra) ADM1/2/376 Burns to S/S 30 Sept. 1944, encl. comments by Acting Director of Medical Services, Gold Coast, on the memo on the UN Food Conference on Colonial Nutritional Policy, quoted by Holbrook, , ‘The Impact’, 163.Google Scholar

25 CO820/55/34542A Report by Gen. Burrows, top secret, 1 March 1945.

26 Thomas, ‘Military recruitment’.

27 African rank and file by area of Gold Coast:

28 eg. GNA (Accra) ADM 63/5/8 Navrongo informal diary 1939–40, entry for 29 Aug. 1939: ‘Got out a quota for each village’. 30 Aug. 1939: ‘Asked Chief of Sandama for 150 recruits.’

29 Agolley Kusasi, interview Accra 5 May 1979.

30 Rhodes House Library, Oxford, Mss. Afr. s.835, D. J. Parkinson, Zuarungu diary 6 Oct. 1939.

31 GNA (Accra) ADM 63/5/58 Navrongo informal diary, 13 Sept. 1939.

32 Ibid. 30 May 1940. The Chief Commissioner penned in the margin: ‘ I would prefer it but others don't agree’.

33 Rhodes House, Library. Oxford, Mss. Afr. s.1207, A. W. Amherst, 24 Sept. and mid Oct. 1939.

34 WO173/710 Gold Coast Area Newsletter, July-Aug. 1942.

35 Rhodes House Library, Oxford, Mss. Afr. s.1608, Beeton diary vol. 15, 9 Jan. 1941.

36 Arthur Davies interview and letter Feb./May 1980.

37 GNA (Accra) ADM 50/5/26 Chief Commissioner Ashanti to District Commissioner Juaso, Recruiting, secret, 27 April 1942.

38 CO98/86 Acting Governor to Legislative Council, 17 Feb. 1942.

39 Interview with Dr B. B. Waddy, Winchester, 18 Oct. 1979. In October 1941 Gibb, the Acting Chief Commissioner NTs, wrote to his DCs asking for estimates of the total number of men who might be conscripted without risk to the farming industry and the social life of the community. He received limited information and so turned to the Acting Chief Agricultural Officer who estimated that 20% of all compounds could spare one man, 30% could spare two men, in all a total of approximately 19,000 men from the NTs. As 6,000 had already enlisted this left a further 13,000 potential recruits. Gibb thought this figure too high and reduced it to 10,000. Resentment against recruiting was reported in the Salaga-Yeji area in Aug-Sept. 1942 because of food shortages. See WO 173/369 Gold Coast Area Newsletter, 1942, secret.

40 Rhodes House Library, Oxford, Mss. Afr. s.1207, Lawra diary, 14 Aug. 1942 (and GNA (Accra) ADM 61/5/16); WO173/709, Gold Coast Area Newsletter, 1942, secret.

41 Rhodes House, Library, Oxford, Mss. Afr. s.943, J. C. Anderson informal diary Wa district, 13 May 1944.

42 CO554/133/33819/1 West African War Council (47) 4th meeting, Achimota, 13 Oct. 1942, secret.

43 RWAFF News No. 10, 21 March 1944. This newspaper was published in Bombay and distributed free to West African troops in South East Asia Command.

44 The Acting Prow Commissioner, Central Province, urged chiefs to encourage recruiting because ‘Gold Coast troops are fighting in Africa to free brother Africans, the Abyssinians from the foreign yoke of the Italians’. CO98/91 C. Prov. Council minutes, 19 Feb. 1941.

45 GNA (Accra) BF 2454 S.F.9 Conf. Acting DC, Wenchi, security report, 6 Nov. 1942; GNA (Cape Coast) ADM 23/1/992 Compulsory Service Register, 1941–43.

46 eg. Gonja in late 1941, Mamprussi in Aug. 1942, GNA (Accra) ADM 56/1/374, 1941–42. Also in Zaurungu 1942, GNA (Tamale) ADM 16/31, 1945–47.

47 CO554/129/3362/1 1940–41. Governor Hodson accepted the need for conscription.

48 GNA (Accra) BF 2454, Acting Col. Sec. to Chief Commissioners Asante and NT, 10 May 1941.

49 CO98/92 W. Province Council minutes, 1 March 1941.

50 CO98/91 Central Province Council minutes 5 June 1941.

51 Ibid. 6 June 1941.

52 Report of Commission Appointed to Enquire into the Disturbances which occurred in Winneba (Effutu State) on 19–20 August 1941 (Accra, 1942).

53 Holbrook, , ‘The Impact’, 205.Google Scholar

54 WO173/369 Gold Coast Area Newsletter, security reports, 1942, secret.

55 GNA (Cape Coast) ADM 23/1 /992 Compulsory Service Register, Saltpond 1942–43.

56 Rhodes House Library, Oxford, Mss Afr. s.1608, Beeton diary vol. 16,9, 11, 12 and 14 Jan. 1942.

57 GNA (Accra) ADM 50/5/26 Brigadier M. Richards, OC Gold Coast Area to Chief Commissioners and Provincial Commissioners, 2 Jan. 1944, most secret, Appendix AA, secret.

58 Birmingham, W. B., ‘An index of real wages of unskilled labourers in Accra, 1939–1959’, Economic Bulletin of Economics Society of Ghana, iv, iii (1961).Google ScholarKay, G. B., (ed.) The Political Economy of Colonialism in Ghana (Cambridge, 1972), 332Google Scholar table 20c. Shortages of food were increased by the failure of crops in the hard agricultural years of 1943–47.

59 Schleh, Eugene P. A., ‘The post-war careers of ex-servicemen in Ghana and Uganda’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, vi, ii (1968)Google Scholar; G. O. Olusanya, ‘The role of ex-servicemen in Nigerian polities’, ibid.Shiroya, Okete J. E., ‘The Impact of World War II on Kenya: the role of ex-servicemen in Kenyan Nationalism’, unpub. Ph.D thesis, Michigan State University, 1968.Google Scholar