The Army’s military academy has for the first time honoured the hundreds of thousands of African soldiers and porters who fought for Britain during the two world wars.
Displays at Sandhurst commemorate the assistance provided to Britain by the pre-independence Indian army and the Gurkhas, but little fuss has been made, until now, about the soldiers in regiments from former British colonial states in west, east and central Africa.
David Williams, once of the King’s African Rifles, has been campaigning for this to change and last month he was among a group of colonial-era officers to attend the unveiling of a permanent display on eight boards of photographs and stories in tribute to the African warriors in the Old College building.
A Ghanaian veteran who served with the Gold Coast Regiment in Burma during the Second World War witnessed the moment, alongside Captain David Nickol, an officer throughout the war in the King’s African Rifles. Both men are in their nineties.
The stories on the boards reveal how African soldiers, led by British and other colonial officers, fought to protect British colonies in Africa for more than 80 years from the 1880s.
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They cover the role of African regiments in the Great War, where they bore the brunt of the fighting in German East Africa in extremely harsh conditions.
The death toll, which included many African porters, was 105,000. This is nearly 50 per cent higher than the number of Australian, Canadian or Indian troops who died in the First World War and whose sacrifice is much more widely recognised, Williams said.
The action of African soldiers during the Second World War is also recognised. In 1940 and 1941, they formed a significant part of the Allied forces that defeated the Italians in the strategically important Horn of Africa. In 1942 two East African brigades were pivotal in capturing Madagascar from the Vichy French to deny Japanese naval bases in the Indian Ocean. In 1944 and 1945 three and a half African colonial divisions played a role in the offensives to recapture Burma, including a Nigerian brigade in the Chindits.
An honours board will include citations of ten Victoria Crosses, awarded to European officers and senior non-commissioned officers in African regiments as well as 14 citations for African soldiers selected from the several hundred awarded medals for conspicuous gallantry.
More than 50,000 African soldiers fought for Britain in the First World War along with more than one million African porters. In the Second World War, more than half a million Africans from 13 then British colonies enlisted to fight. They are now honoured at Sandhurst.