1944: West Africa Way
Photo shows: a West African driving a Jeep along the road hacked out of the jungle by his comrades in the Kaladan valley.”
A few years ago, reading one of the rash of books about recent SAS operations, it was interesting to learn that when British troops deployed to Sierra Leone in 2000, they were able to support the local Burma veterans on Remembrance Day.
Although many of the soldiers involved in the World War Two Burma campaign were British and Indian, there were also three African Divisions namely the 11th East African, 81st and 82nd West African Divisions recruited from British Empire countries.
Soldiers from the 81st West African Division are seen in this photograph taken on April 17, 1944. This was the first division to be formed from units of the West African Frontier Force and comprised troops from four African countries; Nigeria, Gold Coast (now Ghana), Gambia and Sierra Leone.
The division was assembled in Nigeria in March 1943, and sent to India in August 1943 where one brigade was sent to help form part of Wingate’s Chindits in long range penetration operations. The 4th Battalion was established on the headwaters of the Kaladan River valley which was the scene of its operations for nearly 14 months.
The 4th Battalion was supplied entirely from the air, while a Jeep track, known as the ‘West Africa Way’, was constructed behind it through 73 miles of massively difficult terrain. The rest of the brigade and the Gold Coast Brigades (the 5/7th) together formed the 81st Division, from which the 3rd Brigade had been detached to serve with the Chindit under Gen Wingate, followed and together were the first large force ever to be supplied entirely by air.…
