The Empire/Commonwealth and the Second World War

Abstract

The whole British Empire was involved in the Second World War from its outset. This article challenges the myth of Britain ‘alone’ against Hitler; one-fifth of the world's population was at war because Britain was. Britain called on vast colonial resources to defend a global empire and global trade. The importance of the African continent has been overlooked, but Africa experienced a large range of military activities by land, sea and air and personnel from all over the Empire served there.

Key Words:

• British Empire
• Second World War
• Africa
• global strategy
• Winston Churchill
• Adolf Hitler
• War Cabinet
• Ministry of War
• Africa
• India

Notes

1. Recent general works on the Empire's war include: Ashley Jackson (2006) The British Empire and the Second World War (London: Continuum); Ashley Jackson (2010) Distant Drums: The Role of Colonies in British Imperial Warfare (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press); and Andrew Stewart (2008) Empire Lost: Britain, the Dominions, and the Second World War (London: Continuum). For a regional approach, see Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper's (2005) ground-breaking Forgotten Armies: Britain's Asian Empire and War with Japan (London: Penguin) and David Macri (2010) ‘Hong Kong in the Sino-Japanese War: the logistics of collective security in South China, 1935–1941’, PhD thesis (University of Hong Kong). Macri's excellent thesis situates Hong Kong within its South China regional context and the policies of external great powers including America, Britain, Japan and Russia. For new national studies relating to the imperial war effort, see Saul Kelly (2010) War and Politics in the Desert: Britain and Libya during the Second World War (London: Society for Libyan Studies) and Bob Wurth (2008) Australia's Greatest Peril: 1942 (Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia). For other new work, see: Greg Huff (2009) ‘War and economy in Southeast Asia: the economics of the Second World War Japanese occupation and its aftermath’, All Souls College Oxford Seminar Paper; Nicholas Sarantakes (2009) Allies against the Rising Sun: The United States, the British Nations, and the Defeat of Imperial Japan (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas); Peter Clarke (2008) The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: The Demise of a Superpower, 1944–1947 (London: Penguin); Brian Moynahan (2009) Jungle Soldier: The True Story of Freddy Spencer Chapman (London: Quercus); Raymond Callahan (2007) ‘Winston Churchill, Australia, and the defence of Rangoon’, World War II Quarterly, 4, p. 3; Karen Bromber (2008),‘“Heshima”: British war-time propaganda to East African troops in Ceylon, 1943–1945’, in Ashwini Tambe and Harald Fischer Tiné (Eds), The Limits of British Colonial Control in South Asia: Spaces of Disorder in the Indian Ocean Region (London: Routledge); Kent Fedorowich (2010) ‘“Caught in the cross fire”: Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Gerald Campbell and the near demise of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, May–October 1940’, Seminar Paper, King's College London–Oxford Brookes University, ‘International and Military Studies’ Seminar, 16 February; Ashley Jackson (2009) ‘“Defend Lanka your home”: war on the home front in Ceylon, 1939–1945’, War in History, 16, p. 2; and A. Jackson (Ed.) (2010) ‘New research on the British Empire and the Second World War (Part I)’, Global War Studies, 7, p. 1. See also the lists of regional presses, such as Hong Kong University Press. Current doctoral theses include Daniel Spence's study of colonial navies (Sheffield Hallam University). Recent novels include: Caroline Harvey (Joanna Trollope) (1997) The Brass Dolphin (London: Doubleday); William Rivière (1997) Echoes of War (London: Hodder and Stoughton); Andrea Levy (2004) Small Island (London: Headline); Biyi Bandele (2007) Burma Boy (London: Jonathan Cape); and Mark Mills (2009) The Information Officer (London: Hodder). For a list of novels relating to the Empire at war, see Jackson (2006, pp. 590–591).

2. For Churchill's periodisation of the war and attempts to sequence the manner in which it is remembered, see David Reynolds (2005) In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (London: Penguin).

3. TNA, CAB 66/4/15, ‘Utilisation of Man-power Resources of the Colonial Empire’, War Cabinet, January 1940, Colonial Office, 22 January 1940.

4. TNA, CAB 68/7/1, War Cabinet, ‘Reports for the Month of June 1940 for the Dominions, India, Burma, and the Colonies, Protectorates, and Mandated Territories’, 19 July 1940.

5. TNA, CAB 68/7/1.

6. TNA, CAB 66/4/15.

7. TNA, CAB 66/4/15.

8. TNA, CAB 66/4/15.

9. TNA, CAB 66/4/15.

10. Figures from TNA, CAB 68/7/1.

11. Figures from TNA, CAB 68/7/1, p. 18.

12. TNA, CAB 66/8/37, War Cabinet, ‘Plans to Meet a Certain Eventuality: French Colonial Empire and Mandated Territories’, Report by the Chiefs of Staff, 15 June 1940.

13. TNA, CAB 66/8/37.

14. TNA, CAB 68/7/1. In March 1940 the Lahore Resolution had called for the formation of the state of Pakistan.

15. TNA, CAB 68/7/1.

16. TNA, CAB 68/7/1.

17. TNA, CAB 68/7/1.

18. TNA, CAB 68/7/1.

19. TNA, CAB 66/9/7, War Cabinet, ‘Weekly Résumé of the Naval, Military, and Air Situation from 12 Noon June 20th to 12 Noon June 27th, 1940’.

20. TNA, CAB 66/9/7.

21. TNA, CAB 68/7/1.

22. TNA, CAB 66/9/7.

23. TNA, CAB 66/9/7.

24. See also TNA, CAB 65/7/41, ‘Conclusions of a Meeting of the War Cabinet Held at 10 Downing Street, 29 May 1940’ and CAB 66/8/4, War Cabinet, ‘Construction of Aerodromes and Naval Bases by the United States in British Colonies and Dominions’, 27 May 1940.

25. TNA, CAB 67/7/3, War Cabinet, ‘Hitler Interview, 15 June 1940’.

26. TNA, CAB 66/8/39, War Cabinet, ‘Economic Aid from the New World to the Old’, 16 June 1940.

27. This section is based on a keynote lecture at the conference From Africa to Berchtesgaden: Across the Desert to Defeat Hitler, University of Birmingham, 10–11 December 2009.

28. John Harris (1984) A Funny Place to Have a War (London: Hutchinson); Graham Greene (1948), who served in the intelligence service in Sierra Leone, set his novel The Heart of the Matter (London: Heinemann) in the colony.

29. For Vichy West Africa and the war, see Ruth Ginio (2006) French Colonialism Unmasked: The Vichy Years in French West Africa (London: Nebraska University Press); and for British-Vichy differences, see Martin Thomas (1995) ‘The Anglo-French division over West Africa and the limitations of strategic planning, June–December 1940’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 6, p. 1.

30. See Andrew Stewart (2011) ‘“This temporary strategical withdrawal”: the Eastern Fleet's wartime African sojourn’, in The Proceedings of the US Naval Academy History Symposium 2009 (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press) and Ashley Jackson (2011) Ocean Victory: Britain's War from Suez to Sumatra (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

31. Africa ‘looking East’ is a theme developed in Andre Wessels (1996) ‘South Africa and the war against Japan, 1941–1945’, Military History Journal, 10, p. 3.

32. See Ashley Jackson (2008) ‘Colonial governors and the Second World War’, in Andrew Stewart and Chris Baxter (Eds), Diplomats at War (Leiden: Brill).

33. Graham Stewart (2000) Burying Caesar: Churchill, Chamberlain, and the Battle for the Tory Party (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson), p. 238.

34. TNA, CAB 67/4/15, War Cabinet, ‘The Strategical Outlook’, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs containing General Smuts to Mr Churchill, 22 June 1940.

35. On networks, see A. Jackson, ‘“A prodigy of skill and organization”: British Imperial networks and the Second World War’, in A. Jackson (2010), pp. 242–261. For imperial networks more generally, see Gary MacGee and Andrew Thompson (2010) Empire and Globalization: Networks of People, Goods, and Capital in the British World, c. 1850–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

36. TNA, CAB 66/40/50, War Cabinet, ‘Compulsory Labour for Civilian Purposes in East Africa’, Note by Lord Privy Seal, 16 September 1943.

37. See G. S. Brunskill (1945) ‘Studies in war-time organization (5): AFLOC’, African Affairs, 44, pp. 125–130.

38. For the development of imperial air routes, see Gordon Pirie (2009) Air Empire: British Imperial Civil Aviation, 1919–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

39. Kenneth Hare (1977) ‘Takoradi–Khartoum air route’, Climatic Change, 1, p. 2.

40. TNA, CAB 66/28/1, War Cabinet, ‘Appreciation of the Military Situation in West Africa’, Report by the Chiefs of Staff, 21 August 1942, p. 1.

41. TNA, CAB 66/7/9, War Cabinet, ‘Distribution of the Forces in Africa’, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for War, 13 April 1940.

42. Recent work on America's wartime encounter with Africa includes Lloyd Beecher (2007) ‘The Second World War and US political–economic expansionism: the case of Liberia, 1938–45’, Diplomatic History, 3, p. 4.

43. TNA, CAB 66/32/31, War Cabinet, ‘American Influence in West Africa’, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 22 December 1942, p. 1.

44. Ibid., p. 2.

45. Elizabeth Watkins (2008) Cypher Officer in Cairo, Kenya, and Caserta (Brighton: Pen Press Publishers), p. 84.

46. John Masters (1961) The Road Past Mandalay (London: Michael Joseph), p. 50.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ashley Jackson

Lecture at the Royal Overseas League, 7 June 2010, one of the lecture series organised jointly by ROSL and the Round Table as both organisations celebrated their centenary.