Thousands of young men from Ghana joined up to fight the Japanese. Some were just teenagers – but they were sent into one of cruelest theaters of the war, the jungles of south-east Asia.
In 1944, Kwesi Mensah left Ghana. He was a radio operator in the British Army’s 81st battalion. In 1944, the Allied forces intensified their military campaign to drive the Japanese from Burma (now Myanmar). At that time, Ghana was a British colony. Thousands of Ghanaian enlisted and fought under British command.
“It was not our fight. It was white and white that were fighting. But we loved the British so we all went and supported them. We spent about one year, eight months, for training in Gold Coast and Nigeria. We mounted ship at Lagos for India. We stayed in India for some time for another training. From there we crossed a river, for about five days, then we got to Burma. We changed with the 81st division and we took up the fight. We fought in the jungle for 6 months, in the bush. Killing and wounding. When you went there, they were so hungry in the town, because of the war. Americans would drop supplies for the air. When we went to there we would give them biscuits. If you gave them money, they would prefer biscuits because they were hungry! As soldiers we were never hungry. We are so much food, we couldn’t eat it all. If we were running short a plane would come and give us supplies. So we weren’t hungry. Only, you would see that your friend is dead. You would take breakfast with him, and then they would ask him to go forward to do some work and he would never return. You would hear of his death.We were just making prayers, to the lord. Because all life is just in the hands of God. Some people died there, some people were wounded. And some people didn’t get wounded, didn’t die and returned home safely.” ~ Kwesi Mensah
More than 3500 men from the former African Colonies died fighting for the Allied forces in WWII. On the afternoon of 15th August 1945, the Japanese forces surrendered. Private Mensah returned home.
Kwesi Mensah shares his story with CCTV’s Katerina Vittozzi
