Nigerian Forces Comforts Fund, 1940–1947: “The Responsibility of the Nigerian Government to Provide Funds for the Welfare of Its Soldiers”

Itinerario ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-542
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Nwafor Mordi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
Nigerian Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis study seeks to make an original contribution to the historiography of Africa and the Second World War. It examines the efforts of the Nigerian government and the British Army towards the welfare and comforts of Nigerian soldiers during their overseas services from 1940 to 1947. Their deployments in East Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia had brought the issue of their morale maintenance, namely comforts and welfare, to the fore. Extant Nigerian studies of the Second World War have been concerned with Nigerian contributions to Allied victory in terms of diverse economic exertions and those guided by charity towards Europeans affected by the German blitzkrieg, particularly in Britain. Consequently, this paper explains the genesis, objectives, and policy directions of the Nigerian Forces Comforts Fund and its impact on Nigerian servicemen's comforts and welfare. The study posits the argument that constant disagreements and indeed struggles for supremacy between the military and the civil power adversely affected troops’ comforts and welfare. Delayed postwar repatriation of the idle and bored troops to West Africa, in breach of openly proclaimed wartime promises, bred anxiety and made them prone to mutiny. The end of demobilisation in 1947 left many disgruntled ex-servicemen applying for reenlistment.

Prisoners of the Tree: Lee Blessing's American Eden

Prospects ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 619-634
Author(s):  
Steven Dedalus Burch
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
American Capitalism ◽  
Second World

American Culture has almost from its beginnings claimed what may be the Western world's primary Judeo-Christian metaphor — that of the Garden of Eden. The vastness of its wilderness, the newness of its culture, and the plasticity of its identity allowed both its citizens and many outsiders to embrace their vision of America as a manifestation of humanity's earliest boon from its deity. In the 20th and 21st centuries, this metaphor has continued to be called forth at moments when the country's soul was perceived as being tested by the failure of American capitalism in the Depression, the country's tentative stretches toward Empire in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and the Faustian unleashing of the atom at the end of the Second World War.

The Imperial Army Project

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Delaney
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Military Cooperation ◽  
High Point ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

How did British authorities manage to secure the commitment of large dominion and Indian armies that could plan, fight, shoot, communicate, and sustain themselves, in concert with the British Army and with each other, during the era of the two world wars? This is the primary line of inquiry for this study, which begs a couple of supporting questions. What did the British want from the dominion and Indian armies and how did they go about trying to get it? How successful were they in the end? Answering these questions requires a long-term perspective—one that begins with efforts to fix the armies of the British Empire in the aftermath of their desultory performance in South Africa (1899–1903) and follows through to the high point of imperial military cooperation during the Second World War. Based on multi-archival research conducted in six different countries on four continents, Douglas E. Delaney argues that the military compatibility of the British Empire armies was the product of a deliberate and enduring imperial army project, one that aimed at ‘Lego-piecing’ the armies of the empire, while, at the same time, accommodating the burgeoning autonomy of the dominions and even India. At its core, this book is really about how a military coalition worked.

Post-Heroic Warfare Revisited: Meaning and Legitimation of Military Losses

Sociology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 898-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Frisk
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Moral Worth ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
Military Engagement ◽  
Military Campaign ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

The article challenges the thesis that western societies have moved towards a post-heroic mood in which military casualties are interpreted as nothing but a waste of life. Using content analysis and qualitative textual analysis of obituaries produced by the Royal Danish Army in memory of soldiers killed during the Second World War (1940–1945) and the military campaign in Afghanistan (2002–2014), the article shows that a ‘good’ military death is no longer conceived of as a patriotic sacrifice, but is instead legitimised by an appeal to the unique moral worth, humanitarian goals and high professionalism of the fallen. The article concludes that fatalities in international military engagement have invoked a sense of post-patriotic heroism instead of a post-heroic crisis, and argues that the social order of modern society has underpinned, rather than undermined, ideals of military self-sacrifice and heroism, contrary to the predominant assumption of the literature on post-heroic warfare.

In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Second World War ◽  
New Order ◽  
Japanese Empire ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

The destruction of Japan’s empire in August 1945 under the military onslaught of the Allied Powers produced a powerful rupture in the histories of modern East Asia. Everywhere imperial ruins from Manchuria to Taiwan bore memoires of a great run of upheavals and wars which in turn produced revolutionary uprisings and civil wars from China to Korea. The end of global Second World War did not bring peace and stability to East Asia. Power did not simply change hands swiftly and smoothly. Rather the disintegration of Japan’s imperium inaugurated a era of unprecedented bloodletting, state destruction, state creation, and reinvention of international order. In the ruins of Japan’s New Order, legal anarchy, personal revenge, ethnic displacement, and nationalist resentments were the crucible for decades of violence. As the circuits of empire went into meltdown in 1945, questions over the continuity of state and law, ideologies and the troubled inheritance of the Japanese empire could no longer be suppressed. In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire takes a transnational lens to this period, concluding that we need to write the violence of empire’s end – and empire itself - back into the global history of East Asia’s Cold War.

scholarly journals Civilian Structures as Military Restrictions

Vulcan ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-63
Author(s):  
Petter J. Wulff
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Critical Component ◽  
Heavy Vehicles ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Community ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

The military community is a secluded part of society and normally has to act on the conditions offered by its civilian surroundings. When heavy vehicles were developed for war, the civilian infrastructure presented a potential restriction to vehicular mobility. In Sweden, bridges were seen as a critical component of this infrastructure. It took two decades and the experiences of a second world war for the country to come to terms with this restriction. This article addresses the question as to why Swedish tanks suddenly became much heavier in the early 1940s. The country’s bridges play a key role in what happened, and the article explains how. It is a story about how a military decision came to be outdated long before it was upgraded.

From Buzuluk to London: The Combat Trail and Everyday Service of Women Auxiliaries in the Polish Army (1941–1945)

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Marcinkiewicz-Kaczmarczyk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Second World

This article explores the establishment of the Polish Women’s Auxiliary Service (was) as part of the complex story of the formation of a Polish army in exile. In 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Polish Army in the Soviet Union was established. The Women’s Auxiliary Service was formed at the same time as a means to enable Polish women to serve their country and also as a way for Polish women to escape the Soviet Union. The women of the was followed the Polish Army combat trail from Buzuluk to London, accompanying their male peers first to the Middle East and then Italy. The women of the was served as nurses, clerks, cooks and drivers. This article examines the recruitment, organization and daily life of the women who served their country as exiles on the battlefront of the Second World War.

scholarly journals CONDITIONS AND DYNAMICS OF THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE OFFICER CORPS OF THE GREAT BRITAIN IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

2021 ◽  
Vol 01 (05) ◽  
pp. 102-110
Author(s):  
R.R. Marchenkov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World ◽  
Transformation Processes

This article covers the internal features of the British officer corps before and during the Second World War. The author touches upon the issues of social composition and ways of recruiting officers. The article describes the dynamics of transformation processes in this category of the military segment in war.

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