Journal of African Cultural Studies
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The Burma Campaign from an African Perspective:
The 1944 World War II Travelogue of Sgt. F. S.
Arkhurst of the Royal West African Frontier Forces
Kwame Osei-Poku
To cite this article: Kwame Osei-Poku (2022) The Burma Campaign from an African Perspective:
The 1944 World War II Travelogue of Sgt. F. S. Arkhurst of the Royal West African Frontier Forces,
Journal of African Cultural Studies, 34:1, 18-31, DOI: 10.1080/13696815.2021.2002683
To link to this article:  https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2021.2002683
Published online: 16 Dec 2021.
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JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES
2022, VOL. 34, NO. 1, 18–31
https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2021.2002683
The Burma Campaign from an African Perspective: The 1944
World War II Travelogue of Sgt. F. S. Arkhurst of the Royal
West African Frontier Forces
Kwame Osei-Poku
Department of English, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article analyses issues regarding identity and ideology in an Burma Campaign; African
African authored travelogue, “Jeep Road to Victory: African resilience; soldier journeys;
Engineers Carve a Way into Burma”, by Sgt. F. S. Arkhurst, which World War II; Royal West
was published in The West African Review magazine in 1945. Sgt. African Frontier Forces
Arkhurst was an officer in the Gold Coast Regiment of the Royal
West African Frontier Forces in World War II. The focal points of
this travelogue are the representations of the efforts of African
soldiers in navigating the treacherous terrains of the South East
Asia World War II battle grounds ranging from India/Bangladesh
to the Kaladan Valley of Burma during the 1944 Burma
Campaign. The article asks how African authored travel writing
might bring new perspectives on how African soldiers
contributed to the success of the war fighting on the side of
allied forces.
Introduction
Narratives of war, including soldiers’ narratives, victim accounts and journalistic reports of
war and conflict, which detail the movement of troops, journalists and victims/refugees,
can all be classified as examples of travel writing genre or as forms of life writing. This
article uses close reading approaches to analyse issues related to literary representations,
identity, and ideology within an interdisciplinary context. The focus is an African authored
travelogue, “Jeep Road to Victory: African Engineers Carve a Way into Burma”, by Sgt. Fre-
derick Siegfried Arkhurst (F. S. Arkhurst), which was published in The West African Review
(TWAR) magazine in 1945. Although his name may suggest someone of European
descent, Arkhurst was born in the Ghanaian Gold Coast, and as the practice often was
with colonised peoples and cultures, he or his parents may have adopted European
names in order to benefit from colonised scheme of social mobility and progression.
Arkhurst’s travel account is a wartime narrative that recounts the great effort and
sacrifices made by African/West African draftees in the construction of jeep roads
within the thick jungles of Burma (Myanmar) while serving with the Royal West African
Frontier Forces. As is the case with most travel/life writing or narratives, the text consists
of a description of the lived experiences and observations of the author in a particular
CONTACT Kwame Osei-Poku kosei-poku@ug.edu.gh, nanakwame.op@gmail.com
© 2021 International African Institute
JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES 19
period. Therefore, the period under scrutiny in this article is the final days of the Second
World War, where he took part on the South East Asia jungle battle front.
It is a commonplace perception that the real significance of the efforts and experiences
of African/West African soldiers in World War II has been undervalued. John H. Morrow
(2010) emphasises this perception when he argues that the narratives of African con-
scripts who were key to the victory of the Allied Forces in North Africa, some parts of
Europe, and in South East Asia during the Second World War have virtually been forgot-
ten. He then points out that “these soldiers shed their blood for the right to equal treat-
ment under their respective colonial regimes, and later for the independence of their
respective African nations from the colonial yoke” (2010, 12).
There have been numerous recent attempts to focus on the experiences of African sol-
diers of World War II. In 1999, in collaboration with the African Studies Program of the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin Press, David Killingray edited a
manuscript that was published as the memoirs of Isaac Fadoyebo. In the book, A Stroke
of Unbelievable Luck (1999), Fadoyebo, an ex-serviceman from Nigeria, recalls his personal
experiences and observations of the Burma campaign 54 years after the war. Subsequent
to this, in an Al Jazeera Correspondent documentary dated 31 August, 2011, Killingray
highlights how African soldiers were recruited as part of the British military. The Guardian1
in 2015 also posted a feature documentary on their website, titled “World War II’s Forgot-
ten Army: West Africa’s Soldiers in Burma”, in which the focus was on Nigerian veterans of
World War II who recalled their experiences and at the same time voiced their disappoint-
ment about the lack of recognition which they have had to endure, seventy years since
the end of the war.
Another example of an attempt to bring to light the sacrifices and experiences of
African soldiers in World War II is the “Real Stories” documentary by Griff Rhys Jones in
2016 and titled “Destination Burma”. In this documentary, Jones follows the diary
entries and British Military archives of his father’s enlistment as an officer of the
Gold Coast regiment of the 82nd West Africa Division and subsequent tour of duty
of Burma. Jones’s documentary also encounters the silence that circumscribes the
war efforts of the African soldiers, and his interviews underline some of the individual
exertions made by African soldier veterans. Based on these same published memoirs
of Isaac Fadoyebo, Oliver Coates (2016) argues that Fadoyebo’s memoir should not
only be read as a historical source material documenting World War II, but must
also be analysed as life writing with a detailed foregrounding of stylistic elements
as well as having a discursive focus. And finally, Saheed Aderinto (2014) uses a
passage from Fadoyebo’s memoirs to refocus the historical gaze on the experiences
of Africans during both World War I and II, especially those from the then British
colony of Nigeria.
While most of the above-cited works acknowledge and detail the contribution of
African servicemen in World War II, it is interesting to note that their main source
has been the seminal work of Isaac Fadoyebo. While Fadoyebo’s text continues to
be invaluable, the field could certainly benefit from drawing on other primary
accounts. Consequently, what this article seeks to do is to bring to the fore an
extant travel narrative written by Sgt. F. S. Arkhurst an African officer of the Gold
Coast regiment in the 82nd West Africa Division. This travelogue was published in
the June edition of TWAR2 magazine in 1945. Published, as mentioned above, under
20 K. OSEI-POKU
the title “Jeep Road to Victory: African Engineers Carve a Way into Burma”, this travel
narrative was published during the course of the war itself. Since then, it has remained
largely unnoticed, an archive waiting to be made known to the world as one of the few
existing contemporary non-fiction narratives of the South East Asia theatre of World
War II. This article seeks to amplify the existing perspectives about African soldiers
in World War II, especially concerning the soldiers’ contributions to the success of
the Allied Forces. In so doing, it also aims to expand the scope of thematic issues
related to identity and ideological construction with regards to the details of adven-
tures in such war time narratives.
Sgt. F. S. Arkhurst was a sergeant in the Gold Coast Regiment of the Royal West African
Frontier Forces in World War II. The focal points of his war time narrative are the represen-
tations of the efforts put in by African soldiers in navigating the treacherous terrains of the
South East Asian World War II battle locations while the troop was moving from India/Ban-
gladesh to the Kaladan Valley of Burma during the 1944 Burma Campaign. The mobility of
African Soldiers during World War II occurred across diverse borders of space and time.
These writings, I argue, are best understood as life writing, memoirs, or travel writing
rather than simply as records of the war.
It is interesting to note that this Sgt. F. S. Arkhurst is the same F. S. Arkhurst who
was the First Secretary of Ghana’s Foreign Mission to the United Nations3 during the
Kwame Nkrumah regime: from 1962 to 1965 as Principal Secretary, and 1965–1967
as Permanent Representative with the rank of Ambassador. As Principal Secretary, he
had a pivotal role in arranging negotiations between Kwame Nkrumah, then President
of Ghana, and Premier Zhou Enlai of China.4 Although there exists no documentary evi-
dence, an informant and a family relation5 of F. S. Arkhurst recounted in an informal
interview with me that the man and colonial military sergeant Arkhurst inevitably
got drawn to the nationalist agitations which had reached a crescendo during 1948
and 1950. In his book, Dark Days in Ghana (1968), Kwame Nkrumah writes how after
his overthrow as president, F. S. Arkhurst (alias Fred Arkhurst) returned to his post at
the United Nations. While there, he swapped the speech of the incumbent president,
Major General E. K. Kotoka (the National Liberation Council6 leader), with a speech
meant to be read by Kwame Nkrumah during that particular session of the UN
General Assembly, were he still in power. General E. K. Kotoka had taken over as the
incumbent president of Ghana after the February 24, 1966 coup d’état. This swap
caused Kotoka a huge embarrassment, as fully intended, before the General Assembly
of the United Nations. Arkhurst would eventually be removed from his post. As
described by my informant, Arkhurst was known to be a prolific writer, and thus
after his military service, he took up a job as editor for newspapers which were in soli-
darity with Nkrumah’s push for independence, such as the Accra Evening News.
Arkhurst is also credited as the editor of the book Arms and African Development
(1972), a collection of papers and discussions dealing with the reasons for, and the
wide-ranging consequences of, the fact that African arms expenditures more than
trebled in the 1960s. The book also deals with topics such as the desirability of disar-
mament, both worldwide and within Africa, as well as the implications for development
of various alternative policies. Another book which he edited was U.S. Policy Toward
Africa (1975) and he is also credited as the author of African Diplomacy: The UN Experi-
ence (2006).
JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES 21
Foregrounding African-Authored Travel Writing and Narratives
In this section I ask whether a soldier’s war narrative can be read as part of the genre of
travel writing, or be consigned to the category of war memoirs. Most often than not, nar-
rative accounts that are written about an individual’s or group’s encounter with another
place can be read as travel writing. These writings or narratives, which are sometimes
referred to as travelogues, recount in detail the writer’s experiences and perceptions of
that place or location, and her or his appreciation of the culture of that location. Travel
writing, thus, enables the reader to experience a specific culture, place, or people
through the gaze of the writer. Travelogues can essentially offer new information on
two levels. Primarily, they provide insights into past events and experiences that are
not available from any other source: comprehensive representations of traditional
customs, historical events (both in present musings and in retrospection), cultural procliv-
ities, and so on. Additionally, travelogues include not only what the travellers see, but also
how the writers perceive their own culture, their previous knowledge, and preconcep-
tions in constant conversation with the experiences and observations of the places
visited, or while on the course of their journey. Moreover, travel writing is noticeably a
multifaceted genre which combines autobiography and reportage, offering significant
insights not merely into the places visited, but also into the perspectives of the writers
themselves and, by extension, into their cultural situations, as can be seen in
F. S. Arkhurst’s account of the Burma campaign. This article, as a result, aims to take advan-
tage of the idea that analyses of mobility narratives or travel writing can be a source of
asserting national identities, identifying subtle ideologies, as well as bringing to light a
myriad of information through interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to the
discussions.
Determining whether the war time account by F. S. Arkhurst constitutes travel writing
is dependent on the following definitions or descriptions of what travel writing is. The
approach as to what should count as a travelogue or travel writing is given its impetus
by the definitions of Borm (2004) and Youngs (2013). In the first place, Borm asserts
that a travel account refers to
any narrative characterized by a non-fiction dominant that relates… in the first person a
journey or journeys that the reader supposes to have taken place in reality while assuming
or presupposing that author, narrator and principal character are but one or identical.
(2004, 13)
Travel writing in this sense includes all forms of non-fictional narratives, among them pub-
lished letters, newspaper articles, as well as books. Besides, citing Kowaleski (1992), Tim
Youngs writes in The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing that travel writing is “daunt-
ingly heterogeneous in character”, and that it “borrows freely from the memoir, journal-
ism, guidebooks, confessional narrative, and most importantly, fiction” (2013, 1). Youngs
(2013) thus extrapolates an explanation of travel writing as writing which
consists of predominantly factual, first-person prose accounts of travel that have been
undertaken by the author-narrator. It includes discussion of works that some may regard
as genres in their own right, such as ethnographies, maritime narratives, memoirs, road
and aviation literature, travel journalism and war reporting, but it distinguishes these
from other types of narrative in which travel is narrated by a third party or is imagined.
(2013, 3)
22 K. OSEI-POKU
Carl Thompson (2011, 11–12) re-emphasises the fact that the diverse feature of travel
writing is not only noticed in the form, but also in the wide ranging tonal and thematic
structures. Thus, citing Holland and Huggan (1998), Thompson indicates that although
the form of travel writing can “embrace everything from the picaresque, philosophical,
political, ecological, and spiritual quest”, it (travel writing) “simultaneously borrows
freely from history, geography, anthropology, and social science”. Thus, making travel
writing a hybrid genre that straddles categories and disciplines. Accordingly, the travel-
ogue also offers other insights which straddle postcolonial studies, geography, and
perhaps military strategy. As a result, it may give an alternative perspective to mainstream
information about World War II.
Although African-authored travel writing conforms to the above-mentioned
definitions, there are nonetheless, some alternative approaches to navigating the travel
writing produced by Africans. Aedin Ni Loingsigh (2016), for example, emphasises that
there is some amount of fictionalisation in the travel accounts which she discusses.
Coates (2016) suggests that the wartime memoir of Fadoyebo mentioned earlier is told
with some amount of fictional enhancements. Nevertheless Coates asserts that the
fictional enhancements deployed by Fadoyebo do not detract from the facts of his
memoirs. Undeniably, there have been several studies that assert such striking difference
between European-authored travel writing and African-authored travel writing. In all of
such works, Mary Louise Pratt (1992) laid the foundation of distinguishing the empire-
building intrigues and resource mapping inclinations of European authored exploration
and travel. While Pratt’s work analyses how the imperial gaze functions, it also implicitly
raises questions about how the non-imperial/subject gaze may be analysed within the
context of travel writing. In recent times and subsequent to Pratt’s work, there have
been significant findings related to African-authored travel writing, within and outside
of the African continent.
Larbi Korang (2003) outlines an indigenous intellectual movement and nationalist self-
assertion among West African thinkers, as he analyses two extant travel accounts written
by two inhabitants of the Gold Coast (currently Ghana) during the colonial period.
Although Korang discusses the issues of ideology and identity, the work does not focus
on African authored travel accounts alone, but rather relies on the two travel accounts
as part of a larger source of nationalist writings by Africans, and by so doing shows the
importance of using extant but archived African-authored travelogues in postcolonial dis-
courses. Similarly, Jones (2014, 2019) follows up on her dissertation on pre-independence
Nigerian travel writing with a publication which focused on a century of Nigerian dom-
estic travel writing in both Yorùbá and English, from 1914 to 2014. The work reflects
on a wide range of local Yorùbá and Nigerian English literary forms, including newspaper
travelogues, town histories, novels, autobiography and internet-based memoirs. Jones
studies the ways Nigerians have represented the heterogeneity of Nigeria to themselves
and to the world. She particularly discusses the relationship between travel and local cos-
mopolitanisms, narrative, knowledge, texts, genre, translation, migration and the growth
of a local Yorùbá-English print culture.
Additionally, Loingsigh (2016) sheds light on three serialised travel accounts of
Damouré Zika who describes his journey with a film mission led by the acclaimed
French ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rauch during the colonial period in three West
African countries: Niger, Togo, and the Gold Coast. Zika’s travel accounts, as described
JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES 23
by Loingsigh, are written in “unselfconsciously non-standard French”. These travel
accounts were published in the Paris based literary magazine La Nouvelle Revue, as “La
Journal de Route” (Travel Journal, 1956). Loingsigh decries the situation whereby
African authored travel texts are not given the sort of attention given to European
authored ones, when she realised that Zika’s travel accounts had received no attention
from French literary scholars. Within the same framework, in an earlier publication
(2018) I analysed the travelogue of a returnee soldier, Moses Danquah,7 who writes
about the growing Port City of Takoradi in the 1940s on his arrival from the Burma front-
line of the Second World War (Osei-Poku 2018). The peculiar thing about Danquah’s tra-
velogue is the fact that he was writing about a location with which he was already familiar
and in his account he notes the massive transformation of the city after his tour of duty to
the South East Asian front.
These existing studies of African-authored travel writing focused on the colonial or pre-
independence period have sought to understand the ways in which Africans represent
issues related to identity and the formation of ideological categories in their writing
during the colonial period. This article’s discussion of F. S. Arkhurst’s travelogue and his
experiences and observations about moving through the treacherous landscapes of the
Burmese jungle with other African/West African military compatriots will enrich our
understanding of the anticolonial and postcolonial struggles of African people during
the period under discussion.
An African Soldier’s Experience of the Burma Campaign 1944
In the British colonies of West Africa, during World War II, the formation of the 81st and
the 82nd West Africa Divisions of Black Africans by the British colonial government (see
Luto and Grehan for a fuller discussion) was an answer to the logistical constraints the
British military had to countenance in the largely tropical terrains of India and Burma,
and South East Asia in general. Killingray and Plaut (2010) argue that many of the
African soldiers were conscripted based on their abilities to carry loads on their heads
and walk for many distances. In my earlier work I also comment on the motivations for
these African soldiers to enlist, namely that “these soldiers were young men in their
prime who were conscripted to fight for the British Empire with promises of substantial
monetary benefits” (Osei-Poku 2018, 27).
These soldiers were recruited or conscripted based on the perception that Africans,
especially West Africans, could endure the weather and topographical conditions of
India and Burma. Apart from these considerations and the several efforts being made
to underscore the contributions of African soldiers in World War II through video and
audio interviews, there are hardly any written accounts of African soldiers recollecting
their experiences of the war, either in memoirs, travelogues or personal diaries. The
reason for the scarcity or near non-existence of written narratives of African soldiers of
World War II was due to the fact that most of the African conscripts were not literate in
the English language, and by extension, could not write down their experiences of the
war. They could mostly recount their experiences from memory in oral forms: an obser-
vation which was quite striking in Griff Rhys Jones’ and the Guardian documentaries.
The same observation was made by Killingray in his Al Jazeera interview. Thus the
travel account of Sgt. F. S. Arkhurst of the Gold Coast Regiment is one of the very few
24 K. OSEI-POKU
published accounts of World War II authored by an African, although more may be in
existence in archived newspapers, magazines, or misplaced private diaries or memoirs.
The history of the Burma Campaign was documented by Her Majesty’s Stationery
Office8 and in it we see described the various battles in the Burma Campaign during
1944 as the most intense in the South-East Asian theatre of the Second World War.
These battles were located along the borders of Burma and India, as well as the
borders of Burma and China. The military operations involved the British Commonwealth
(including various African regiments, and recruits from British India), the Chinese and the
United States forces, who fought against the combined forces of Imperial Japan and the
Indian National Army.
The push against the Japanese had begun in 1943 with the 81st West African Infantry
Division and the Gurkha Contingents, which had already made gains into Burma by upset-
ting Japanese positions along the Kaladan River. Sgt. Arkhurst was with the 82nd West
African Division, which was to take over from the 81st Division in what was called the
Third Arakan campaign (Luto and Grehan 2013). Arkhurst begins his travelogue on the
27th of December, although he does not include the specific year date. He writes: “We
started on the cold, crisp morning of December 27. We were moving to our operational
area and everyone was keyed up” (Arkhurst 1945: 31). Information about troop movement
from India to Burma, as provided in the travelogue, places the year date as 1944. William
Slim (1956) describes that the Allied forces had to wait until the end of the monsoon
season in 1944 to launch a massive offensive against the Japanese army which was threa-
tening to invade India after occupying Burma in 1942. The monsoon season normally
starts in July and ends in September, although sometimes there are slight rains which
continue into December. Thus, it was expedient to move troops from the training
camps to the operational areas in December, since the jungle would likely be drier
during this season.
In addition, it is significant to note that in the title of this travelogue are two key
phrases: “Jeep Road” and “African Engineers”. The reference to the “Jeep Road” is indica-
tive of the sacrifices and devotion exhibited by the West African troops in the gains made
in the Burma Campaign by the allied troops. The African soldiers realised that without
their ingenuity in adapting to the treacherous terrain by constructing the “Jeep Road”,
they may not survive to tell their stories. Nevertheless, the “Jeep Road” also represented
danger, just like the myriad narratives using the journey motif, which signifies “the road”
as any hazardous hurdle or risky task to accomplish.
The descriptive phrase “African engineer” presents a quandary in Arkhurst’s travelogue.
Is the author exaggerating the role of the African soldiers, or were there in fact highly
trained engineers among the West African troops or were these just tradesmen or crafts-
men who were themselves conscripted into the Royal West African Frontier Forces? Kill-
ingray and Plaut (2010) and Bonny Ibhawoh (2007) suggest otherwise, writing that many
of the African recruits were non-literates. Ibhawoh (2007), for instance, posits that many
West Africans, especially the non-literate, were susceptible to the imperial war propa-
ganda of the British empire. Therefore, these non-literate soldiers may have had indigen-
ous training in road engineering, which thus enabled them to achieve such a feat in the
perspective of Sgt. Arkhurst. On the other hand, Morrow (2010) mentions that even
though most of the African soldiers were illiterates, they proved to be highly proficient
soldiers in the difficult conditions of the Burma terrain. Citing stories of how some
JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES 25
African soldiers could not understand the basic mechanisms of arms and ammunition
with which they were supplied, but ended up using so effectively on the battlefield to
the admiration of some of the British officers, Morrow (2010) essentially suggests that
although they may have had a deficit in Eurocentric forms of education, the non-
literate African conscripts or recruits were far more adept in the commonsensical
approaches in adapting to whatever situation they had to contend with.
Sgt. Arkhurst’s “Jeep Road to Victory” accordingly foregrounds three major thematic
issues which largely reflect on the major role which was played by African soldiers in
the Second World War (especially the Burma Campaign). These thematic categories are:
the innovation and resilience of the African soldiers, military strategy adapting to the
hazardous terrain of the Burmese jungle and topography, and finally, the need to recog-
nise the immense contribution of African soldiers to the allied victory in the Second World
War.
To begin with, the first theme that focuses on the resilience of the African soldiers can
be seen in the way Sgt. Arkhurst expresses admiration about the sort of work the African
“engineers” were doing. He begins to describe the daunting nature of their movement to
their operational area:
We had already been given the hint that it was going to be a tough march; how tough we did
not realize, until we came across the first of the hills that seemed to have been planted with
annoying regularity right across our path. (Arkhurst 1945: 31)
These soldiers were supposed to trudge over these hills and at the same time carve a jeep
road through the hills to reach their operational area as well as enable an efficient supply
line. Arkhurst continues his narrative, describing the following:
After an hour’s march, during which we were held up by numerous convoys, we struck, for
the first time, the now famous ‘jeep road’ which the West African Engineers had begun to
carve through jungle and over mountains to get at the Japanese. The track was not distinct
at first, but as the day wore on, we saw the magnificent work the Engineers had done. (Ibid.)
The imagery of carving a road through the jungle and mountains only reinforces the resi-
lience and dynamism of these African soldiers or engineers. It is important to note that the
engineers to whom Sgt. Arkhurst is referring in the early part of his travelogue are not part
of his battalion, but possibly a different African or West African battalion, which was
specifically detailed to carve out the jeep road in the jungle and over the mountains
from one point to another. Nevertheless, the thematic category of the resilience of the
African soldier could apply to both the road carving engineers, as well as to Arkhurst’s
own battalion, which was moving towards the Kaladan valley to face off with the Japa-
nese in their positions and just like the engineers they observed on their way, his battalion
was also going to continue the jeep road. With the untamed terrain posing difficult
hurdles for these African soldiers to surmount, these are still overcome, even to their
own astonishment. The difficult terrain as described by Ashwani Gupta (2015) was very
inhospitable. One realises from Sgt. Arkhurst’s travelogue that indeed the terrain was
quite challenging. Being able to prevail over this perilous terrain goes a long way in
proving the mettle and resilience of the African regiments who were entrenched in the
high land formations of the Indian and Burmese jungle. Sgt. Arkhurst recalls incidents
where the troops had to cross long stretches of rivers apart from climbing steep inclines
26 K. OSEI-POKU
of the jungle. He describes how the jeep road engineers were able to sustain the building
of a jeep track on the river bed:
The next day we were on the march, our first big river, not hills, was the problem. We crossed
and recrossed it all day long with suchmonotony that we wondered whether we were amphi-
bious. All the way the track still persevered, and where the river was too deep, the bed had
been with stones. (Arkhurst 1945: 31)
And even after crossing the river, they had more hazardous terrain and bad weather to
contend with, as the author continues:
On the night before we broke camp [after crossing the river] there was heavy rainfall and the
day we moved out in a drenching rain. The track had been washed slippery now and the
going was very difficult. Sliding and stumbling down the hills, it was comical to watch
people falling down all over the place. On the way we saw many African troops hacking
away at the track, perched on the hillsides, in all sorts of grotesque positions, digging
away in the downpour. Above the monotonous patter of the rain could be heard, occasion-
ally, the rumble of distant explosions as the road builders blasted away rocks and trees which
lay in their path. (Ibid.)
The above extract from the travelogue represents the struggles of the African regiments
in the Burmese jungle – a description of an experience only equalled by the oral accounts
of these experiences told by some of these African soldiers (now largely octogenarian
veterans) in the Guardian’s 2015 documentary on the forgotten African soldiers in the
Burma Campaign.
One final example of how resilient the African soldiers were in the face of all the
weather and terrain hurdles of the jungle as depicted in “Jeep Road to Victory” can be
surmised from the following extract from Arkhurst’s travelogue, as he writes,
Thus far the country had been very difficult but we were getting used to it. No longer was
there the endless moan about sore feet and aching limbs. On the thirteenth day after we
had started, we came to the end of the track our engineers had carved in so short a time,
and we had to continue over mountain tracks. We had come to one of the toughest stretches
of the route. We climbed upwards until we were almost with weariness. Then just when we
thought we had topped the mountain, another one loomed up. It was heartbreaking.
(Arkhurst 1945: 31)
Yet, through all these encumbrances, these African soldiers, who had had less than a year
of jungle warfare training, were able to endure to the very end of their assignment. Of
course, there were fatalities as Arkhurst confirms in his narrative that “at Nino [there]
was a monument to the memory of the men who had died while working on the ‘jeep
track’” (Ibid.).
The second thematic category observed in Arkhurst’s travelogue is an acknowledge-
ment of the effective military strategy, which was adapted to the hazardous terrain of
the Burmese jungle and topography, and as a result enabled the African soldiers who
were fighting the Japanese and carving out the jeep road efficiently in the Jungle.
Gupta argues that the “Evolution of Land–Air Cooperation was one of the important
lessons of the campaign in jointmanship” (2015, 109). Thus, being able to supply
ground troops with their ammunitions, food, and other necessities by targeted air
drops empowered the allied forces to achieve their victory in Burma. The use of air to
land supplies (air drops) became an effective way to get supplies and food to the
JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES 27
African troops who were ensconced in the jungle carving out the jeep road and fighting
pockets of Japanese patrols. Sgt. Arkhurst’s experience as documented in his travelogue
gives us a first-hand account of the kind of “jointmanship” that enabled the allied (African)
soldiers in the jungle to push on towards their goal. He narrates that experience as
follows:
Hour after hour, the blasting went on, the digging continued; until five days afterwards the
battalion completed its portion of the track with time to spare. Far below, however, the track
had come to an end, supplies could not reach us. On the morning of January 10 information
was received that there was going to be an air drop. With the petering out of the track this
remained the only means of supplying us—by air. At one o’clock that day the first aircraft was
sighted, and a few minutes later a parachute sailed to the ground. The whole drop took
45 minutes, during which time about 12 tons of food and other supplies were dropped. It
was thrilling to watch the parachute open and swing earthwards. (Arkhurst 1945: 31–32)
Arkhurst’s narration of this eventful air drop shows how crucial this intervention was to
the fighting men and road carving men in the jungle. Subsequently, the air drops
became a constant feature of getting supplies to the African troops until they got to
the Kaladan river and valley in Burma. Arkhurst continues his account:
It was terribly cold along the valley of the Kaladan when we moved out on January 23. Going
along the bank was easy, and at one point it took us six hours to go over a ledge of rock. We
reached our rendezvous in the afternoon. As we were entering our camp there was another
air drop in progress. It felt good to watch the bombers circling the “dropping area” while the
fighter escort roared overhead. It gave us a feeling of confidence of which the Jap can never
boast, and they must be crestfallen every time our bombers come over for an air drop. This air
drop continued all afternoon; battle dress, boots and oil being dropped together with our
normal supplies. (Ibid.: 32)
The account in the extract above is best understood through reference to the work of Bob
Bergin (2017), who in a discussion on long-range aerial penetration also alludes to the fact
that the use of long-range aerial drop of supplies and ammunition went a long way to aid
in the success of the Burma Campaign on the side of the allied troops. He indicates that
this unlikely joint operation “not only worked, but resulted in a new concept of warfare
and established combat techniques that today are used by both regular and unconven-
tional forces” (2017, 15).
Referring to Bergin’s observation, one might conclude that Sgt. Arkhurst may not be
exaggerating at all about the overall impact of the air drops on the war in the jungle
and on the morale of the African soldiers who were in the thick of the effort. Therefore
it is clear from the afore-mentioned discussion that the determination to overcome
and adapt to the hazardous terrain which confronted the allied troops, mainly the
African regiments, led to the innovative military strategy of supplying troops with food
and other supplies via airdrops. Such supplies gave relief to the African regiment who
were engaged in the strenuous work of carving out the jeep road in the jungle and
high land formations. However, it must be noted that it was the African infantrymen or
jeep road carvers, who were basically carriers and head porters, who in the words of
Morrow “were designated… to clear the drop zones, collect supplies dropped from the
air, and clear air strips for the evacuation of wounded soldiers” (2010, 19), despite the
fact that these African soldiers were also trained to carry weapons and fight the Japanese
in the jungle just like their European counterparts.
28 K. OSEI-POKU
Although not stridently voiced in the travelogue “Jeep Road to Victory”, Arkhurst’s
account draws attention to the need to recognise the immense contribution of African
soldiers to the allied victory in World War II (especially the Burma Campaign). In the
absence of such first-hand narratives authored and published by African soldiers, as exem-
plified by Sgt. Arkhurst’s travelogue, Morrow claims that the “voices of the West and East
African soldiers are not available, but British authors who served as junior officers with
them during the campaign have rescued their soldiers from obscurity within the past
decade” (2010, 20). This is no longer as true as it was when Morrow wrote it since in
recent times, especially since 2015, the world has begun to hear voices of African veterans
of World War II who fought in the Burma Campaign through the interviews and long-play
documentaries discussed in this article. Thus, Arkhurst’s travelogue augments the acti-
vism behind the recognition of African soldiers’ contribution to the Burma Campaign
and to the Second World War in general.
Getting to the end of his narration in his travelogue, Sgt. Arkhurst seems to be com-
menting on these very issues when he contemplates what seems a near prognostic
tone as to whether their efforts at carving the jeep road and their general contribution
in defeating the Japanese would be recognised. He writes:
We have now finished building roads: we have now got to the enemy in his lair, and we
aim to beat him there, although it is not going to be as easy as saying it. The opportunity
to would have been impossible without first building the “jeep road”, and I cannot convey
quite adequately the magnificent work that has been done. By merely looking at the map it
is difficult to realise how much labour and sweat were involved. One has got to be here to
appreciate what an excellent achievement it is. I can assure you that it was difficult; it had
previously been considered impossible. But we have done it, and we are proud. (Arkhurst
1945: 32)
Looking at the extract, one may well wonder how Arkhurst would be so predictive of the
situation that has sparked so much activism in recent times about African soldiers and
their role in the Burma Campaign. Thus, in line with this thought, Morrow indicates
that the African contingents, especially the West African regiments, were hardly recog-
nised for their efforts at the time. This may have been the same phenomenon which
Sgt. Arkhurst may have observed – an observation which may have necessitated his pro-
phetic statement at the end of his travelogue. Morrow emphasises the disregard for
African (West African) soldiers in the following statement, writing:
The West Africans received very little notice from the 14th Army. The public relations officer
(PRO) of the West African Expeditionary Force observed cynically that they “went in anon-
ymously marched out anonymously and it seems they have left anonymous dead behind
them… They have remained anonymous… in all the written records of the Far East War”.
The PRO went on to write, “This campaign was the only one which no war correspondent
covered” (2010, 22).
Even though not being recognised and possibly discarded outside the archives, one can
realise through the account of Sgt. Arkhurst that the African soldiers were highly dedi-
cated to their assignments and as a result of the unwavering perseverance which they
put into their work, they felt some pride in their own achievements. Not being recognised
enabled them to consolidate their identity as African (and particularly West African) sol-
diers and perhaps knowing the precarious nature of the situation in which they found
JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES 29
themselves, they had no option other than to give their very best, so that many of them
would survive and live to eventually tell their individual stories.
Conclusion
In summing up, one might conclude that, based on Sgt. Arkhurst’s account and experi-
ence, a new perspective for analysis is being generated with regards to the involvement
of African soldiers in the Burma Campaign and many other histories which focus on the
Second World War. On the thematic level, African soldiers and their capacity to withstand
the perilous nature of the topography as well as their ability to adapt and carve out the
“Jeep road”, as documented by Sgt. Arkhurst, bring to bear one of the main reasons for
the recruitment of Africans for the war efforts of colonial powers such as France and
Britain. On the other hand, without the accomplishments of the ground troops, which
comprised of mainly African regiments, the air drop combat strategy that was initiated
to counter the Japanese forces in the jungle would not have functioned appropriately.
Significantly, although Arkhurst’s travelogue narrates the adventures and experiences
of the African troops and jeep road carvers, it also highlights how necessary it is to
give recognition to the strenuous exertions of these Africans which contributed to the
overall success of the Burma Campaign.
Overall, Sgt. F. S. Arkhurst’s “Jeep Road to Victory” should also become one of the
source narratives for the Burma Campaign and the Second World War in South East
Asia – a narrative that seeks to expel the long-standing perception that there are no docu-
mented experiences about the Second World War from African perspectives. As the analy-
sis has shown, “Jeep Road to Victory” offers a unique perspective into Sgt. Arkhurst’s
personal journey and readers will become travellers alike, reading and living the “Jeep
Road” through the several paragraphs and words recounted by the author. This war
time travelogue ultimately re-emphasises the dimensions of life writing which catalogues
the memories and experiences of one’s own or another’s, while this article emphasises the
significance of interdisciplinary research into travel writing genres.
Notes
1. The Guardian (2015).
2. TWAR magazine was circulated throughout West Africa (French, British, Portuguese terri-
tories) and even in the Belgian Congo. Although it was not owned and published by Africans,
it became a mouthpiece for moderated and non-politically charged writings by African intel-
lectuals. The magazine was also the centre-piece for official information about the British
crown colonies and its industrial holdings. The magazine was first published in 1922 as The
Elder Dempster Magazine, later as Elder’s Review, and was finally named The West African
Review magazine. See Osei-Poku 2018 and Jones-Quartey 1965, Michaelmas, pp. 52–56.
3. United Nations Economic and Social Council 25th Session Official Records. https://
documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/NL3/041/24/PDF/NL304124.pdf?OpenElement.
https://www.unmultimedia.org/s/photo/detail/884/0088456.html.
4. See: “Record of Premier Zhou Enlai’s Conversations with the President of Ghana Kwame
Nkrumah,” March 8, 1964, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, PRC FMA 203-
00623-02, 1–40. Translated by Stephen Mercado. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/
document/165410.
5. My informant on ascertaining F. S. Arkhurst’s credentials was Mr Kwesi Amoak: biographer
and writer of Unfinished Journey: The Life and Times of VCRAC Crabbe: A Legal Luminary (2016).
30 K. OSEI-POKU
6. On 24 February 1966 a group of military officers and state security officials under the leader-
ship of Generals Ankrah, Afrifa and Kotoka organised a coup (Operation Cold Chop) to over-
throw the then incumbent president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, who had travelled to Peking
on a United Nation’s mandate (Biney 2009).
7. Moses Danquah’s travelogue was also published in the October 1947 edition of TWAR
magazine.
8. https://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/ww2/HMSO_chapter08.pdf.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Kwame Osei-Poku http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3275-0055
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