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DuringWorld War II, manySouth Africans saw military service. TheUnion of South Africa participated with otherBritish Empire forces in battles inNorth Africa againstErwin Rommel and hisAfrika Korps, and many South African pilots joined theRoyal Air Force and fought against theAxis powers in theEuropean theatre.
On the eve of World War II, theUnion of South Africa found itself in a unique political and military quandary. While it was closely allied with theUnited Kingdom, being a co-equalDominion under the 1931Statute of Westminster with itshead of state being theBritish king, theSouth African Prime Minister andhead of government on 1 September 1939 wasJ.B.M. Hertzog – the leader of the pro-Afrikaner andanti-BritishNational Party. The National Party had joined in aunity government with the pro-BritishSouth African Party ofJan Smuts in 1934 as theUnited Party.
AfterAdolf Hitler'sforces attacked Poland on 1 September 1939,Britain declared war on Germany two days later. A short but furious debate unfolded in South Africa, especially in theParliament of South Africa. It pitted those who sought to enter the war on Britain's side, led by Smuts, against those who wanted to keep South Africa neutral, led by Hertzog. Prior to the war,Afrikaner nationalist movements styled afterGerman Nazism such as theGrey Shirts, theOssewabrandwag, andOswald Pirow's New Order had been popular in South Africa.[1]
On 4 September 1939, the United Party caucus refused to accept Hertzog's stance ofneutrality in World War II and deposed him in favour of Smuts. Upon becoming Prime Minister, on 6 September Smuts declared South Africa officially at war withGermany and theAxis.[2] Immediately, Smuts set about fortifying South Africa against any possible German sea invasion because of South Africa's global strategic importance controlling thelong sea route around theCape of Good Hope.
Future Prime MinisterJohn Vorster, and other members of the pro-Nazi/anti-British Ossewabrandwag strongly objected to South Africa's participation in the war. In August 1940, the OB offered to launch an uprising against Jan Smuts. The organization said they had 160,000 members 15,000 soldiers, who had not taken the "Africa oath" of willingness to fight against the Axis anywhere on the continent, ready to strike. They proposed that the Germans drop off weapons in Southern Rhodesia or South West Africa. The "West Plan" was far more well-planned.[3]
"At an hour to be determined by the German High Command, Afrikaners would then blow up all rail and road bridges connecting the Transvaal with Natal. The railway personnel, the Police and 26,000 mine workers and employees have been penetrated as the rest of the State services with Ossewabrandwag members and would go on strike. The latter, viz. mine workers and employees, are already today urging for a strike. English newspapers are going to be blown up. Smuts and his followers are going to be asked to kill themselves. Further dispositions are left to the German General Staff, particularly whether and which bridges are to be blown up."[3]
The plan was never carried out since the OB was unable to obtain sufficient weapons. Furthermore, the OB was reluctant to take up arms after Malan distanced the National Party from the organization at the end of 1941. Nevertheless, individual members carried out acts of sabotage against the Union government. The Stormjaers dynamited electrical power lines and railroads and cut telegraph and telephone lines. These types of acts were going too far for most Afrikaners, and Malan ordered the National Party to break with the OB entirely in 1942. Smuts took severe action against the Ossewabrandwag movement and jailed its leaders, including Vorster, for the duration of the war.[3]
Field MarshalJan Smuts was the only important non-British general whose advice was constantly sought by United Kingdom's war-time Prime MinisterWinston Churchill. Smuts was invited to theChamberlain war ministry in 1939 as the most senior South African in favour of war. On 28 May 1941, Smuts was appointed aField Marshal of the British Army, becoming the first South African to hold that rank. Ultimately, Smuts would pay a steep political price for his closeness to theBritish establishment, toKing George VI, and toWinston Churchill which had made Smuts very unpopular amongst the Afrikaners, leading to his eventual downfall, the rise ofD.F Malan and the subsequentApartheid government.
With the declaration of war in September 1939, theSouth African Army numbered only 5,353 regulars,[2] with an additional 14,631 men of the Active Citizen Force (ACF) which gave peace time training to volunteers and in time of war would form the main body of the army. Pre-war plans did not anticipate that the army would fight outside southern Africa and it was trained and equipped only for bush warfare.
One of the problems to continuously face South Africa during the war was the shortage of available men. Due to its race policies it would only consider arming men of European descent which limited the available pool of men aged between 20 and 40 to around 320,000. In addition the declaration of war on Germany had the support of only a narrow majority in the South African parliament and was far from universally popular. Indeed, there was a significant minority actively opposed to the war and under these conditions conscription was never an option. The expansion of the army and its deployment overseas depended entirely on volunteers.
Given the country's attitudes to race at the time, the enlistment of fighting troops from the much larger black population was hardly considered. Instead, in an attempt to free up as many whites as possible for the fighting and technical arms, a number of corps were formed to provide drivers and pioneers, drawn from the more acceptableCape Coloured andIndian populations. These were eventually amalgamated into theCape Corps. ANative Military Corps, manned by blacks, was also formed for pioneer and labouring tasks. For some of their tasks, individuals were armed, mainly for self-protection and guard duties, but they were never allowed to participate in actual combat against Europeans.
TheSouth African Defence Force contributed in many theatres of war. South Africa's contribution consisted mainly of supplying troops, airmen and materiel for theNorth African campaign (the Desert War) and theItalian Campaign as well as to Allied ships that docked at its crucial ports adjoining the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean that converge at the tip of Southern Africa. Numerous volunteers also flew for theRoyal Air Force.
About 334,000 men volunteered for full-time service in the South African Army during the war (including some 211,000 white, 77,000 black and 46,000 coloured and Indian servicemen).
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