Sierra Leone remaineda British colony throughoutWorld War II. As such, it fought alongside theAllies against theAxis. No largescale battles or military action took place in or around Sierra Leone during the war. However, the colony played a critical role in supporting the Allies throughout the conflict, withFreetown acting as an importantconvoy station.
The British prepared Freetown for war as early as 1938, with comprehensivemilitarization taking place the next year. The United States built military installations and stationed troops in Freetown in 1942 and 1943. At the height of the war, over 200 ships might have been moored in Freetown's harbor, most of them Europe-bound cargo or military vessels. The need for labor at the harbor caused many people in search of employment to flock to the city. In under two years, Freetown's population doubled because of the war. The work was arduous and wages were low, causing Freetown residents working in the harbor to go on strike whenfood prices began to rise. In addition, the influx of white soldiers causedracial tension to run high in the city during the war. Racially motivatedstreet fighting was common. While most of these war era laborers were male, a significant number of Sierra Leonean women also participated.[1][2]
Most Sierra Leoneans who enlisted fought in theBurma campaign as part of theRoyal West African Frontier Force.[3]
The famousSierra Leone Creole journalist and founder of theWest African Youth League,I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson, notable for hisanti-imperialist andMarxist-Leninist views, was arrested when the war began. He was just one of many residents ofBritish West Africa imprisoned by the British for expressing "seditious" views during World War II.[4]
Many British and American troops stationed in Sierra Leone contracted and died frommalaria. While death from malaria was common among soldiers around the world during World War II, Sierra Leone saw the highest number of soldiers lose their life to the disease, leading Allied soldiers to refer to Sierra Leone as the "white man's grave".[5]
The political and economic situation of the post-war world eventually allowed Sierra Leone togain independence from the British Empire in 1961, as part of a much larger trend ofdecolonization around the world.
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