Earlier today fyeahafrica posted an interesting story about African soldiers who fought for Britain in Burma. Now, I was curious about whether these troops were conscripted by Britain or whether they were volunteers. This is a matter of curiosity for me because I know that Southern Rhodesia had a remarkably high percentage of its young white men conscripted for the war effort, while the country’s blacks were not conscripted for the front lines. This happened a few times in Southern Africa. During the Rhodesian Bush War, white, coloured, and asian men were subject to conscription while black men were not. The same was true in the South African Border War. Now, black men fought for Rhodesia and South Africa in both of these conflicts, but they were essentially volunteers. Obviously, this policy created problems in those countries.

Unfortunately, everything I’ve found online avoids specifically mentioning whether these troops were conscripted or served willingly. More unfortunately, when I asked fyeahafrica, he pointed me to some strange new tool called “Google.” Seems far too complicated for me…

So now it looks like I’ll have to actually look for a book on the topic. Stupid research…