In November 1943, four years into World War II, Corporal Sid Wade,
a conscripted and reluctant soldier in the British Army, was
uprooted from a cold English winter and transported to the tropical
coast of West Africa. Sid Wade was the author's father and, nearly
70 years after his two-year stint in Sierra Leone, he discovered
the scrapbooks and diaries he had compiled during his time there.
These were filled and overflowing with letters to and from home,
his army paybook, post cards, snapshots, drawings, paintings,
newspaper clippings, maps, government pamphlets, amateur dramatics
and music concert programmes, poetry written by army buddies and
newsletters written by the soldiers. These scrapbooks and diaries
told more than his father had ever spoken about - they told a story
that had little to do with the big picture of the war, but rather
the smaller picture of day-to-day life for young soldiers suddenly
transplanted into an alien and often frightening environment.
Battling a harsh climate and tropical diseases as they trained
members of the Royal West African Frontier Force, the soldiers
found time to write and produce newsletters, paint and draw
pictures, write poetry, put on music concerts and even organise
amateur dramatics productions, all in a region that was something
of a forgotten front, and known to all as 'The White Man's Grave'.
Thanks to these scrapbooks and the associated ephemera, plus the
author's own research, at least some part of Corporal Wade's
African experiences, and that of his fellow soldiers, has been
uncovered, shedding light on a less well-known aspect of WWII.
General
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