The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
THE father of famed TV and stage actor Memory Kumbota was afraid of the Japanese.
Decades after he had last seen and clashed with them in the jungles of Myanmar (Burma) White Kishinga Kumbota was still haunted by a deep sense of fear at the sight of these men from the Far East. Even in the comfort of his living room decades after, sitting in front of his TV set, he could still recall the fear that the Japanese used to strike in his heart.
The Japanese were a fearsome fighting force, he had observed. When the war between the Allied Forces (led by Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union) and the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) reached fever pitch, the Japanese upped the gear.
The Japanese, who still believed in the ancient Samurais’ Bushido doctrine that death was better than defeat or surrender, terrified opponents who wanted to make it back to their villages and families with life and limb intact. It was this force that gave White nightmares years after he had left the killing fields of Burma.
“One of the scariest stories he used to tell was how their positions would be run over by Japanese soldiers. He was so fearful of the Japanese because he operated in Burma. When he saw the Japanese even on TV, he would remark about their bravery. He would tell us that you could shoot and shoot from your trenches but they would keep coming like a swarm of bees and over run you,” said Kumbota of his father.
White passed away in 2003. His death came and went without any pomp. Dirt was piled on his final resting place and the world moved on as if nothing had happened. Like other African soldiers who took part in that Great War between the world’s super powers, White had been buried, left among the thousands of graves at Lady Stanley to be forgotten by history.
Every 6 June world leaders gather on the beaches of Normandy (France) to remember the lives of the over 200 000 Allied forces that died in the campaign that eventually dealt a death blow to the world war.
Few among those dignitaries speak of the 77 767 mostly black troops that took up arms from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana.
Travelling by sea on the Queen Mary, White would suddenly find himself an unlikely tourist as their ship journeyed towards a war that would be the end of many that were on the belly of that ship. Even before they reached their journey’s end in the war torn Far East, they would find, as they journeyed through Zanzibar, Madagascar and then Calcutta, India, that the world was a harsh place.
“It was in India where he said he saw poverty. When they were there, they sold rations to get wrist watches. He was awed by the sight of Mount Kilimanjaro and he spoke about how for days at sea they could still see the mountain,” he said.
The journey to Asia was certainly fascinating for the man who was born in humble Kaoma, Zambia to a family of hunters. Yet, in the war, the African soldiers were in the firing line, pushed to the frontlines to face Japanese fury.
After those long months spent at sea on the way to the Far East few made the journey back home. The war started in 1939 and ended in 1945.
“He used to tell me about a big battle from which many of them never came back as they were sent to the front of the battle. He also used to tell a story about how one twin shot himself after finding the body of his brother. Those were the images that seemed stuck in his memory,” Kumbota said.
Survival in such a brutal war was sometimes a matter of mere luck. For example, one unlucky incident with his own gun had saved White from a brutal battle in which many of his friends died.
“While cleaning a rifle out in the front he had an accidental discharge and shot himself in the foot and that same day many of his friends died in a bloody battle. After recovery the army subsequently taught him driving, which became his job even in civilian life as he became a truck driver,” said Kumbota.
Despite the important role they played, abuse of African soldiers by their European comrades in arms was rife. An Al Jazeera English documentary last year revealed testimonies by African soldiers, who testified that they had been abused and were often subjected to corporal punishment.
“He never spoke much about the privilege that white soldiers enjoyed but from his recollections one could tell that the black guys were sent to the front as fodder. He would talk of dismay that engulfed them as the war raged on and the belief that they would never again see their homelands and families. This went on until, as he said, America helped change the balance of the war,” said Kumbota.
According to the late national hero and former Minister of State in the President’s Office Joseph Culverwell, African troops that took up arms against Nazi Germany had believed that they were doing a service to King George.
“Don’t forget in those days we were very loyal Brits — stupid as that may sound now,” said Culverwell says. “We were brainwashed into being little brown Britishers.”
Despite the well documented mistreatment of Africans, White also came back from the war with a deep sense of loyalty to the British Crown.
“Up to his passing on you could never say anything bad about the British or King George who was the titular Commander In Chief of the Allied forces. He really believed he fought for King George,” said Kumbota.
While White might not have harboured any resentment towards the British, there was no doubt that the African contingent was hard done by the war.
One of his commanders was one Colonel Meikle, who it is believed, was related to the wealthy Meikles family. Through this war time connection, he would eventually find a driving job at C Gaughe and Sons Coal Merchants in Bulawayo, who were also related to the Meikles family. However, other African veterans were not so lucky and a deep sense of injustice lingered about their days of service.
During the war a white private in the army could earn 10 shillings for each month of service; for a black soldier of the same rank, just 3½ shillings. White corporals would get 12 shillings per month of service; for black corporals, just four shillings. Fearing any threat to the racial order, Britain barred its African soldiers from reaching higher ranks during the colonial period.
The most senior position open to them was “warrant officer class 1,” which could earn them a war gratuity of six shillings per month of service, 30 percent of the sum on offer to white officers of that class. Stringent rules governing Britain’s colonial forces also prohibited these more senior African soldiers from disciplining lower-ranking white troops. Even higher-ranking black soldiers were expected to address the lowest white private as “sir.”
“When I got out, they gave me nothing,” Burma Kenyan campaign veteran, Eusebio Mbiuki, told Al Jazeera. Now 100 years old and living in poverty in rural Kenya, he does not believe that their contribution to that war was valued.
“They should have known how much we had helped them. They would have given us something. But that was not the case. We were abandoned just like that.”
In Zimbabwe, there were also no rich pickings for the men who had thwarted (Germany) Hitler’s marauding forces.
“There are some veterans who got small land holdings in Tsholotsho but somehow he did not get that. We don’t know why, whether it was optional or not. A lot is not clear. But one time on a visit to Tsholotsho my eldest sister was shown an area claimed to be land given to war vets. The war vets association from the World War also paid a portion of school fees for children but that programme also seemed to vanish into thin air with time,” said Kumbota.
White came back from the war with the Burma Star, a military campaign medal, and a tongue that could speak anything from Swahili to most Zambian, Malawian and Zimbabwean dialects. The man who married Teresa Mbuyu Kalenga, a woman who gave him a son that was to become one of Zimbabwe’s greatest actors, became an entrepreneur in life. For others, the damage done by the war was severe and permanent.
Stanley Muli, a Kenyan veteran, has such severe post war trauma that he could not stay in his house when it was raining, as he believed that bombs and bullets were once again raining on him.
“He came back unwell. That illness killed him,” said Grace, Stanley’s wife. She said, he would get out of bed and stand outside, unable to bear the thundering sound on their corrugated metal roof.
“It would rain on him over and over again, while his heart beat faster and faster. He had a bad heart, and that’s what killed him.”
For White however, the war was a chance to showcase his storytelling abilities, an ability his son perhaps inherited.
“A friend and colleague Styx Mhlanga used to organise bike township tours for tourists and one popular stop was my father’s shop where he would regale them with his stories. At one time I was in Germany and a friend lived with his father who was also in the war. I was billeted (lodging) at their house but what we agreed on was that we would not discuss anything about our common war heritage as his father and mine had fought on different sides. The German old man was quite traumatised by what had happened during the war. He was like a recluse,” said Kumbota.
