“Almost Entirely a Medical War”: the South African Medical Corps in East Africa, 1940–1941

The first major theatre of operations during the Second World War in which South African forces fought was East Africa. Key to the South African role in the campaign was the formation of the 1st sa Infantry Division in 1940. A range of medical units were under command. Using a ‘bottom-up’ view, this article – using a range of personal accounts, which complement richly veined material at the Department of Defence Archives in Pretoria – examines the service they rendered against the backdrop of the policy framework and theatre challenges. It reveals the connection medical personnel experienced between the motives that animated other South African men and women to volunteer for wartime service – travel, adventure, patriotism – and their professional ambitions regarding the growth of medical science in the fluid and varied conditions of a modern war. Sometimes the learning curve was steep; progress depended on good leadership and innovation of practice under often-extreme circumstances. But, as this article contends, they adapted to local conditions, trained on the job, and gained experience and battle-hardiness as the campaign progressed. Steady improvement and the growing size and sophistication of the Allied medical deployment led to remarkably few admissions – and fewer fatalities – from preventable illnesses and diseases as well as improving practice in the treatment and evacuation of patients from vast operational areas characterised by exterior lines and rapidly lengthening supply lines.