With recruits from across its empire, Britain’s troops in the Second World War were a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic force. Among those involved were more than a quarter of a million soldiers from East Africa and 2.5 million from South Asia, whose contributions to the Allied forces were absolutely essential to the outcome of the war.

In this episode of On the Record, host Chloe Lee speaks with Iqbal Singh and Liz Haines, specialists at The National Archives, and writer Sharmila Chauhan about a collection of records relating to the recruitment of soldiers from across Britain’s colonies. Focusing on the languages mobilised in these documents, they discuss records that range from the speeches of British commanders in (romanised) Hindustani, to recruitment posters featuring Swahili and Nyanja.

For a transcript and information about the documents used in this episode visit our show notes: https://bit.ly/SwwLLD

In this episode of On the Record, we take focus on the lesser-told history of the colonial troops, from East Africa and India, that fought for Britain during the Second World War.

Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, June 6, 1944, 24,000 soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy in Northern France. What followed was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Their mission: to liberate Europe and defeat Germany. Who were these soldiers? And who worked secretly to plan the operation and ensure its success?

In this episode, Chloe Lee speaks to colleagues Sophie Stewart and Alice Bell about the people who contributed to this operation, whose stories we may not be familiar with: a tank driver on the frontline, one of the first black women in the Royal Air Force, and a femme fatale whose coded telegram saved many lives on D-Day.

For a transcript and information about the documents used in this episode visit our show notes: https://bit.ly/D-Day1