In October 1943, a note in the journal Colonial Cinema explained that ‘Considerable progress has been made with the film on the African campaigns which is being compiled from library material’. As ‘a preliminary’, it added, ‘many thousands of feet of film received in this country from various sources were examined carefully for material suitable for this film’. The completed film, Africa’s Fighting Men, comprised entirely of items that had previously appeared in the first eight issues of Colonial Film Unit’s fortnightly 16mm silent newsreel, The British Empire at War. Colonial Cinema regretted that some of the stages of the war were not adequately covered on film, but said that the CFU still ‘hoped to compile a documentary which has a great deal of historic value’ (Colonial Cinema, October 1943, 4).

By April 1944, when discussing the use of newsreels in mass education in Africa, Colonial Cinema reserved particular praise for Africa’s Fighting Men. ‘When compiled into a film, they [the sequences] present a most creditable record of the contribution the African colonies are making to the fighting forces of the Empire. This film’, the report added, ‘has been in greater demand for universal circulation than any other of the Unit’s productions or compilations’ (Colonial Cinema, April 1944, 15). Although initially presented as a silent film, Colonial Cinema stated in January 1944 that ‘There have been so many calls for this picture that a sound version has been made. One 35mm copy is being sent to the Principal Information Office in Nairobi and one to Accra’ (Colonial Cinema, January 1944, 4).

As with all CFU productions, Africa’s Fighting Men was primarily intended for African audiences, yet it also played to British audiences as part of the touring ‘Colonies Exhibition’. The exhibition opened in Newcastle in October 1943 and moved to other cities including Southampton, Cardiff, London, Hull and Glasgow over the next year. Africa’s Fighting Men served as part of a programme, along with Machi Gaba and Progress in the Colonies (Kenya), that played at the exhibition’s film theatre. Colonial Cinema deemed this a success, reporting that 5,549 out of 8,066 visitors had viewed the films in Newcastle, while they were now playing to ‘packed houses in Southampton’. The films were used here to educate British audiences – ‘One devoted school teacher came day after day with different groups of children’ – and sought to challenge popular perceptions of the Empire. ‘The great majority of people in Britain still think vaguely of the Colonies as hot countries thousands of miles away and inhabited by “Natives”’, the journal stated, adding that this exhibition was ‘admirably designed to give a clear idea of what and where the Colonies are, and of how the people live and are governed’ (Colonial Cinema, December 1943, 3).

The final item within Africa’s Fighting Men features Pilot Officer Peter Thomas. Thomas had arrived in Britain in February 1941 and was the first African to qualify for a commission in the RAF. He was positioned as a role model for West Africans, broadcasting on the BBC radio show ‘Calling West Africa’ and, with his interests ‘extended to social welfare and labour problems’, assumed ‘other responsibilities on behalf of the Colonial Office’ (Lambo, 1994, 158). Robert Kakembo, writing in An African Soldier Speaks, suggested that Thomas, alongside other prominent African war figures, helped to generate pan-African, rather than specifically tribal, pride amongst Africans. ‘We are all happy and clap our hands’, Kakembo wrote, ‘when we see in the pictures in a cinema, Pilot Officer Peter Thomas of Lagos, the first African to be granted His Majesty’s Commission RAF. We are proud of him. He is one of us. He is an African’ (Kakembo, 1946). Although the number of black pilots remained low – a memorandum for the Air Ministry in early 1945 estimated that 422 ‘coloured’ (West Indian, West African and South Asian flyers) had served as aircrew during the war, with a further 3,900 serving as ground crew – the Colonial Office widely publicised their efforts (Francis, 2008, 59). For example, Flying Officer Ulrich Cross from Trinidad, who spoke on BBC radio’s Calling the West Indies, featured prominently in the film, West Indies Calling. The Colonial Film Unit also produced an extended film, ‘Pilot Officer Peter Thomas, RAF’ (No. 40), which also showed Thomas ‘during his leisure time, when he takes part in the social and religious life at the Station’. Towards the end of the War, Thomas was admitted as a law student at the Middle Temple (his sister Stella was the first female barrister and magistrate in West Africa) but he died in January 1945 after hitting high ground while flying out of RAF Madley in Herefordshire (Lambo, 1994, 156).