page_title: Force Publique
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Force Publique / Under the Belgian Congo / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: Congolese enlisting in the Force Publique following the outbreak of World War II
context_page_description: The Force Publique was a gendarmerie and military force in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1885, through the period of Belgian colonial rule. The FP was retitled as the Congolese National Army or ANC in July 1960 after independence.
context_section_description: After Belgium had surrendered to Germany on 28 May 1940, Governor Pierre Ryckmans decided that the colony would continue to fight on the side of the Allies. With Belgium occupied, the contribution to the Allied cause by the Free Belgian Forces from the Belgian Congo was primarily an economic one providing copper, wolfram, zinc, tin, rubber, cotton and more. Already prior to the war uranium from the Shinkolobwe mine had been shipped to New York; it was later used in the Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bomb for Hiroshima. The military contribution was also important: the Force Publique grew to 40,000 in the course of the War, formed into three brigades, a river force and support units. It provided detachments to fight Italian forces during the East Africa Campaign and serve as garrisons in West Africa and the Middle East.
  At the end of 1940 the XIᵗʰ Battalion of the Force Publique was placed at the disposal of the British forces in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The 3ʳᵈ Brigade of the Force Publique, together with the XIᵗʰ battalion (5,700 men), took part in the campaign in Abyssinia arriving from the Congo via the Sudan. The troops took Asosa and Gambela with little resistance and shelled Italian forces at Saïo on 8 June 1941. Their retreat cut off, the Italian troops surrendered to General Auguste-Édouard Gilliaert on 7 July 1941 including nine generals, among them Generals Pietro Gazzera and Count Arconovaldo Bonaccorsi, 370 officers, and 2,574 noncoms and 1,533 native soldiers. About 2,000 additional native irregulars were sent home. The Force Publique lost about 500 men during the East Africa Campaign, among them 4 Belgians.
  The Force Publique then helped to establish an overland route from Lagos through Fort Lamy and the Sudan to Cairo. Between 1942 and 1943 an expeditionary force of 13,000 was sent to Nigeria. Nine thousand of these troops served in Egypt and Palestine. They returned to the Belgian Congo at the end of 1944 without having seen active service.
  The Force Publique also sent the 10ᵗʰ Belgian Congo Casualty Clearing Station to the battle zone. Between 1941 and 1945 some 350 Congolese and 20 Belgians, under the command of Medical Colonel Thomas, worked together with the British medical services in Abyssinia, Somalia, Madagascar and Burma. They especially proved their value serving with the Indian XXXIII Corps on the Upper Chindwin, where they were attached to the 11ᵗʰ (East Africa) Division. During the confusion inherent in jungle fighting, the Belgian medical unit found itself on one occasion in advance of the front line troops. This incident was later used by British officers to motivate the fighting troops to greater efforts ("even a hospital can do better").
caption: Congolese enlisting in the Force Publique during World War II, c.1943.
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