When discussing the role of black soldiers in the Canadian military, it is important to be cognizant of both Canada’s relatively small black population, and of the way in which black and African troops were employed by the British Empire, of which Canada was an integral part.

For the British, and the Canadians, front line service for black soldiers was discouraged. Barriers were put in place that sought to restrict black and African soldiers from joining regular infantry units, while the navy and air services attempted simply to block all black and African enlistment. This did not mean that black soldiers did not end up on the frontlines, and could not join regular combat units, only that it was quite difficult. Moreover, both the Canadian government and British government established white led segregated units. In Canada this was the No. 2 Construction Battalion, which served alongside the Canadian Forestry Corps in preparing lumber for use in trenches and other fortifications in the First World War. In the British Military, after a short period of allowing Black volunteers into normal British units, the government established the Black West Indies Regiment, who in spite of their deployment on the western front were used as ammunition carriers and in other rear echelon roles. Armed African troops, organized in various units like the Kings African Rifles were used as combat troops, but only in the colonies against German forces.

During the Second World War, in Canada, no effort was made to establish segregated units, and several thousand black Canadians served in the armed forces during the war, including in combat alongside white Canadian troops. In Britain, things largely occurred the same as they had in the First World War. However due to the larger scope of the campaign, black troops were committed to more combat zones than in WW1. The Kings African rifles fought not only in Italian East Africa and in Vichy controlled French African territories, but also in Burma alongside British and British Indian Troops. It is telling of the British military’s racially borne misgivings about black troops that no large black or African unit was deployed to Egypt to fight against the Italians and the DAK, in spite of how dangerous the situation was looking.

Consequently, the “ideal” deployment of black and African troops by the British and Canadian governments during the world wars was service in the rear, as non-combat soldiers, or fighting peripheral campaigns. Thus, as far as I am aware there was never any attempt to use black or African soldiers as expendable meat shields in either the Canadian or British militaries, due to racist misgivings about arming black men and training them to fight, especially if they were going to come home from their service to countries that treated them as second class citizens and used them as little more than cheap labour.

(Sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes I’m writing this on my phone)