Remembered Today: Sierra Leone Carrier Corps

[bushfighter]

Carrier Joe MENDI, Sierra Leone Carrier Corps, West African Frontier Force.

Sierra Leone Carriers were the best carriers employed in Africa during the Great War.

Whilst others fled from enemy fire the Sierra Leone boys would be taking ammunition forward into the firing line and taking wounded out of it, and they did not shirk from fighting with their machetes when necessary.

Nine Sierra Leone Carrier Companies were sent to East Africa during the campaign against Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's Schutztruppe.

Each company contained 2 European officers, 3 European Non-Commissioned-Officers (NCOs) and 500 carriers.

Sierra Leone Carriers supported the Gold Coast Regiment (GCR) and the Nigerian Brigade in German East Africa, and then the GCR and other units in Portuguese East Africa.

Imperial funds provided the pay for the carriers.

Over 11 hundred Sierra Leonian men are commemorated on the Freetown Memorial as fatal casualties of the Great War.

Harry