Most Accra residents have driven past Burma Camp. Few stop to ask why a Ghanaian military base is named after a country in South-East Asia.
The name remembers the Second World War. Soldiers from the Gold Coast, then a British colony, served in the Royal West African Frontier Force and fought in Burma, now Myanmar, against Japanese forces in 1944 and 1945. They were part of the 81st and 82nd West African Divisions, which fought in difficult jungle conditions. The 81st Division’s badge was a black spider, a nod to Ananse of Akan folk tales.
The soldiers
Thousands of men from the Gold Coast served during the war, many as fighting troops and others as carriers and support staff. They fought in the Arakan region of Burma, far from home. Many did not return, and their graves lie in Commonwealth war cemeteries in Myanmar, including Taukkyan near Yangon.
When the survivors came home, they expected recognition, pensions and jobs. Many were disappointed. On 28 February 1948, a march of ex-servicemen to the governor’s residence at Christiansborg was fired on by police at the crossroads, killing three of them, an event that helped spark the push for independence.
The camp
The military base in Accra took the name Burma Camp in honour of the Gold Coast soldiers who fought in the campaign. It is today the headquarters of the Ghana Armed Forces and houses the Ministry of Defence offices, military units, barracks, schools and a hospital, the 37 Military Hospital, which sits nearby.
Cantonments
The neighbouring area, Cantonments, also has a military origin. A cantonment was a permanent military station in the British Empire, and the name survived as one of Accra’s most expensive residential neighbourhoods.
The Military Cemetery
Burma Camp is also home to a military cemetery. Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, was buried there in September 2018, and former President Jerry John Rawlings was buried there in January 2021.
Remembrance
Each November, Ghana marks Remembrance Day to honour those who died in the world wars and in later service, including peacekeeping missions, where Ghanaian soldiers have served in Lebanon, Liberia, Sierra Leone and many other countries.
The men who fought in Burma are almost all gone now. Their war is remembered every day in the name of the camp, even by people who have never heard of the Arakan.
