Another man’s war: A gold dust of a story

When in 2009, Barnaby Phillips took time off work with Aljazeera to research into some old soldiers he had seen at a parade in his time in Nigeria, he had no idea he would uncover the most remarkable story yet in his 20 years of journalism, a story that would take him across three continents […]

When in 2009, Barnaby Phillips took time off work with Aljazeera to research into some old soldiers he had seen at a parade in his time in Nigeria, he had no idea he would uncover the most remarkable story yet in his 20 years of journalism, a story that would take him across three continents and touch many lives.
While working as a BBC correspondent in Nigeria, between 1998 and 2001 Barnaby saw a group of old men in old army uniforms parading at an event and upon enquiry was told they were some of the men who had fought in World War II.
Barnaby did  his job and eventually left Nigeria when the BBC posted him elsewhere but the memory of the old men in the old uniforms would not leave him.
“I had a sense that there was a big story I had missed with those men,” Barnaby said.
Finally, back in London, with Aljazeera, that persistent hunch made him research the contribution of African soldiers to the British Empire’s World War II effort. He discovered a huge forgotten army that had fought in some of the toughest frontlines in the war. About 100, 000 soldiers fought in the Burmese jungle for the British Empire, nearly all of them had been forgotten, apart from the causalities meticulous detailed at the Taukkyan War Cemetery in Burma.
And of this 100, 000, it was the story of Nigerian Isaac Fadoyebo that practically fell into Barnaby’s hands, a remarkable story that seemed to have been waiting for him to share it with the world.
At the Imperial War Museum in London, Barnaby encountered numerous accounts about the war effort in the forgotten frontier of WWII where the British were desperate to keep Japan from advancing on India, the crown jewel of the British Empire. There are numerous accounts about what happened and mentions of the African soldiers who fought on the British side in the war were not detailed enough – all these accounts where by white British officers, Barnaby discovered.
Until he chanced upon a bound document which seemed to fall off the shelves into his hands. He recognised the name of Isaac Fadoyebo as a Yoruba name. It was only 50 pages long and had been typed in 1989 by Fadoyebo, a man who at 16 left his village in Western Nigeria to fight for Britain in the jungles of Burma, in a war he didn’t understand.
“My God! This is gold dust!” Barnaby had said as he sat down to consume the extraordinary story of Fadoyebo’s contribution to the war, his injury and the Burmese family that hid him behind enemy lines, away from marauding Japanese army for nine months, and a debt of gratitude that spanned continents and generations.
Fadoyebo had sent the only copy of his memoir to the UK. It could have got lost in transit and Barnaby knew this very well.
 “When you consider the erratic nature of the Nigerian postal system at the time, it was an incredible act of faith,” he said of Fadoyebo’s decision.
Thanks to a producer who thought the document was of some value and he made copies. There is one at the Imperial War Museum, another at the University of Wisconsin and another at the British Library.
Barnaby calculated that the boy who had gone off to fight in that war, if he were alive, would be an old man in his 80s. So working with the address he had on the document, he asked his contacts in Lagos to help him enquire if there was an old man called Fadoyebo there.
They found a Fadoyebo who had fought in the war and was eager to talk to Barnaby and when the journalist called him, Fadoyebo’s words had been, “Mr Phillips, when are you coming?”
So Barnaby had packed his bags and headed back to Lagos. He found the old man with a limp from the injury he had sustained in a Japanese ambush in Burma on 2nd March, 1944.
“He was a very self-effacing man, very humble and dignified,” Barnaby said of the man who would within a short period become his friend. He interviewed Fadoyebo and was surprised by how much the old man remembered of the war.
He was only a boy when he ran away from his village of Emure-Ile in present day Ondo State and ended up injured, waiting to die in Burma until a Burmese man called Shiyuman appeared. Fadoyebo had been a good student in Owo until the completion of his primary school education. His father, would not pay for further studies and Fadoyebo had been restless. He wanted adventure. And when colonial officers announced that they were recruiting, he ran away to join them.
“It is what we call youthful exuberance,” Fadoyebo had said in his interview with Barnaby, “I was a young boy then, I didn’t know I was heading for big trouble.”
He owes his survival to Shuyiman, who had saved his life and that of his Sierra Leonean friend David Kargbo. At great risk to his life and that of his family, Shuyiman had hidden the two Africans in the jungle and fed them for nine months. And almost 70 years after, Fadoyebo still feels a sense of gratitude to the Burmese family that had saved his life.
Barnaby checked out with surviving British officers back in the UK and found that Fadoyebo’s accounts was largely accurate.
“There were very few discrepancies about exact locations and a few dates were off by a few days, but it was a massive jungle and things happened fast. But the details were incredibly accurate,” Barnaby said.
And based on the details of Fadoyebo’s description, Barnaby headed to Burma, armed with a letter of gratitude from Fadoyebo and photographs, to find the villagers that had saved Fadoyebo and Kargbo. He found them. Only that Shuyiman had died in 1960 but his family and the villagers remember the story of the two African soldiers they had saved in 1944 and were deeply grateful for the letter.
The result of these encounters was an incredible 2011 documentary titled Burma Boy with which Barnaby Phillips won the Prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award. Fadoyebo too seemed satisfied, fulfilled even with the documentary.
“I felt he got a sense of satisfaction from the documentary, he seemed very pleased about it,” Barnaby said.
But when in May 2012 Fadoyebo died in his late 80s, and some of the British Officers that had corroborated Fadoyebo’s stories also passed on, and with violence threatening the village that had saved the two Africans, Phillips sat down to write a book with more context to the events captured in the documentary. That was how Another Man’s War was born.
“The book is a labour of love,” Barnaby said. He had always wanted to write a book and there was no better story to start with. His family was very supportive and it was his wife who told him to start writing immediately before filling in the research and details later. A very helpful advice.
“I had a very demanding agent who made me work on my proposal several times until it was just right. And when I sent in the manuscript and she said it is just fine, I was so relieved,” he said.
Despite his best effort, he couldn’t get Another Man’s War out in Nigeria.
“I tried for many years to publish this story in Nigeria but couldn’t find a Nigerian publisher who would publish it,” he said.
Today, Another Man’s War is shaping up to be a bestseller, selling for N6, 000 at its launch in Lagos, and N4,000 at the Ake Arts and Books Festival in Abeokuta. I got the last copy, ahead of a horde of others trying to get their hands on it.
Another Man’s War is a classic of war literature but goes deeper to expose the humanity of peoples across continents, race and generations. And for Barnaby, it wasn’t only Fadoyebo that had been affected by this story.
Writing this book had brought him face to face with some uncomfortable truths about his own country and how Britain used 100, 000 men to fight a war they knew next to nothing about and promptly forgot them as soon as the war was over.
Fadoyebo’s story is gripping, and humane and someday soon, the world will appreciate Barnaby Phillips for putting it out there.