A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of History, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History September 1992 / The central feature of service in the Second world War for black soldiers, was the continuation of racial discrimination along the lines of that 'experienced by them in civilian life in South Africa. This discrimination affected almost every aspect of military service; from recruitment and training,to their' deployment as unarmed soldiers in non-combatant duties in various units. This dissertatiQn uses both oral and archival sources to comment upon,and analyze the responses of black members of the Union Defence Force to their service in the war.These responses are at times complementary, and at Other times Contradictory but one general conclusion to be drawn from them, is that black soldiers felt their contribution to the south African war effort had gone large1y unrecognised, either in remunerative or socio-political terms. Black servicemen were not only discriminated against by both the state and individual whites in the Union Defence Force, they were also used inefficiencly in a military context. The views of certain white soldiers have been used to illustrate this, both from a contemporary perspective and a historical one. The hasty formation of the Corps in which blacks served; the Non-European Army Services, its administrative weaknesses, and occasional disunity in its leadership, also hampered the effective use of black servicemen in the war.