Harris Rendell Oke, CMG, MC and Bar (1 September 1891 – 18 December 1940) was a wounded veteran of World War I who became Colonial Secretary, The Gambia, British West Africa (1934–1940)[1] and served as its Acting Governor and Commander-in-Chief for six extended periods between 1934 and 1940.
Oke was named for his paternal grandmother, Mary Jane Harris Carnell (1832–1926), who was heir to a portion of the 20 acre New Forest estate owned by the Gill family from the 1700s.
[28][29] Oke is a descendant of Nicholas Gill, Sr. (d. 1787), a naval officer and judge of the vice admiralty court who became Chief Magistrate of St. John's, and who first occupied this land.
[31] Their father, Captain Michael Gill, Sr. (1673–1720), was an international trader in Massachusetts who is famous[32][33] for defending Bonavista, NL from a brutal French and Indian attack in 1704 during Queen Anne's War.
During the summer months, she cared for children immobilised on a Bradford frame as treatment for polio or tuberculosis of the spine at Child's Hospital (Saratoga, NY).
[49] After the battalion provided guard duties at Edinburgh Castle and had arrived for further training at Stobs Camp near Hawick, Oke was promoted to Acting Corp. on 22 June 1915.
[48][50] Oke embarked for France on 12 June 1916[51] as part of the 11th Service Battalion, 27th Brigade, 9th (Scottish) Division under the command of Major-General William Furse, who geared up for a major offensive in the Battle of the Somme that July.
[51] He was awarded a Military Cross on 26 July 1918 for leading a successful counter-attack in France, despite being wounded, that resulted in re-occupying a lost position and inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy.
[37] He embarked on 28 April 1918, joining the 45th (Service) Battalion with the Royal Fusiliers, where he led a platoon in a counter-attack on river-craft that resulted in the surrender of two steamers and a gunboat, and saved the column a large number of casualties.
In the early 1930s, the Colonial government in The Gambia was engaged with Deutsche Luft Hansa (DLH), which sought to establish an airbase in Bathurst (now Banjul) to speed mail transit between Europe and South America.
DLH undertook experimental air-sea routes using the catapult ship SS Westfalen (1905) and were quick to establish routine scheduled flights.
[68] An epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Bathurst in the late fall of 1934,[69] leading to numerous casualties including the death of the Colonial Secretary, Godfrey C. B. Parish, F.R.G.S.
[72] The British enacted tight control by overseeing the landing authorities granted to DLH and insisting that each flight be scheduled and any change in equipment be approved in advance.
[76] Germany suspended all civil flights to West Africa in August 1939[72] and initiated World War II, on 1 September 1939, at which time the DLH fleet came under command of the Luftwaffe.
France surrendered to Germany, signing the Armistice of 22 June 1940, whereas Winston Churchill and Jean Monnet had contemplated the creation of a single Franco-British citizenship, uniting the two nations.
[77] Combat missions in Africa fired up, with Britain and its African colonies providing support to Charles de Gaulle's Free France movement in the form of finances, communications, supplies, aircraft, and other resources, with the immediate goal of protecting Nigerian borders.
[77] Although the pro-Nazi, Vichy-controlled territory of French West Africa was threatening Nigeria's northern border, de Gaulle gained control of Chad and the port of Libreville, Gabon by August and Cameroon by September.
Clyde, a Short Empire S.30 series flying boat on which the officers were travelling, had been damaged on take-off from Lisbon, Portugal and was undergoing repairs in Bathurst.
[79] Regional morale was further stressed in September 1940 by de Gaulle's failure to secure a French West African strategic port during the Battle of Dakar, but rallied by October when he declared Brazzaville, Congo, as the capital of Free France.
The British colonies, and Nigeria in particular, were well-positioned to gain economically from new trade with French Equatorial Africa, which had cut off commerce with the Vichy-controlled West African territories.