Joseph Arthur Ankrah - Military Career

Military Career

On the outbreak of World War II, Ankrah was mobilized into the Royal West African Frontier Force . While his Brigade was in East Africa in 1940, he was transferred to the Record Office in Accra with the rank of Warrant Officer Class II and made second-in-command. In October 1946, he went to the Marshfield Officer Cadets Training Unit in the United Kingdom and graduated in February 1947 as the first African officer in the Gold Coast Army. He was commissioned a lieutenant in 1947 and became the first African camp commandant at the Army Headquarters. He was later made the first Ghanaian Chief Instructor of the Education Unit. He was promoted Major in 1956 and became the first African to command an all-African company, the Charlie Company of the first Battalion at Tamale, Ghana. He later became Lieutenant Colonel and took over the whole battalion. He rose to rank of colonel by 1960, at a time when there were few Ghanaian officers at that level. During the United Nations Operation in the Congo, he was the Brigade Commander of the force based at Luluaburg, Kasai in present day Democratic Republic of Congo. He was the only Ghanaian awarded the Military Cross in Leopoldville for acts of unsurpassed gallantry in Congo in 1961. The citation read:

With great common sense, maturity and tact, this officer handled a delicate situation which otherwise would have created grave consequences in Leopoldville and many parts of the Congo. Colonel Ankrah, with complete disregard for his own life, disarmed an Armee Nationale Congolese (ANC) soldier who, with a loaded sten machine carbine, attempted to shoot Mr. Lumumba. He carried the Prime Minister to safety in a vehicle which was fired on by ANC ambushers. Had it not been for the quick and bold action of Colonel Ankrah at the risk of his life, Mr. Lumumba'’s life would have been taken with untold consequences at that time.

After his experience in the Congo, he was rapidly promoted Brigadier then Major General becoming the first Ghanaian commander of the Ghana army in 1961 and then Deputy Chief of Defence Staff. He was dismissed from the Ghana army in July 1965 on suspicion of involvement in a coup plot.