135,171 white men, 12,878 white women, 27,583 Coloured men, and
42,627 African men. All were volunteers. The Coloured and African men
were distributed among the white detachments as laborers and transport
drivers. A few were trained in South Africa as gunners, but the white
reaction was intense. Nationalist party leader D. F.Malan railed in Parlia-
ment against the employment of "Kaffir soldiers," and they were not used
in combat. Even so, of the 5,500 South Africans who were killed in World
War II, more than a quarter were black.P
South Africa also made significant strategic and economic contribu-
tions to the Allied cause. After the Axis closed the Mediterranean to Allied
shipping in 194 I, the sea route via the Cape of Good Hope became vital for
supplying the Allied forces in North Africa as well as Asia. Durban and
Cape Town provisioned the vast number of ships on passage to and from
Egypt, and South African factories suppled them with munitions, food,
clothing, and cigarettes. South Africa was also a major source of strategic
minerals for the Allies, notably gold, platinum, and uranium; the products
of the Iron and Steel Industrial Corporation
(ISCOR), a state corporation
created by the government in 1928, rose to 866,107 metric tons in 1945. 73