WWII warfare collapsed the Somali colony’s economy and pushed young men into militaries

Evidence

The war drained all resources of the colony and nearly all stores folded. As the British forces closed the noose on the Italians, the economy came to standstill. Whatever little formal employment existed in the colony declined sharply during the hostilities. Many young Somalis were desperate for jobs and enlisted in the colonial military. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 192

Categorization

• XREF: Clarifies why so many Somali youth ended up professional soldiers, a fact that reverberates through the later training of the 1960s national army that would eventually stage the 1969 coup.