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World War II’s Forgotten Fight Over Quinine and Disinformation
How a war against malaria shaped the Pacific Theater
In the run up to World War II the vast majority of the world’s quinine supply was securely in the hands of the Dutch and the British. The Dutch controlled the territory where the valuable cinchona trees grew in abundance and the British oversaw a large portion of the navigable waters in the area from Singapore and Hong Kong.
The British had long coveted vast supplies of quinine. It was hard to keep a vast tropical empire afloat when your northern citizens were in a constant battle against the parasitic disease. In fact, the British were one of the earliest pioneers of stuffing quinine into regular people to ward off malaria.
Malaria was no joke. It had the ability to debilitate almost anyone who had not grown up in an area where the disease was endemic. Mild cases could put you out of action for days, a severe case could cause weeks and months of agony while the worst outcome was death.
Luckily, Britain and her neighbors controlled nearly all of the world’s quinine supplies and were more than willing to share their ample supplies of G&Ts with like minded Western powers. That is, until 1941.
