Though some fighting with Italian troops occurred in Kenya itself from June 1940 to February 1941, it remained an important economic asset for the Allies and also contributed a significant number of soldiers to fight in the British Army.
Outbreak of war
Kenya bordered Italian East Africa to the north, and at the start of the war, it was feared that the much larger Italian army would advance into Kenya as it had into British Somaliland. The King's African Rifles (KAR), responsible for the defence of the whole of British-occupied east Africa with the Somaliland Camel Corps and Sudan Defence Force, numbered just 2,900 men in 1939,[1] compared with the 250,000 Italian colonial troops in the region.[2]
A drought in 1939–40 and accompanying crop failure, known at the time as the "Famine of the Italian", also encouraged Kenyans from the agricultural Akamba in eastern Kenya, who had not traditionally joined the army in large numbers, to enlist.[3]Enemy aliens in the colony were interned or placed under supervision.
While the feared large-scale invasion did not occur, smaller incursions into Kenya were conducted in concert with similar operations against Sudan. In the summer of 1940, Kenya saw combat between Commonwealth forces and Italy. The first action of the East African Campaign was the Italian bombing of the South Rhodesian air base at Wajir on 13 June.
Italian troops advanced from Ethiopia into Moyale and took "Fort Harrington" after heavy fighting. By the end of July they had advanced almost 100 kilometres (62mi) into Kenya and occupied Buna and Dabel, halting their advance due to concerns about the poor supply situation. These areas remained under Italian control until liberated in February 1941 as part of the Allied offensive into Italian East Africa.[4]
(In Kenya) our troops have occupied Sukela, Terkali, Tagaba, Kokaiya Dula and Danisa cutting the area of Kenya that entered inside Somalia toward Dolo and so the border-line was cut of 300 km. A tentative of enemy attack in the lake Rodolfo area has been defeated with the help of the local population (Daasanach tribe), with heavy losses for the enemy "Bollettino di Guerra" 36 of July 16, 1940 (Italian War bulletin 36)[5]
On 6 September 1940, near Liboi a column the 2nd East African Brigade under British command was attacked and partially destroyed by a force of Banda and Italian Colonial infantry: it was the first action involving South African ground troops in World War II [6] The British troops later retaliated with a first attack on the Somali-Kenyan village of El Wak, but were not successful.
According to Arrigo Pertacco, Buna historically is remembered as the Italian Army's deepest point of penetration into Kenya during the war.[7] The city was occupied in July 1940 and a permanent Italian garrison made mainly by Somalis of the area remained there until the end of January 1941.[8]
Malindi was one of the only two big towns in Kenya bombed by Italian airplanes. This happened on October 24, 1940 when the port of Malindi was damaged, and after this event Allied troops were stationed in the town until the end of the war.
After the partial success of the 1st South African Infantry Brigade against the Italians at another El Wak border post attack on 16 December 1940, Lieutenant-General Alan Cunningham ordered a full attack on the Italians in eastern Kenya.[9] In the last days of January 1941, two South African brigades of the 1st South African Infantry Division attacked the Italian-controlled territory in Kenya from Marsabit.
However before advancing into southern Abyssinia, General George Brink was compelled to protect his western flank and to deny water sources to the Italians. For this reason, on 16 January the 1st Natal Mounted Rifles (of the 2nd Brigade), No 2 Armoured Car Company, 12 SA Field Battery and two irregular companies attacked the string of wells at "El Yibo" and "El Sardu" in the Kenyan Northern Frontier District.[citation needed] After four days of heavy fighting, and with the Brink attacks supported by the South African Air Force, the Italians were forced to move away from El Yibo on the night of 17 January and on the afternoon of the 18 January, the 2nd Field Force Battalion, which had been moved up from the brigade reserve, entered an abandoned El Sardu. With the only water sources in the area in the hands of the South Africans, the advance into Abyssinia could commence.[10]
South African troops in Moyale pose with an Italian flag
On 18 February, the Commonwealth forces entered southern Ethiopia and conquered the fort-city of Mega. The two South African brigades then launched a double flanking movement on the area. After a three-day battle in which many of the South Africans—equipped for tropical conditions—suffered from exposure because of the heavy rains and near freezing temperatures.[11]
However west of Lake Rudolf, the 25th East African Brigade of Brig. W. Owen marched on Namaraputh with the objective of taking the town of Kalam near the border Ethiopia-Kenya. Opposition from local pro-Italian Merille tribesman in the area was so fierce, that the Brigade was compelled to cease its advance and to go over to the defensive.[12]
Soldiers of the King's African Rifles train in Kenya, 1944Propaganda poster from Kenya: it reads, in Swahili, "Our Askaris Beat the Japanese"
During the war, Kenya was one of the single most important recruiting grounds for the British Army in Africa. During the course of the war, 98,240 Kenyans were recruited as Askaris into the King's African Rifles, representing 30% of the unit's total strength.[14] The vast majority of soldiers from Kenya, of whom most were volunteers, were overwhelmingly black, however racial segregation policies in the King's African Rifles and other colonial units meant that they were commanded by white officers and NCOs. Blacks were not able to rise above the rank of warrant officer. Kenyan soldiers served in the successful East African Campaign against the Italians, as well as the invasion of Vichy-held Madagascar and the Burma Campaign against the Japanese, alongside troops from west Africa. Kenyans also served in the Royal Navy and some individuals also served in the Royal Air Force.
Nigel Gray Leakey, a white NCO in the King's African Rifles from Kenya, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in East Africa.
Kenya also gave its name to a British cruiser which served during the war, although it did not directly contribute to its crew.
Economic contribution
Kenya was an important source of agricultural products in the British Empire, supplying significant quantities of tea and tobacco. Traditionally, the Kenyan highlands (where much of the colony's agriculture was centred) were controlled by white farmers. Greater demands for agricultural products during the war caused the colonial authorities to order 200,000 Kenyan labourers to live and work on white-owned land until the end of the war in 1945.[16]
Significant numbers of Italian soldiers captured during the East African Campaign were interned in camps in Kenya, where they were used in civil infrastructure projects. Amongst those detained in Kenya was the Italian writer, Felice Benuzzi, who attempted to escape in 1943 by climbing Mount Kenya, though subsequently re-surrendered to the British. He detailed his experiences in his popular book, No Picnic on Mount Kenya (1947).
Legacy
"we Africans were told over and over again that we were fighting for our country and democracy and that when the war was over we would be rewarded for the sacrifice we were making...The life I returned to was exactly the same as the one I left four years earlier: no land, no job, no representation, no dignity."[17]
Kango Muchai, Kenyan KAR veteran
The economic mobilization of Kenya during the war led to an unprecedented level of urbanization in the country, swelling the population of Mombasa and Nairobi by as much as 50%.[18]
Kenyan soldiers returning home after the war were much less likely to accept the radians of racism which had existed in the country before the war.[19] Returning Kenyan soldiers also found themselves competing with Indian migrants for scarce jobs, and were little better off than before the war .
When the ban on political activism was lifted in 1944, the Kenya African Study Union (KASU) was founded in October 1944 as a nationwide political party to campaign for independence from the British and the creation of a multi-ethnic state.[20] Although few Kenyan soldiers joined the party itself, many were active in the pro-independence movement which would culminate in the Mau Mau Uprising in 1952.
↑ Stegemann, Bernd; Vogel, Detlef (1995). Germany and the Second World War: The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa, 1939–1941. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-822884-4.
Owino, Meshack (2021). "Kenya and the Second World War: A Review of the Historiographical Landscape". History Compass. 19 (3). doi:10.1111/hic3.12649. S2CID233971520.
Stewart, Andrew (2017). "Nyanza at War: Kenya and the Mobilization of Britain's Colonial Empire". In Crowley, Mark J.; Dawson, Sandra Trudgen (eds.). Home Fronts: Britain and the Empire at War, 1939-45. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. pp.130–145. ISBN9781787440487.
Parsons, Timothy (2015). "No Country Fit for Heroes: The Plight of Disabled Kenyan Veterans". In Byfield, Judith A.; Brown, Carolyn A.; Parsons, Timothy; Sikainga, Ahmad Alawad (eds.). Africa and World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.127–144. ISBN978-1-107-05320-5.
A part of Eastern Africa, the territory of what is known as Kenya has seen human habitation since the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic. The Bantu expansion from a West African centre of dispersal reached the area by the 1st millennium AD. With the borders of the modern state at the crossroads of the Bantu, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic ethno-linguistic areas of Africa, Kenya is a truly multi-ethnic state. The Wanga Kingdom was formally established in the late 17th century. The kingdom covered from the Jinja in Uganda to Naivasha in the East of Kenya. This is the first time the Wanga people and Luhya tribe were united and led by a centralized leader, a king, known as the Nabongo.
The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) are the armed forces of the Republic of Kenya. They are made up of the Kenya Army, Kenya Navy, and Kenya Air Force. The current KDF was established, and its composition stipulated, in Article 241 of the 2010 Constitution of Kenya; it is governed by the KDF Act of 2012. Its main mission is the defence and protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kenya, recruitment to the KDF is done on yearly basis. The President of Kenya is the commander-in-chief of the KDF, and the Chief of Defence Forces is the highest-ranking military officer, and the principal military adviser to the President of Kenya.
The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities. Dominated by Kikuyu, Meru and Embu fighters, the KLFA also comprised units of Kamba and Maasai who fought against the European colonists in Kenya, the British Army, and the local Kenya Regiment.
The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a British Colonial Auxiliary Forces regiment raised from Britain's East African colonies in 1902. It primarily carried out internal security duties within these colonies along with military service elsewhere during the world wars and other conflicts, such as the Malayan Emergency and the Mau Mau uprising. The regiment's enlisted soldiers were drawn from the native Africans, while most officers were seconded from the British Army. During the 1960s, as part of the decolonisation of Africa, more African officers were commissioned into the regiment before it was gradually disbanded. KAR battalions would go on to form the core of newly established armed forces throughout East Africa.
Italian Somaliland was a protectorate and later colony of the Kingdom of Italy in present-day Somalia. Ruled in the 19th century by the Somali Sultanates of Hobyo and Majeerteen in the north, and in the south by political entities such as the Hiraab Imamate and Geledi Sultanate.
The East African campaign was fought in East Africa during the Second World War by Allies of World War II, mainly from the British Empire, against Italy and its colony of Italian East Africa, between June 1940 and November 1941. The British Middle East Command with troops from the United Kingdom, South Africa, British India, Uganda Protectorate, Kenya, Somaliland, West Africa, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Sudan and Nyasaland participated in the campaign. These were joined by the Allied Force Publique of Belgian Congo, Imperial Ethiopian Arbegnoch and a small unit of Free French Forces.
Dubat ; Arabic:العمائم البيضاء ); ḍubbāṭ: English: White turban) was the designation given to members of the semi-regular armed bands employed by the Italian "Royal Corps of Colonial Troops" in Italian Somaliland from 1924 to 1941. The word dubat was derived from a Somali phrase meaning "white turban".
The 2nd (African) Division was a British Empire colonial unit that fought during the Second World War. On 19 July 1940, the 2nd (African) Division was formed in Kenya, British East Africa. On 24 November of that year, the division was redesignated as the British Army's 12th (African) Division. The 12th (African) Division was also known as the 12th Division when in October 1941 its West African brigade from the Gold Coast was reassigned and replaced with a third East African brigade. The division was disbanded in East Africa on 18 April 1943.
Major-General Charles Christopher Fowkes was an officer in the British Army during the Second World War. His nickname was "Fluffy."
The Swynnerton Plan was a colonial agricultural policy that appeared as a government report in 1954 in Kenya, aiming to intensify the development of agricultural practice in the Kenya Colony. The plan was geared to expanding native Kenyan's cash-crop production through improved markets and infrastructure, the distribution of appropriate inputs, and the gradual consolidation and enclosure of land holdings.
The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, commonly known as British Kenya or British East Africa, was part of the British Empire in Africa from 1920 until 1963. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony in 1920. Technically, the "Colony of Kenya" referred to the interior lands, while a 16 km (10 mi) coastal strip, nominally on lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar, was the "Protectorate of Kenya", but the two were controlled as a single administrative unit. The colony came to an end in 1963 when an ethnic Kenyan majority government was elected for the first time and eventually declared independence.
East Africa Command was a Command of the British Army. Until 1947 it was under the direct control of the Army Council and thereafter it became the responsibility of Middle East Command. It was disbanded on 11 December 1963, the day before Kenya became independent, and replaced by British Land Forces Kenya, tasked with withdrawing all remaining British troops. All remaining troops left by December 1964 and British Land Forces Kenya was disestablished.
The Kenya Army is the land arm of the Kenya Defence Forces.
The units of the Kenya Army Infantry are the principal fighting arms of the Kenya Army. The primary mission of the Infantry formations is to fight and win land battles within area of operational responsibilities in the defence of the nation against land – based aggression, while the secondary mission is the provision of aid and support to civil authorities in the maintenance of order. The Kenyan School of Infantry (SOI) is located in Isiolo County.
The military history of Somalia encompasses the major conventional wars, conflicts and skirmishes involving the historic empires, kingdoms and sultanates in the territory of present-day Somalia, through to modern times. It also covers the martial traditions, military architecture and hardware employed by Somali armies and their opponents.
Operation Anvil was a British military operation during the Mau Mau Uprising where British troops attempted to remove suspected Mau Mau from Nairobi and place them in Langata Camp or reserves. The operation began on 24 April 1954 and took two weeks, at the end of which 20,000 Mau Mau suspects had been taken to Langata, and 30,000 more had been deported to the reserves.
The Italian Somali Divisions were two divisions of colonial soldiers from Italian Somaliland that were formed as part of the Regio Esercito Royal Corps of Colonial Troops during the Second World War. In the Royal Corps of Colonial Troops, the units comprised the "101 Divisione Somala" and "102 Divisione Somala" and fought during the East African Campaign in 1941 before disbanding.
The involvement of the Nyasaland Protectorate in World War II began with the declaration of war on Nazi Germany by the British Empire in September 1939. Though no combat occurred in Nyasaland itself, it remained an economic asset for the Allies and also contributed a significant number of soldiers to fight in the British Army.
Operation Appearance was a British landing in the British Somaliland Protectorate against troops of the Italian Army. The Italian conquest of British Somaliland had taken place seven months previously, in August 1940. The British had withdrawn from the protectorate after a delaying action at the Battle of Tug Argan. This withdrawal, after the disastrous conclusion of the Battle of France and the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940, had repercussions among British leaders. It led Prime Minister Winston Churchill to lose confidence in General Archibald Wavell, the British commander in the Middle East, which culminated in Wavell's sacking on 20 June 1941.
The Battle of Tug Argan was fought between forces of the British Empire and Italy from 11 to 15 August 1940 in the Somaliland Protectorate. The battle determined the result of the Italian invasion of British Somaliland and the larger East African Campaign of the Second World War.
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