Kenya in World War II
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The involvement of the British
Though some fighting with
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.
Italian attacks
While the feared large-scale invasion did not occur, smaller incursions into Kenya were conducted in concert with similar operations against
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 (62 mi) 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
According to Arrigo Pertacco,
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
However before advancing into southern Abyssinia, General
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
Finally, Moyale—70 miles southeast of Mega on the border between Kenya and Ethiopia—was occupied on 22 February by a patrol of Abyssinian irregular troops which had been attached to the South African Division.
Military involvement
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
In 1942, the entire British
Kenya also gave its name to
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]
Detainment
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.
When the ban on political activism was lifted in 1944, the
Notes
- ^ Killingray & Plaut 2010, p. 25.
- ^ Killingray & Plaut 2010, p. 7.
- ^ Killingray & Plaut 2010, p. 61.
- ISBN 978-0-19-822884-4.
- ^ Ali e Uomini: Bollettini di Guerra del 1940 (in Italian)
- ^ Orpen, N. (1982). "Salute the Sappers". South African Forces World War II: Volume VIII Part 2. Cape Town: Purnell
- ^ Map showing with green lines the territories conquered in 1940 by the Italians in Sudan and Kenya
- ^ Petacco 1995, p. 46.
- ^ Moyse-Bartlett 2012, p. 485.
- ^ Klein II, p. 114
- ^ http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5195/1/2001AndersonPhD.pdf[bare URL PDF]
- ^ https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/LondonGazette/37645.pdf[bare URL PDF]
- ^ "BBC - WW2 People's War - Timeline".
- ^ Killingray & Plaut 2010, p. 44.
- ^ "Mombasa was Base for High-level U.K. Espionage". Coastweek.com. Archived from the original on 15 May 2013. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
- ^ Killingray & Plaut 2010, p. 21.
- ^ Odhiambo & Lonsdale 2003, p. 22.
- ISBN 978-0-19-820564-7.
- ^ Killingray & Plaut 2010, pp. 220–221.
- ^ Odhiambo & Lonsdale 2003, p. 16.
Bibliography
- Gadsden, F. (1986). "Wartime Propaganda in Kenya: The Kenya Information Office, 1939–1945". JSTOR 218973.
- Killingray, D.; Plaut, M. (2010). Fighting for Britain: African Soldiers in the Second World War. Woodbridge: ISBN 9781847010155.
- Moyse-Bartlett, H. (2012). The King's African Rifles. Vol. 2. Luton: Andrews UK Limited. ISBN 9781781506639.
- Odhiambo, E.; Lonsdale, J. (2003). Mau Mau & Nationhood: Arms, Authority & Narration. Columbus: ISBN 9780852554845.
- Petacco, A. (1995). La nostra guerra 1940–1945: L'Italia al fronte tra bugie e verità (in Italian). Turin: UTET. ISBN 9788851141042.
Further reading
- Brands, Hal (2005). "Wartime Recruiting Practices, Martial Identity and Post-World War II Demobilization in Colonial Kenya". The Journal of African History. 46 (1): 103–125. S2CID 144908965.
- Owino, Meshack (2021). "Kenya and the Second World War: A Review of the Historiographical Landscape". History Compass. 19 (3). S2CID 233971520.
- 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. ISBN 9781787440487.
- Spencer, Ian (1980). "Settler Dominance, Agricultural Production and the Second World War in Kenya". The Journal of African History. 21 (4): 497–514. S2CID 162566026.
- 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. ISBN 978-1-107-05320-5.
- Anderson, David; Throup, David (1985). "Africans and Agricultural Production in Colonial Kenya: The Myth of the War as a Watershed". The Journal of African History. 26 (4): 327–345. S2CID 162238454.