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3 The South Africans in East Africa
The British Chiefs of Staff in 1939 believed that if Italy joined Britain's enemies then, in East Africa, where no military engineering organisation of any sort existed, Britain's primary object should be to secure her lines of communication with Egypt. "For the rest," as the British Official History remarks, "the Chiefs of Staff were thinking entirely in terms of defence."1
In Kenya, all engineer service and similar defence matters were still being dealt with by the A.A.Q.M.G. and D.A.Q.M.G. or the G.S.O.(3)I. sections, and all military work was being carried out by the Kenya and Uganda Railways, the Public Works Department, the municipalities or the district councils. Only on 6 September 1939 was the War Office cabled for authority to form one field company of Engineers. Three weeks later, Lt.-Col. J. W. Lloyd Ravier became Acting C.R.E. at East Africa Force Headquarters, and on 3 October Maj. H. H. Dugmore (killed in an air crash the following August) became A.C.R.E. to deal with Works. He left soon afterwards on a road reconnaissance of the almost trackless Northern Frontier District--the "N.F.D.".
By mid-October 1939 Maj. W. I. S. Oates--later C.R.E., 12th African Division--had been posted to command the new field company, for which recruits were being sought from as far afield as Dar-es-Salaam, Lusaka and Salisbury. Roads were still being constructed by private companies, and advice on water boring was being given by the Boring Superintendent of Southern Rhodesia. It was 8 December before a Water Section, almost devoid of equipment, left Nairobi for Isiolo, and they had to return within a few days to be trained. When they did set out again a month later, they had to turn back because of the state of the roads. Their experiences epitomised East Africa's two biggest problems--water and roads.
It was against such a background that Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell, as Commander-in-Chief, Middle East concluded that if Italy did join Germany, then he would have to attack them in Abyssinia.2 He felt that French and British Somaliland provided the best bases for this purpose, through Jibuti and Berbera, and with East Africa also placed under his command he flew to consult Gen. Smuts on 16 March 1940. Lt.-Col. G. H. Cotton and others had already rapidly surveyed a "Great North Road" from Pretoria to Nairobi,3 with
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Maj. F. W. Pettifer making a preliminary reconnaissance of the proposed route4 on which the exploratory convoy was commanded by Col. H. B. Klopper and included 2/Lt. P. J. Swarts and several Sappers of 5 Field Company.5
In Kenya the C.R.E. himself was ill and in hospital at Kabete on 20 March, but plans for the air defence of Mombasa were produced by the beginning of May and within a few more days the laying out of a military camp was started at Thika, just as Lt.-Col. F. E. Buller arrived from Southern Rhodesia to take command of the Engineers as A.C.R.E.
On 8 May Lt.-Col. Buller left Nairobi for Mombasa with a South African representative and they inspected a camp site at Nairobi next day. By 21 May East Africa Force had been informed that two South African Works officers could be expected shortly, and within two days Maj. D. F. Roberts and Capt. H. C. Mullins of the S.A.E.C. were holding discussions with the C.R.E. and A.C.R.E. concerning Works services required and to be carried out by South Africans at Mombasa and Gilgil.
The South African officers suggested the formation of large engineer stores and explosive dumps for materials sent up from South Africa, and while Maj. Roberts left for Mombasa to discuss camp sites with the Garrison Engineer there, Capt. Mullins met the C.R.E. and A.C.R.E. and two timber mill owners in Nairobi to settle the priority of military hutment construction. The early despatch of 16 Field Company, a trained fighting unit, in place of a works company, had already been suggested, and by 27 May Maj. Dugmore--the A.C.R.E., Works--and the South Africans had selected a camp site at Gilgil.
A site at Kabete, 1,800 metres above sea level and only 28 km outside Nairobi, was selected for a South African base camp and depot on 28 May 1940 and approved by Col. A. J. Orenstein as Director of Medical Services and Capt. H. C. Mullins of the S.A.E.C, Staff Captain (Works), who was to earn the award of the M.B.E. for his remarkably courageous services as Engineer Officer attached to Air Headquarters.
On 9 June 1940 East Africa Force produced a tentative outline for a new Engineer organisation in East Africa under a Chief Engineer. France had collapsed, and next day the request for a qualified senior officer had hardly gone off to England before news was received that Italy had entered the war on the side of Germany.
The Challenge of the N.F.D.
The day before Italy entered the war, 16 Field Company had left Cullinan to join its advance party at Durban and sail for Mombasa7 together with the advance party of 36 Water Supply Company. They were hardly out of sight of land when South Africa found herself at war with Italy, who already had some 291,000 armed men, black and white, in Italian East Africa.8 The British forces in Kenya could muster barely 8,500 men, there were only another 1,475 in British Somaliland, and the Sudan boasted about 9,000.9 A Nigerian brigade
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group and a Gold Coast brigade group were on their way to Mombasa, and with the two East African brigades already in existence they were to form the 1st and 2nd African Divisions, but their field companies were seriously short of equipment of all kinds.Kenya was a Crown Colony, and considered habitable by Europeans only above 1,200 metres10. Its railways totalled a bare 2,575 km in the country's 582,644 square kilometres of territory. Nairobi, the capital, had the population of a town no bigger than East London but was the hub of both road and rail communications. From here the railway from Mombasa ran north-west to Nakuru and then ascended the great Mau Escarpment11 before falling evenly towards Lake Victoria.
North-eastward from Nairobi ran the line to Thika, Fort Hall, Nyeri and Nanyuki on the slopes of Mount Kenya, and from the capital the few important roads--which were often primitive by European standards--spread out like the branches of a tree, to the north-west through Gilgil to Nakuru, Eldoret and Kitale on the long trek to Lodwar and Lokitaung; through Thika northwards by way of Nanyuki, Isiolo and Archer's Post to Laisamis and Marsabit, or eastward to Garissa on the Tana River. Also through Isiolo, a road ran north-eastward to Habaswein and onward to Wajir, with a roughly parallel route farther north through Archer's Post and Melka Galla to the same destination, which was no more than a frontier fort and customs station set up in 1928 to control the smuggling carried on over the Italian Somaliland border.12
In peacetime the whole of the N.F.D. was a closed area. Maps suitable for military purposes did not exist. The tracks were hard on tyres and consisted--in the words of the seasoned settler, Clelland Scott--of "varying densities of sand, rocks, stones, lava belts, sand rivers and stumps". There were only two rivers, and elsewhere one had to depend on the few widely scattered wells. To the north and west there was fine scenery, with the dry-looking, thorny scrub cut by rough hills and precipitous mountains. The amount of game was surprising, as grazing seemed very sparse. But after rain this veritable desert bloomed, with wild flowers abounding, bushes fresh with green leaves and the ground lush with grass.13
The five routes radiating over all this vast area from Nairobi would have to form the vital supply arteries and main lines of communication for any force hoping to reach the borders of Abyssinia or Italian Somaliland, and Maj.-Gen. D. P. Dickinson, commanding East Africa Force, had an unenviable task. The frontier between Kenya and Italian-held territory ran through uncharted bush and semi-desert for almost all its 1,900 km from Lake Rudolf to the sea. Only along the rocky Goro Escarpment about Moyale had there been attempts at cultivation. The 480 km belt of the forbidding N.F.D. lay between this border and the heights of the Mau Range, the Aberdare Mountains and Mount Kenya, with its rocky pinnacle towering above the snow to overlook the cedar, camphor and yellowwood forests dominating the fields of coffee, wheat and maize dotted about the predominantly stock-raising countryside. The Equator ran a few kilometres north of the great peak.
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Map 2: East Africa and AbyssiniaThe only points of any importance in this enormous area of aridity beyond the Highlands were the few waterholes at the meeting points of ancient camel caravan tracks. Such were Wajir--with its Beau Geste fort and a few "dukas" of mud facing the Somaliland border-- and the elevated oasis of Marsabit, almost midway between Archer's Post and Moyale, with the Kaisut Desert to the south of it and the Chalbi and Dida Galgalla deserts to the north-west and north-east, dissolving into waterless plains surrounding a miserable outpost further east on a hill at Buna.
In the south-east of the colony the Tana River ran through Garissa and Bura on its way to the sea at Kipini in Formosa Bay,
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and offered some sort of defensive obstacle shielding the port of Mombasa as well as the little resort of Malindi some 105 km to the north-east of it. The river was also the home of countless mosquitoes, crocodiles and hippos, giraffes, elephants, buffalo and all manner of antelope. Even an occasional thirsty lion appeared at the water's edge.Almost equidistant on the other side of the frontier, the Juba River offered the Italians an even better defence line well in advance of Brava and Mogadishu. Between the two rivers, as far as was known, the country was totally waterless, and what tracks existed were primitive in the extreme. Any attempt at capturing the Italian port of Kismayu would require resources of motor transport and a water-carrying capacity far beyond anything at Maj. Gen. Dickinson's disposal. He could do little more than try to establish patrol superiority over the desolate area separating his own scattered forces from those of the enemy,14 whose employment of Irregular "Banda"* was matched by Somali Irregulars and later by Abyssinian companies on the British side. The 1st African Division on the right was stretched from Malindi to Bura on the Tana River and then along its banks to Garissa, while 2nd African Division carried the very thinly-held line westward from Wajir with garrisons at Marsabit and Lokitaung but virtually nothing in between.
Enter the Sappers
No South African infantry had yet arrived, but 16 Field Company and the advance party of 36 Water Supply Company--the only unit of its kind in Africa15--disembarked at Mombasa on June 16 and were met by Capt. Mullins16. The field company left a section under 2/Lt. A. N. Gill to assist in building a field hospital and transit camp at Mombasa, and another section under 2/Lt. A. I. Sussman detrained at Kabete camp site, but the rest went on to Gilgil, beautifully situated in a thriving cattle district some 2,000 metres above sea level and about 144 km from the capital.
The Sappers immediately started preparing camps near the railway station at Gilgil and at nearby Langa-Langa, where Maj. Oldfield's headquarters were established. The water supplies at Langa-Langa and the Malawa River were at once developed by 36 Water Supply Company, which was the first unit issued with its motor vehicles and thus became landed with all transport tasks around the camp, including the fetching and distribution of rations.
In Nairobi on 21 June Maj. Ward Smith of 16 Field Company reported to Lt.-Col. Buller, who was now C.R.E. Field Units** and it was agreed that the unit would be kept on lines of communications duties for the time being. Maj. Ward Smith was given orders to build a pontoon bridge and throw it across the Tana River at Garissa, about 410 km east-north-east of Nairobi, on the dry-weather road towards the track to Hagadera and the Italian
*Strictly speaking, "Bande" in the plural.**The CRE--Commander, Royal Engineers--was the senior Engineer officer in any British formation up to divisional level, with a Chief Engineer at corps and army level, all under the Engineer-in-Chief in a particular theatre of operations.
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Somaliland frontier. With only a ferry operating at Garissa at the time, it was thought that a bridge would probably be needed by 1 August, and Capt. K. T. Gilson was put in charge of the task, and found that a 91-metre gap was to be bridged at a point where the water was about 1,18 metres deep and running at 3 knots in country where the glare off the white sand was extremely trying to the eyes.Thirty pontoons were ordered locally from the firm of Hartz and Bell, and the figure was soon increased to forty. Meanwhile, Lt.-Col. Buller had held discussions with the A.Q.M.G. and his South African counterpart about the availability of light railway track, and orders were issued to press on with improving the road to Wajir with all possible speed, using whatever equipment was available.
By 26 June a detailed survey of the bridge site was being made by a 16 Field Company reconnaissance party who were the first South African ground troops in the forward area. Next day Capt. Gilson returned to Garissa with Lt. Sussman's section to prepare approaches and get on with construction without attracting the attention of the enemy's air reconnaissance.
It was decided to make the pontoons only 4.57 m (15 ft) long, so that they could be transported on standard vehicles, and then, with the C.R.E. back on duty on 4 July, the Gold Coast Field Company promised to help with labour, and Hartz and Bell completed the first pontoon.
Using rectangular steel tanks fitted with artificial pointed bows, and with stout timber beams to carry the roadway decking, Capt. Gilson completed the pontoon bridge over the Tana 42 hours ahead of schedule. Its 20 pontoons were rafted and floated on the night of 25 July,17 and then stowed away out of sight against the bank before daylight. The success of the operation caused 1st African Division to cast covetous eyes on the South African Engineer unit, as they had no divisional field company of their own.
Engineer Organisation Sorted Out
The advance party of the S.A. Survey Company had now also reached Nairobi under Capt. C. C. Allen, and with more South African Sapper units expected, it was becoming a matter of some urgency to organise their command and administration on a proper basis. Thus, when the Engineer-in-Chief, Middle East (Maj.-Gen. H. B. W. Hughes) arrived at Kisumu by air from Cairo on 8 July, it was provisionally agreed that the Engineer organisation in East Africa would include a C.R.E. Corps Troops (controlling Pioneer and Works companies), a C.R.E. Works Services North (for the Nairobi and Nanyuki areas), a C.R.E. Works Services South (Mombasa and Tanganyika), a C.R.E. Uganda (including the Soroti and Juba routes--not to be confused with the Juba River), a C.R.E. Lines of Communication (for roads, water and transportation units), and C.R.E's for each of the three divisions in the field.
The whole organisation was to be under a Chief Engineer, with a deputy and staff, and it was agreed that field park companies would be added to divisional establishments.
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By the time the Engineer-in-Chief took off again on his return to Cairo on 10 July, eight works officers had arrived from South Africa to assist at Gilgil, Mombasa, Nairobi and Nyeri and in works services generally. More road equipment was still urgently needed in the N.F.D., and after conferring most secretly with the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East and the D.A.Q.M.G. on 13 July about future operations, the C.R.E. met Lt.-Col. Shannon to discuss road construction. It was decided that Lt.-Col. Shannon and Capt. East King should inspect the Shafa Dinka and Wajir roads to determine which could best be developed by South African road construction companies.After driving a small British force out of British Moyale in the north of Kenya on 14 July 1940 the Italians displayed no further initiative.
Construction of the base camps at Gilgil and Langa-Langa went ahead, with both the field company sections and the Water Supply Company in what was theoretically a works company role. The 16 Field Company's section at Langa-Langa, working from 6.15 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, was having difficulty owing to the shortage of gum poles, scantlings, pipe fittings and other materials, but 36 Water Supply Company was able to complete the water installation to accommodate 1st S.A. Infantry Brigade, who reached Gilgil on 25 July and were joined there four days later by 1 Field Company, who had sailed with the main body of the Water Supply Company, 35 Works Company, 37 Forestry Company and 28 Road Construction Company and landed at Mombasa on 28 July.
At Gilgil sufficient cover plus kitchens, ablutions and water, was available, but many tents were still being used,18 and 1 Field Company was soon assisting with camp construction, which was taken over by Maj. A. D. Hughes and 35 Works Company, who also began building a bridge on the road to Thomson's Falls. A section under Lt. D. C. Midgley moved up to Wajir to help build defences.19 Meanwhile, 16 Field Company continued its work at Langa-Langa and on a new hospital.
The foundations of a proper Engineer organisation for East Africa Force were at last being laid, and on 26 July an aircraft had landed at Nairobi from Pretoria, carrying Col. A. Minnis, who had been sent out from England as Chief Engineer and was accompanied by Maj. H. H. C. Sugden as G.S.O.(2) and Capt. J. H. Amers. Within a few days--though a final Engineer organisation was not yet established--long discussions were being held with the D.A.Q.M.G. and the Chief Engineer of the Kenya and Uganda Railways regarding ambitious plans for a projected new railway line to improve communications. More work in yet another field lay ahead of the S.A.E.C.
It was not until the arrival of a number of Royal Engineer officers and the other ranks of the new Chief Engineer's staff on 18 August-- the day before the Italians entered Berbera in British Somaliland-- that the Engineer organisation could take final shape, but already work could be arranged to fit in with the new dispensation. This left Maj. Sugden as G.S.O.(2) to Col. Minnis, with two Staff Officers--
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Maj. D. F. Roberts for the S.A.E.C. and another for East African Engineers--as well as an Intelligence Officer (Capt. J. T. S. Tut-ton), a Camouflage Officer (Capt. A. M. Ayrton) and a Surveyor of Works (Lt. H. A. Ackland). Apart from the Sapper units allocated to the three field divisions, this headquarters was to control a growing number of units through a D.C.E. Works and a D.C.E. Lines of Communications.Still more Building
At Gilgil, where the soil was impervious, difficulty arose owing to the impossibility of disposing of waste water by means of the usual French drain or soakaway, but Maj. Hughes of 35 Works Company overcame this problem by having 36 Water Supply Company drill boreholes down into the underlying porous lava formation, to which waste water was then led via a greasetrap. The local lava could be cut to shape even with a handsaw and came in most useful for constructing the ovens for a large field bakery at the camp, where Lt. T. C. Menne kept 35 Works Company well provided with venison as well as pheasant and trout for the officers' mess, as the country round about boasted streams well stocked with fish and teemed with game.
Though they had handed over their construction work in this idyllic-sounding setting, 16 Field Company was not free of building commitments, and on 3 August they sent off Lt. A. N. Gill and fourteen men to Malindi on the coast road north of Mombasa to build a camp there for an early warning radar station manned by Special Signals Service men and for the King's African Rifles. No. 2 Section was still at Garissa with 1st African Division and No. 3 was fully occupied on work at the hospital in Mombasa--where they had ten of their own men down with malaria by 6 September--and on fortifications and camouflage at Port Reitz aerodrome about 12 km from Kilindini harbour.
What might be termed the field company's first "contact" with the enemy came when Lt. Sussman of the section at Garissa reported that he and Lt. Mount Stevens of 3 Field Company, Royal West African Frontier Force, had located 12 unexploded bombs 5.6 km north of the road junction at Dololo. Having found out how these "duds" were fused by blowing them open with a light charge of gelignite, he then submitted working drawings to 16 Field Company headquarters and disposed of eight bombs on 24 August and the rest next day.
Maj. N. G. Huntly was already in Nairobi as Assistant Director of Survey when the main body of Maj. Short's S.A. Survey Company arrived at Langata Camp overland from Broken Hill on 3 August and settled down to training before moving to permanent quarters. They had a Trigonometrical Group of five sections, a Geodetic Section and an Instrument Repair Section as well as a Map Production Section and a Mapping (Photo-Topo) Group, but the latter had been temporarily left behind at Premier Mine. Two sections of the Photo-Topo Group, whose personnel were trained and equipped to
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produce maps either from air photos or by ground methods, joined the Company at Nairobi in December. The Lithographic Section of Mobile Map Printing and Printing Company was attached to the Survey Company at about the same time.Water, Water--Nowhere
As one Sapper unit from South Africa followed another to Kenya, so their specialised functions became more clearly separated, but as long as East Africa Force was still preparing to take the offensive, their duties continued to overlap. Nevertheless, the need for proper water supplies and good roads remained of the greatest importance and, if the roads of Kenya were atrocious from a military point of view, the water situation was even worse in the arid wastes separating the colony from enemy territory. The field sections of the Survey Company, already in the N.F.D., found the lack of water in the remote areas especially trying, and pack donkeys were their only suitable means of transport in some parts: The civilian drilling company which had previously been employed without much success was withdrawn on arrival of 36 Water Supply Company, and the South Africans rapidly deployed their eight drilling machines to cover the four important routes: Kitale-Lodwar-Lokitaung; to Marsabit including the Kaisut and Chalbi deserts; Wajir-Buna; and the road to Garissa.20
A boring plant was soon on its way to Habaswein, and on 5 August--the day the Italians entered British Somaliland--Maj. Oldfield and Lt. A. G. Richardson arrived at Nanyuki, followed by a detachment of 19 men who left for the N.F.D. under Richardson two days later. Part of the unit was still installing a pump, pipeline and reservoir scheme on the Malawa River and storage tanks at Gilgil, but the first borehole was actually drilled at Buna, the small outpost between Moyale and Wajir. Enemy Capronis took to bombing the rigs, and the boring machine was pulled back from the area.
The company soon realised that the Italians were locating the boring machines, which would naturally make tempting targets, by spotting the characteristic shadow of the mast. Trenches were dug, radiating from the machine, and the sun--no matter where it was--threw a pattern of shadows which brought an end to the trouble. The King's African Rifles detachment at the Buna outpost had to pull back in face of superior enemy forces, unfortunately, and the boreholes, which were already delivering a promising supply of water, had to be destroyed to prevent the enemy's benefiting from all the hard work that had gone into drilling them.
A Bombshell
As a result of 36 Water Supply Company's operations in the Turkana, the S.A.E.C. had its first offensive, and most irregular, brush with the enemy. When Capt. J. de Wet of the S.A.A.F. crashed at Lokitaung after his Fairey Battle had been badly damaged during a raid on Jimma, Lt. Oliver Carey was ordered to fly
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mechanics up from Nairobi in an old Vickers Valentia on 14 August. He landed among thorn trees near a 36 Water Supply company boring machine and was greeted by Lt. J. G. Lentzner, who soon heard how bored Carey was with transport flying and no action. Possibly feeling the same way, Lentzner decided to remedy the situation by packing a 44-gallon drum with sewing-machine parts, nuts and bolts and other spares found in an abandoned Indian shop. In the middle of this conglomeration of metal he put a good charge of gelignite.Fitted with a 60-second delay fuse, the home-made bomb was ready for use, and at 4 a.m. the transport pilot was called to inspect this masterpiece of the South African armaments industry. With fighter pilot Lt. Oscar Coetzee, A./Sgt. F. Squares, A./Sgt. Ted Armour and Lt. Joe Lentzner as crew, Carey took off as soon as the door of his Valentia had been removed and the 44-gallon drum loaded aboard. He headed eastwards over Lake Rudolf in the darkness and then swung to the north.
As day broke, the pilot told his "bomb-aimer", Lentzner, to stand by. Then he swooped low, straight for the Italian fort at Nama-ruputh till the aircraft was actually below the top of the walls, with the Italian machine-guns firing down on it. Lt. Coetzee was hit in the foot and the pilot was lightly wounded on the forehead before he pulled the ungainly Valentia up over a courtyard full of wakening soldiers, into the midst of whom Lentzner launched his extraordinary bomb by shoving it out of the doorway with fuse alight.
For some moments nothing happened. Then, as curious Italians began to recover from their surprise, the drum exploded with an almightly flash and killed a number of the hapless men. The whole incident was covered up with the connivance of an Indian medical officer attached to the Nigerians, and with air mechanics sworn to secrecy. When Intelligence picked up a Radio Roma report of an R.A.F. bombing attack on Namaruputh, unfortunately, the secret leaked out.
Within a month the pilot was transferred* to a more active squadron, but Lentzner remained with 36 Water Supply Company and on 19 August he returned to unit headquarters. Two days later Capt. F. C. Ellison and 24 other ranks were on their way to Lodwar in convoy, and Sgt. J. P. de Jager with another detachment was on the train to Kitale, en route for Kalin.
Maj. Oldfield, found that visiting his widely separated detachments was a strenuous task. To be completely self-contained, he used a 1-tonner to carry rations and a 3-ton truck for fuel, and armed himself with a double-barrelled shotgun. His one driver was an excellent cook, and could roast birds to a turn in a 4-gallon petrol tin oven. Exchanging their issue M & V rations for green peas when they contacted isolated units, they thus eked out their rations with fresh meat in spite of being on the move and many kilometres from
*There remains some confusion over the composition of the crew, who are shown, in a photograph in A Gathering of Eagles, the history of the SAAF, as Lt. J. Lentzner, Sergeant F. Squares, Lt. C. S. Kearey (sic), Spr. du Toit and Sgt. E. Armour. However, in the pilot's own version on page 81 of the same volume, Lt. Oscar Coetzee is mentioned, without Spr. du Toit.
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civilisation. The unit commander's vehicles covered some 80,000 km during the campaign.Lt. J. G. Lentzner, detailed to supply the infantry with water, had set out on his return to Lodwar on August 24, before the Dukes and 1 Field Company left Gilgil for the Turkana. There water supply and road maintenance became the main concern of the Sapper field section under Lt. D. A. Anderson, as the Turkwel River at Lodwar soon ran dry. Forward posts at Lokitaung and Kalin were some 144 km north of the Dukes' battalion headquarters at Lodwar, and at Kalin itself a series of waterholes offered the only dependable supply for many kilometres unless 36 Water Supply Company's small detachment could discover more in an area where the average daily temperature could reach over 100° Fahrenheit. The field company section had to send a detachment back to the Nepau Pass to help 36 Water Supply Company's handful of men with well sinking.
The 1 Field Company section remained in the Turkana until shortly before the Dukes were relieved on 7 October,21 the day after 3 Field Company--having arrived overland at Nairobi on 2 October-- was ordered to Gilgil from Nanyuki.22
The Water Supply Company, however, continued operating in the Turkana, where Lt. Lentzner was responsible for some very fine work, not only in connection with his normal duties but also (as the only Engineer officer at various times) for demolition work after air attacks. The success of water supplies in this extremely arid area was largely due to his untiring efforts with only a handful of men and under most trying conditions. Cpl. A. S. van Wyk proved himself a particularly capable and industrious leading driller and N.C.O. He had also been with the rig evacuated from Buna under enemy pressure, and did such magnificent work in that area and in the Turkana that he was awarded the B.E.M.
It was not long before Maj. Oldfield's Water Supply Company found itself facing an unexpected difficulty. At each watering point which his specialists established, he found that he had to leave a couple of Sappers to operate the equipment they had installed. With road construction companies, whole brigade groups of infantry and other arms all requiring water, the drain on a single unit's manpower was absolutely disproportionate, and after many complaints and requests a Water Maintenance Unit was formed to solve the problem.
Boring machines were widely scattered in a continuous search for water, and the unit was already pumping water at the Malawa River pumphouse and at brigade headquarters, and covering the pipeline from the pumphouse to the main reservoir while awaiting the arrival of the rest of its personnel. Before the end of October a detachment was building a settling tank and reservoir 19 km out of Nairobi at Ruiru, and from there they would lay pipes to the Mitubiri camp just north of Thika and install a 6,5 h.p. Ruston engine.
A detachment under Lt. A. C. Stimson left Gilgil on 2 September for Nyeri, to provide water for the hospital, which was a big task involving even plumbing to all blocks. Some three weeks later Lt.
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Lentzner's detachment at Lodwar left for Kalin but was first diverted to sink a well at Lokitaung.Since the Dukes had decided not to defend the existing perimeter, Plant No. 41 at Kalin had had to be moved to drill at a new site, where work was in progress when Capt. F. C. Ellison was informed that an enemy raiding party was approaching. Machine-gun fire was heard and a guard put on the machine, but fortunately nothing untoward happened. The test pump had to be used for the rest of the month to provide troops in the area with water.
Work at Ruiru continued throughout September, and another detachment was kept busy on wells at Nguni and at Tomboni. Drilling at the 5-Mile post on the Isiolo-Garba Tula road was several times interrupted by enemy aircraft, and at Lak Boggal, midway between Habaswein and Wajir, boreholes were unsuccessful. North of Ndege's Nest efforts were equally disappointing and some holes at Habaswein had also to be abandoned, largely owing to clogging by sand. Maj. Oldfield's own headquarters at Langa did numerous jobs in the area.
The vital search for water was being pursued in earnest, and on 3 October 3 the 42 Geological Survey Section under Maj. H. F. Frommurze reached Mombasa. They soon had reconnaissance parties out to select possible water-boring sites, and the unit headquarters moved into Langa camp. One detachment worked its way eastward through Garissa, a second conducted its search for water north of Kitale, and a third operated between these two in the region stretching from Marsabit right up to Mega. Using magnetometers and electrical resistivity apparatus of more than one type, highly professional Sappers gathered information on subterranean geological structures which gave them an indication of where water might be found. They were thus of immense help to the water-boring parties, and actually located 40,7 per cent of the holes which successfully yielded potable water. Numerous other sites were indicated, where water was also found, but regrettably it turned out to be brackish.23
On every main route in Kenya, detachments from 36 Water Supply Company could be found, and hopes alternately soared and sank as boreholes gave unpredictably good or poor results. No serious attempt could be made even to close up to the frontiers without adequate water not only for the troops themselves but also for the growing mass of vehicles and machines which any reasonably equipped modern force required.
The local well at Lokitaung had dried up, but Sgt. J. P. de Jager's crew found some water at about 20 metres, to the great relief of the men guarding the main approach from Abyssinia. Another company of infantry was at Kalin, a few kilometres farther west, where the waterholes still provided the only dependable supply for many kilometres.
Two enemy aircraft flew over the South African drilling site near Lake Rudolf on 20 October, and on the 24th one team found 1,100 litres an hour and began erecting a 4,500 litre tank to supply a company of 25th E.A. Brigade, whose headquarters were now at Lokitaung. On instructions from Force Headquarters, Maj. Oldfield,
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Capt. G. L. Paver of the Geological Survey Section, and Capt. F. C. Ellison even carried out a survey of the Soroti-Juba route, with a view to increasing the water sources for convoys carrying supplies overland to the Middle East.At Nyeri, the Water Supply Company did much work on the hospitals during November, but there was no slackening in the widespread search for water everywhere. Detachments were constantly on the move, with No. 9 alone working at Habaswein, Isiolo, Laisamis, Marsabit and then at Garba Tula during November! Boreholes were drilled on the Thika-Garissa road, at Laisamis and at Marsabit, at Lak Boggal, Habaswein, Muddo Gashi and elsewhere. Apart from the inevitable disappointment felt when a hole did not yield any water, the only incident which marred the company's month was the death of Spr. G. P. Cocklin on 8 November as the result of a motor-cycle accident.
Build-up of the Forces
With the training of an effective force in Kenya a matter of urgency, every type of Engineer company was inspanned to do a variety of jobs, regardless of its conventional role, and there was an unending demand for materials, firstly for the construction of camps to receive the increasing flow of troops and, once road-building began, for the construction or improvement of bridges. The call for timber grew more clamorous by the day, and when 37 Forestry Company on 29 July 1940 marched into Camp No. 3 at Gilgil they barely had time to settle in before they were fully occupied constructing buildings and adapting to a works company role. This kept them busy until 5 August, when the unit commander, Capt. F. S. Laughton and 2/Lt. D. J. Strauss visited Nairobi to see Col. Craig. Joined by Capt. H. R. Roberts of 35 Works Company, they left on 9 August for a reconnaissance into Tanganyika to an area close to the railway line linking Tanga with the Mombasa-Nairobi line by way of Taveta, which had been a keypoint in Gen. Smuts's campaign in German East Africa in 1916.24 They were particularly interested in the Shume sawmill in the Usambara Mountains forest, and returned on 22 August.
Parties of men from the Forestry Company were being taken out not only to Naivasha on the lake north-west of Nairobi, but also to the forests north of Gilgil, where they worked during the last few days of August and throughout September, felling and delivering sisal poles and papyrus as well as bamboo for construction of Camp No. 13 for the infantry. Base works continued, but preparations for active operations were only in their infancy.
Maj. Ward Smith's headquarters and No. 1 Section of 16 Field Company pulled out from Gilgil on 2 September, picked up No. 3 Section in Nairobi and took the road northward through Thika, to camp at Mitubiri and report to the C.R.E., 1st African Division, in which they became divisional troops, though normally a division's field companies were attached to its constituent brigades. When Maj.-Gen. H. E. de R. Wetherall, commanding the division, visited
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What it was really like. Dominion troops, during a lull in the righting in France during World War I,
rest or write home from the shelter of a trench.
What it might have been. A section of a World War I pattern trench
constructed by 5 Field Company at Auckland Park, Johannesburg early in 1940
The military hospital at Nyeri, where 36 Water Supply Company as early as the first week of September 1940<
began establishing the water supply and 33 Works Company completed construction of essential services later.
No fewer than seven South African roads companies served in East Africa, and some of their Sappers are here seen<
constructing one of the many culverts they had to build in establishing reasonable lines of communication in Kenya.
the company on 5 September, the main topic of discussion was inevitably the problem of water, but on 11 September Maj. Ward Smith's headquarters, and No.'s 1 and 3 Sections moved to Mwingi, the former going on next day to Garissa to relieve No. 2 Section. There they soon began preparing an anti-tank minefield and fortifying the forward defended localities, before Capt. K. T. Gilson left on 24 September for a promotion course in South Africa.
By the end of the month Lt. B. P. Stewart had had 4,000 holes dug forward of the Dannert wire at Garissa, and 1 180 mines had already been laid to discourage an advance by any enemy who might incredibly manage to cross the 150 km or so of barren scrub between the Tana River and the Italian border at this point. The mines, made up in Nairobi--since none were available for issue locally-- were primitive but effective, and were assembled and armed in the bush.
An improvised mine made in NairobiThis improvised mine was quite effective, but the company's "bag" comprised only one elephant and a giraffe, and the Sappers had eventually to lift their own minefield.
Game was plentiful in the Tana River area, where 16 Field Company was bombed several times by Capronis. Local Somalis were then encouraged to guide the Sappers to any unexploded bombs so that the mechanisms could be examined and reported on, but on one occasion a Native threw a stone into a cluster of palms and annoyed two hitherto hidden elephants. The huge beasts stormed the Sapper party, who turned and ran. When they did eventually return, the elephants had vanished into the forest but Spr. Hoffman was impaled on thorns in thick bush and had to be painfully extricated before the searchers could continue their exploration, which uncovered some interesting "duds".
Headquarters and No. 1 Section of 1 Field Company left Gilgil for Wajir on 18 September to construct defensive works, and for the night of 20-21 September they halted some 16 km beyond Habaswein and posted sentries to look out for enemy raiding parties. A guard, alerted by the sound of someone moving and suspecting hostile Banda, opened fire and was soon horrified to discover that he had killed Spr. R. A. H. Simpson and seriously wounded Spr. G. D. Jackson, who was rushed back to 4 Gold Coast Field Ambulance at Habaswein but died early the following morning.25
Sadly the company went on to assist in the construction of the Wajir defences, which would keep them occupied for almost five
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weeks, with 55 men from 35 Works Company also hard at work within a few days. At a conference at the Gold Coast Engineer headquarters, it was decided that 35 Works Company would build pillboxes while 1 Field Company attended to the construction of tank traps, and in fact the works company not only attended to the main fortifications but later also built a bombproof hospital and command headquarters. Italian aircraft dropped incendiaries and high explosive anti-personnel bombs, which left the Sappers the additional dangerous task of disposing of the unexploded bombs,26 and Lt. Midgley also found that the original design for the pillboxes was not really satisfactory. Adjustments had to be made, especially for the use of Bren guns.There had been but one permanent airfield in Kenya at the outbreak of war, and it could accommodate only a single squadron.27 With Capt. Mullins directing work on airstrips and landing grounds,28 some facilities had already been improvised, but on 8 October Lt. Sussman's section of 16 Field Company was given the immense task of clearing another landing ground at Chesmarapa, some 60 km north-west of Garissa and close to the Tana River. No less than 564,367 m2 of bush had to be pulled out without bulldozers, but Sussman and his Sappers set off on 10 October and used their own 3-tonners instead, by removing the tailboards and lashing tree trunks about 2,7 metres long and 0,27 metres in diameter across the back of the lorries. Reversing at full speed, the driver declutched to save the transmission just before hitting a tree, which then broke or was uprooted if the effort was successful. Though this method worked, it hardly ensured a long life for the 3-tonners, but once the bush was cleared a road grader was to be provided to level the runways. It was arranged that a 3-tonner fitted with a treble-sheave 3-inch tackle would cope with the larger trees.
Training Depot
The Engineer Training and Base Depot, with 1,020 all ranks under Maj. C. B. Stewart reached Gilgil on 5 October and considerably increased the South African Sapper strength in East Africa, where it soon became the S.A.E.C. Training Section of No. 1 Base Reinforcement and Training Depot, S.A. Forces. Meanwhile, haying arrived at Nairobi on 2 October and being placed under 2nd African Division, the 3 Field Company now had Lt. J. C. Smuts's section at Habaswein and Lt. E. Morley's at Garba Tula, though the rest of the unit remained at Nanyuki for a fortnight. Then company headquarters moved up to Wajir to assist with the tank trap, which was being hewn out of almost solid rock with the aid of blasting. Nearby wells were also cleaned out and developed29 and a 36 Water Supply Company boring machine moved up from Lak Boggal.
Demands for S.A.E.C. services had thus already spread beyond the requirements of the Mobile Field Force itself, and on 20 October Maj.-Gen. Brink visited Col. Minnis in hospital and agreed to the provision of a South African field company and a field park company for each of the two African divisions, in addition to the full S.A.E.C.
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complement for the Mobile Field Force. Both 3 and 16 Field Companies were involved, together with 17 and 19 Div. Field Park Companies. Further requirements for Corps Troops and the lines of communication would be discussed when the Chief Engineer visited South Africa, which he was not able to do for some weeks.By 21 October 3 Field Company had taken over from the 1 Field Company detachment at Wajir, and the latter were on their way to join their other sections at Habaswein. At Wajir itself, after seeing the difficulties of excavating a tanktrap in limestone, 35 Works Company experimented with "non-setting" mud made by mixing local soil with sodium carbonate in a suitable pit. A S.A. Tank Corps crew eventually got a light tank out of this mess, but were very unhappy about having to clean the mud out of the tank tracks.
Maj. D. H. Levinkind's 33 Works Company disembarked at Mombasa and entrained for Gilgil the day 3 Field Company took over at Wajir, and they soon started work on drainage for No. 3 Casualty Clearing Station and on additional camp buildings, water supplies and reservoirs to provide for the increasing number of units reaching the theatre.
To the east, 16 Field Company now remained with 1st African Division, and on 18 October they sent Sgt. H. A. Wright and 20 men southward to build two bridges over the Lak Tula, a watercourse running into the Tana about midway between Garissa and Bura. The unit transport involved in tree-pulling at Chesmarapa landing ground continued to take a hammering and the Sappers there, almost on the Equator, had no protective troops as a safeguard against cut-throat "Banda" patrols. Two sections were still on defensive works near Garissa, when three Caproni bombers on 19 October made an unsuccessful attack on the new pontoon bridge over the Tana River.
The heat was so oppressive in the area that daytime work was impossible after 12.30 p.m., and the older men were particularly affected. By 24 October no fewer than 31 members of the field company--with some 250 effectives under normal circumstances-- were in hospital. The end of the month found heat exhaustion taking serious toll. Then the rains began, causing floods which delayed completion of the second bridge over the Lak Tula by washing away the foundations.
Though 16 Field Company headquarters remained at Garissa, the unit had also to operate the 1st African Division field park dump 192 km back at Mwingi on the road to the Tana from Thika.
Matters of Policy
There was still no agreement in the highest quarters as regards any aggressive action in East Africa. Maj.-Gen. Brink, flying from South Africa on 20 October, discussed future operations in Kenya under Lt.-Gen. Dickinson, but even after a quick visit to 1st S.A. Infantry Brigade at Habaswein, he was left with only a very vague idea of operational plans. Meanwhile, the 2nd S.A. Infantry Brigade
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under Brig. F. L. A. Buchanan had arrived at Mombasa on 21 October and entrained immediately for Gilgil.30To avoid future confusion, East Africa Force renumbered the two divisions already in Kenya, making them 11th and 12th African Divisions, and on 28 October Gen. Wavell landed at Khartoum in the Sudan with Mr. Anthony Eden for discussions on the situation in East Africa. Gen. Smuts, Lt.-Gen. Sir Pierre van Ryneveld and Lt.-Gen. Dickinson were already there, together with Lt.-Gen. Alan Cunningham, who had been selected by Wavell to replace Dickinson, whose health was failing. Knocking out the Italians in East Africa, Gen. Smuts stressed, would release significant forces for use elsewhere.
The period of the "short rains", from October to December, was already upon them in Kenya, seriously affecting mobility on the inadequate roads and tracks. And the "long rains" could be expected during March-May. Reasonably dry weather might be enjoyed in the coastal areas from December to March, and again later, from some time in May until October, and this had a vital bearing on any planning of operations against Italian Somaliland from Kenya.
On 29 October Gen. Smuts arrived back at Nairobi, with the new G.O.C., East Africa Force, Lt.-Gen. Cunningham. Visiting South African troops, the South African C-in-C had a few brief moments with his son at Wajir, and gained fresh personal knowledge of local conditions from the many officers to whom he spoke. It was left to Gen. Cunningham to examine the possibility of capturing Kismayu at the same time as forces from the Sudan moved against Kassala in January 1941,32 just after the "short rains".
The new G.O.C., East Africa Force took only a fortnight to advise postponement of any action against Kismayu until after the Spring rains, which meant that the attack could not be made before May 1941. Of particular significance to the Sappers was his anticipation of great difficulty in moving and supplying his troops across the wide stretches of desert before the frontier of Italian Somaliland.
Gen. Wavell wished to carry out only minor operations on the northern front of Kenya during December, and Mr. Churchill was shocked. Even the Chief of the Imperial General Staff hoped the attack on Kismayu in the south need not be postponed,34 and the capture of this port as another sea base remained a priority task for East Africa Force.35
No matter what plans might be hatched in Cairo, London or Pretoria, however, no large-scale operations were possible from Kenya without better roads and the availability of water. East Africa Force headquarters was well aware of the fact. With a pre-war Minister of Defence convinced that South Africa would not have to make her maximum effort until six months after the outbreak of hostilities, and under a government committed right up until the outbreak of World War II to a policy of non-belligerence, the build-up of the U.D.F. could only have been directed in peacetime towards what its name implied--namely defence. Even after Italy joined Germany against the Allies, neither side could seriously have
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contemplated major operations across the forbidding desert separating Kenya from Abyssinia or Italian Somaliland, and no one responsible for the higher direction of operations from London could have realised the potential of South Africa's engineering resources, especially in the direction of road building and water boring. Yet within South Africa itself there existed a capacity ideally suited for making the crossing of the desert possible.
Nowhere else in the Commonwealth at that time were there any units like the South African road-construction organisations and the Irrigation Department, who could mobilise whole companies which could move quickly to Kenya, together with their superb plant, skill and experience.
Initial forays into the N.F.D. could be little more than experimental, but once its possibilities had been realised by the S.A.E.C, the invasion of Italian East African territory became a feasible proposition with significant consequences for the Middle East. Once started, an offensive could nevertheless become bogged down, but the very nature of engineering in South Africa at that time ensured a supply of resourceful men used to thinking for themselves and to overcoming difficulties even in enterprises on the largest scale. The future was to show that military success throughout East Africa and Abyssinia would have been almost impossible without the S.A.E.C.
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Contents
Previous Chapter [2] ** Next Chapter [4]
ANNOTATIONS
1. History of the Second World War--Grand Strategy, Vol. I, pp. 664-665.
2. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 5.
3. Nine Flames, p. 12.
4. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, pp. 5, 6.
5. SA. Sapper, February 1967.
6. Eastern Africa Today, p. 235. [No footnote marker in text.]
7. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 29.
8. La Guerra in Africa Orientate, Allegato I.
9. The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol. I, p. 94.
10. The South and East African Year Book and Guide, pp. 782, 797-799, 806.
11. Eastern Africa Today.
12. The South and East African Year Book and Guide, p. 960.
13. Abyssinian Patchwork, pp. 58, 59.
14. Wavell's Despatch, Supplement to the London Gazette No. 37645, (H.M.S.O.) London, 10 July 1946. p. 3558.
15. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 29.
16. Nine Flames, p. 13.
17. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 29.
18. The Dukes, p. 78.
19. SA. Sapper, February 1955.
20. Nine Flames, p. 17.
21. The Dukes, pp. 79, 82.
22. Militaria 6/1, 1976. p. 4.
23. SA. Sapper, May 1955.
24. The South Africans with Gen. Smuts in German East Africa, p. 71.
25. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 37.
27. The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol. I, p. 69.
28. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 38.
29. Militaria 6/1, 1976. p. 4.
30. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 57.
31. ibid. p. 58. [No footnote marker in text.]
32. The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol. I. p. 392.
33. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 62. [No footnote marker in text.]