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2 4 Making Men Mobile
There were no good roads leading up to the area where 1st African Division was stationed round Garissa or even to points further up the Tana River. However, 28 Road Construction Company, having reached Nanyuki by train from Mombasa on 29 July, was temporarily quartered in the prison camp when they received orders to maintain the existing road running north-east from Isiolo through Garba Tula, Muddo Gashi and Habaswein to Wajir, and then to construct a new road, with particular attention to the 96 km section across the murderous lava belt, which played havoc with the tyres and springs of motor transport.
Three days later Lt.-Col. S. B. Shannon--who seems to have been indiscriminately designated C.R.E., Lines of Communication, R.E. Roads or D.C.E., L. of C.--accompanied Maj. J. McLennan of 28 Road Construction Company, Col. A. Minnis and the C.R.E., Maj. Wears, on a trip across this lava belt, reconnoitring through Wajir and right up to Buna before the area was covered from the air a day or two later by Lt. E. R. Massey of the road construction company.
After further reconnaissance by 28 Road Contruction Company through Archer's Post to Shafa Dinka, it was decided on 8 August that a new road to Wajir should be built along the existing route from Isiolo rather than on the more northerly course from Archer's Post, which roughly followed the Uaso Nyiro River as far as Melka Galla. Within 48 hours Lt. A. G. Hawarden and 28 men from the road construction company were on their way to Lion's Camp, some 9.6 km from Isiolo to establish a headquarters camp and start clearing. While retaining its base at Nanyuki railhead, the company now had its headquarters at Lion's Camp with No. 1 Construction Section. The No. 2 Construction Section was at the turnofffor Shafa Dinka, about halfway up the road to Garba Tula, and five maintenance camps were established.
Some 63 Natives were working with the company, which was handicapped by an outbreak of German measles. The greatest problem, however, remained the insufficiency of water, which 36 Water Supply Company and the Geological Survey Section were trying to locate all over Kenya.
By 17 August the hard-pressed forces in British Somaliland were
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already evacuating Berbera, but in Kenya work had only begun on the development of quarries and the maintenance of the Isiolo-Wajir section of the road towards the Italian Somaliland frontier post at El Wak and the more southerly crossing of the border at Gerille, some 100 km east of Wajir. Grader patrols were at work, sometimes well in front of the foremost infantry, and soon No. 2 Section of 28 Road Construction Company moved out to begin road-building, just before the welcome arrival of another officer and 26 other ranks of 36 Water Supply Company, who might help towards overcoming the water shortages, which were seriously affecting the road workers, with their numerous water-cooled machines and the need for compacting road surfaces.
The labour situation was also causing concern when the Headquarters Section of the road construction company moved out of Nanyuki, but on 23 August the 2nd African Division agreed to help with two Pioneer companies, and road-building could really go ahead.
Further Roads Units Arrive
Three enemy bombers on their way to attack Isiolo and Archer's Post on 21 September left the road construction Sappers undisturbed, and a few days later there were discussions in Nairobi regarding accommodation for both 28 and the newly arrived 26 Road Construction Companies. The advance party of the latter had reached Mombasa under Lt. Wally Plantema, and some 250 men of the East African Military Labour Services arrived to help with road building. By the first week of October construction gangs from 28 Road Construction Company were busy on the worst section through the lava belt on the way to Wajir.
The 26 Road Construction Company, whose main body had joined its advance party at Mombasa, proceeded to Nanyuki, and within a few days had despatched a detachment under Maj. W. R. Greathead to Garissa. There they crossed the Tana over the pontoon bridge built by 16 Field Company and began constructing a road running north-east to Hagadera. The heavier equipment such as the bulldozers had to use the ferry, which was still operating.
Italian Savoias which bombed the heavily wooded area of the approaches to the river while they were being improved by road construction Sappers did no damage, and the detachment was protected on the ground by a company of the King's African Rifles under Capt. Lord Mornington while working east of the river.
On 25 October Maj. E. D. Fergus of 29 Road Maintenance Company, which has reached Mombasa in the Durban Castle on 21 October, was at Maj. McLennan's headquarters for discussions, after sending a detachment to work on the Thika-Garissa road. Little attention was yet being given to any northward route, and within three days of Maj. Fergus's visit to Maj. McLennan, part of 29 Road Maintenance Company had started building--not maintaining--a road to the site selected for divisional headquarters at Gilgil. By the end of October, 1940 the company had four sections
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already on their way to work on the Wajir road, while company headquarters was established at Isiolo.
Within a matter of days the unit's parties had become widely dispersed, with attention now also spread to the north. There were men now working at Archer's Post on the way north to Marsabit, at Merille and even further north at Laisamis, and Maj. Fergus, Maj. East King, Capt. G. V. Lewis (the company Second-in-Command) and the District Council Engineer inspected a 48 km stretch of the Thomson's Falls road further south for the location of water, a better road and gravel pits. Next day, 5 November, though two maintenance gangs were left kilometres off to the east at Habaswein, the Section Commander, Lt. D. K. Bateman, was back again at Nanyuki. Soon the men in the Thomson's Falls area were opening up quarries and grading, while also helping to prepare a camp on the Uaso Nyiro River, which rises in the valley between Mount Kenya and the Aberdare Mountains. The Merille drift on the Marsabit road had to be repaired, and early in December a completion date was already being estimated for the Thomson's Falls road, where double shifts were being worked. Lt. F. C. M. Voigt's section was busy on the Isiolo-Archer's Post stretch and had camps at Archer's Post, Laisamis and Marsabit.
Towards the end of November a detachment of the Water Supply Company, on moving to Thika, found that 25 Road Construction Company under Maj. F. J. Hugo had arrived there some days previously and that 26 Road Construction Company was maintaining the road to Garissa. On arrival of its own equipment, 25 Road Construction Company took over this task and the road onward to Hagadera. The 26 Road Construction Company detachment east of the Tana River then rejoined the main body of its own unit, which had established itself at Archer's Post and was now working on the route northward through Marsabit. With Maj. W. R. Greathead leaving to join Col. Shannon's staff, Capt. J. E. Beveridge took over command of 26 Road Construction Company, with Capt. G. F. W. Plantema as his Second-in-Command.
By the time 12 Field Company and 2nd S.A. Infantry Brigade were taking over from the East Africans at Marsabit at the very end of November, the road had already been constructed as far as Merille, only 105 km south of Marsabit, and South African road construction Engineers were pushing ahead as fast as possible with the help of the East African Military Labour Services.1
The Eastward Routes
Before the end of November 25 Road Construction Company had moved up to Garissa and had a section under Lt. J. H. Edwards working down one side of the Tana towards Bura. Another section crossed to the opposite bank in charge of Capt. R. D. Hawkins and, with Kismayu as obvious future objective, in mid-December they began work on a road eastward from Bura to the frontier some 150 km away at Colbio.2
On moving its headquarters down to Bura, Maj. Hugo's company
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came under 11th African Division. Its detachment under Capt. Hawkins was now the division's most advanced unit, and had to be protected by a company of 1/4 King's African Rifles, with an askari as a lookout on each machine to spot enemy aircraft, which could not be heard by the operators above the noise of their own engines. Every night the Sappers all returned to camp, with its Dannert wire perimeter to protect them.
It was in this area that 25 Road Construction Company used an elevating grader for the first and last time during the war. The idea, Lt. Edwards recorded, was to grade off the top of the adjoining grey-black sand clay soil and then lift up onto the road the underlying material which contained some moisture. This, it was hoped, would enable some compaction to be obtained for the road material, while also raising the road level slightly. The machine worked quite well, but was unfortunately very cumbersome to move.3
Maj. A. F. Steven's 27 Road Construction Company, having sailed from Durban on 1 November, had moved up from Mombasa to the railhead at Kitale and worked northward on the most westerly route of all, running into the Turkana and up to Lodwar.4 This road had been reconnoitred by Lt.-Col. Shannon, Maj. Steven and Mr. Kerr of the Public Works Department right up to the northern tip of Lake Rudolf, and steady progress was made with the unit's plant, which was in good condition even though its vehicles had done 32-48 000 km each.
In between the Lodwar and Wajir routes, 26 Road Construction Company kept working on the road through Laisamis to Marsabit, which involved construction across some 32 km of the Kaisut Desert, a powder bowl of silt formation. So bad was the dust in dry weather that trucks had to travel at about 750 metre intervals, and even then drivers, engines and whatever was being carried became smothered in fine powder. No material was available for hardening the road surface, and lava boulders brought from north or south simply sank into the powder and became a danger to the sumps and differentials of the vehicles.
Lt. S. A. R. (Sieg) Kleyn of 26 Road Construction Company-- who had been Materials Engineer in the Transvaal Provincial Roads Department--partly solved this problem of the talcum-fine surface by locating sandy material which had enough body to stabilise the surface. What little vegetation there was consisted of only sparse grass or small bushes, and he observed that the grass grew on a sand clay while the bushes grew on the silt. For more than half the distance it was found possible to construct a road over the sand clay simply by grading, and for the rest of the distance a 25-centimetre thick layer of sand clay was spread over the silt to form a reasonably good, dust-free road, though awful corrugations of loose sand developed and made travel most uncomfortable.
Arriving on 15 December, Maj. G. B. Weale's 30 Road Construction Company moved immediately to Nanyuki and then took over the Isiolo-Marsabit road, especially the frightful Kaisut Desert section. Already 28 Road Construction Company was also preparing to move up to Marsabit, and the road construction companies, with
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their fine equipment manned by men who had worked together for years, greatly impressed both Col. Sir Brian Robertson, the A.Q.M.G., and Lt.-Col. Sugden, who was chief of staff to the Chief Engineer, now Brig. A. Minnis.
With his company camping in the Marsabit forest just above the Balessa Bangoli crater, Maj. Weale and his 30 Road Construction Company were instructed to take over work on the Marsabit mountain section of the road from Isiolo and to gravel the road southward across the Kaisut Desert, where it had by now been shaped up by 26 Road Construction Company, who had a detachment following up to build high-level bridges across various watercourses between Isiolo and Laisamis.
Completing a move to a site about 9.6 km beyond Garba Tula on 21 December, the 28 Road Construction Company was soon also on its way westward and then north to Marsabit, with 12 per cent of its men laid low with malaria by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Lt.-Col. Shannon had asked East King, now a major and Group Commander of the East African Military Labour Service, to provide 50 labourers for 30 Road Construction Company's new camp and 300 more to work on the road itself towards the end of December. On Christmas Eve Maj. Weale conferred with the commanding officer of 26 Road Construction Company on the future employment of their respective units, and Maj. E. D. Fergus, after conferring with Lt.-Col. Shannon and Lt.-Col. A. Fraser-Lawrie of 1st S.A. Division was instructed to continue all road maintenance on the other road, from Isiolo to Wajir, and to take over road-building across the northern end of the Lorian Swamp at Habaswein and elsewhere along this route, using plant from 28 Road Construction Company. In addition, they were to look after the newly constructed road from Isiolo into the Kaisut Desert behind 1st S.A. Division, and within a few weeks they were maintaining this northern route right up to the start of the ascent to Marsabit.
With all this new road construction and the improvement of existing communications, the proper surfacing of roads became increasingly important, and on 22 January 1941 a 48 Bitumen Road Construction Company was formed by S.A.E.C. Headquarters in Nairobi to help cope with the problem. One officer--Lt. W. Holling-dale--was immediately posted to the new unit, together with a Staff Sergeant, two sergeants, two corporals and five Sappers. No authority was ever received from D.H.Q. for the formation of the unit, but nevertheless, with a nucleus of 28 Sappers, it was soon ready to start work. Not long afterwards the company--which was only later officially established--returned to South Africa to be brought up to full strength.
By that time, though work was still being pushed feverishly ahead on communications in Kenya, active operations were already in progress and continually afFecting lines of communications units as the situation developed in unexpected directions.
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Base Expansion
While no large-scale movement of troops would be possible without the provision of water and roads in Kenya, it was just as clear that there could be no large number of troops to move in any direction without the necessary accommodation and facilities for their initial concentration and training at base. Thus work went on unceasingly far from the forward areas, and throughout November 36 Water Supply Company Headquarters remained at Langa Camp, where they drilled no fewer than 194,374 slats for "desert track", repaired boilers, welded parts of trucks and a windsock frame and even made a surgical instrument for No. 5 Casualty Clearing Station as well as repairing vehicles for 12 Field Ambulance, S.A.M.C. Detachments from the company were busy all over the N.F.D.
During November 33 Works Company was kept busy constructing reservoirs, camp buildings and a quarry, while a detachment of 112 men did still more building work at the reinforcement camp at Nairobi before Lt. J. K. Leach and 70 of them moved to Nyeri to build a King's African Rifles camp there. Engineer work at Gilgil never stopped, and by the end of the month 33 Works Company was spread out with four officers and 104 other ranks at Gilgil, where 5th S.A. Infantry Brigade had arrived on 28 November without its field company.
On 2 December the Commanding Officer of 33 Works Company received orders to build a Special Signals Service station at Thika. Their fellow-Sappers of Maj. C. W. J. Sandrock's 34 Works Company had been busy far away at Broken Hill aerodrome and nearby camps ever since arriving there on 29 August, and a detachment had spent most of November constructing a blind flying station at Mbeya in Tanganyika before the whole unit began preparations for the move from Broken Hill to Nairobi.
Lt. D. C. Midgley's section of 35 Works Company began moving back from Wajir to Gilgil early in December, but Lt. T. C. Menne's section went south to transport 10-15 metre timber poles for use as piles for proposed permanent road bridges over the Tana at Bura and Garissa. Many specialists of 37 Forestry Company had spent ten days during October at the Elburgon Plantation, felling, preparing, transporting and loading into railway trucks scores of poles for use in building of camps at Gilgil, but on the 25th the unit prepared to move to Tanganyika.
Once settled at Shume in north-eastern Tanganyika during November, the forestry Sappers found themselves fully occupied, with a party under 2/Lt. D. J. Strauss overhauling plant and machinery, two mills, a cableway linking them to the railway line at Mkumbara, power units and a forest locomotive. A wooden gantry had to be demolished, log ramps built and an overhead track erected at one mill by men under Lt. A. D. Mitchell, while track had to be relaid and loading ramps and slip-paths built in the forest by a party under 2/Lt. A. S. Roberts. All sorts of repairs were necessary before production could begin. Nevertheless, Capt. Laughton's men were on the way to providing much-needed timber for the troops in
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Kenya by mid-December, by which time Gen. Cunningham's available forces had reached a total of some 77,000 men, with Engineers outnumbering all individual services other than the infantry and the supply personnel of "Q" Services.5
With The Fighting Divisions
With its long overland journey from Broken Hill to Nairobi at an end on 5 October, 19 Div. Field Park Company, after a brief stay at Tigoni, was encamped at Nanyuki near a clear mountain stream in a cedar forest. Capt. A. M. Steel saw Lt.-Col. W. I. S. Oates the C.R.E., and met Maj.-Gen. A. R. Godwin-Austen, commanding 12th African Division, with whom 19 Div. Field Park Company was to serve. They remained at Nanyuki until 14 October and then left for Garba Tula, in country covered with thorny umbrella-like Acacia trees. With scorpions, all kinds of insects and other menaces abounding on the ground, the Sappers soon found themselves employed on the unlikely task of manufacturing beds for the men, who felt that Mother Earth was hardly a desirable sleeping companion.
The unit also sank a well and obtained a good supply of water which was pumped into an elevated tank connected to a standpipe for the cook. A row of hand-made showers was suspended on trees, and this proved a great boon in the prevailing heat. In fact, the camp became a show place, and a popular overnight stop for those on the road between Isiolo and Wajir. The company improvised a number of handpumps for use in the ancient shallow wells at Wajir, and the officers travelled widely to discuss unit requirements with the field companies, collect stores and reconnoitre the country while the unit remained based at Garba Tula until 11 January 1941.
With 1st S.A. Infantry Brigade still with 12th African Division, 1 Field Company had concentrated at Habaswein and most of the unit's men were wiring the perimeter defences there or supplying water to the troops as well as doing road repairs. One battalion was garrisoning Melka Galla to the north-west of Habaswein, and the field company had a party permanently maintaining the water supply at this point on the Uaso Nyiro River. At the end of November, 1 Field Company moved up to Wajir, mainly to ensure an adequate supply of water for 1st S.A. Infantry Brigade, which now concentrated in the area of the picturesque fort. The brigade, together with other units of 12th African Division, including 3 Field Company--which was about to go to 25th E.A. Brigade--had just completed a rehearsal in the Arbo area for an attack on a forward locality known to be occupied by the enemy, but unfortunately it was found on subsequent reconnaissance to have been evacuated.6
By 13 November the clearing of the Chesmarapa landing ground by 16 Field Company had been completed and two runways were being graded, with the third still to be completed by No. 1 Section. Six days later both the Lak Tula bridges were finished, and on 22 November the company moved back to a site at Kahawa with 34 men off ill. When the company went to Mitubiri after ten days, the change in climate was immediately noticeable and the general state
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of health improved. Here they also received 19 reinforcements from Gilgil, but they lost one of their best officers when Capt. AH. Rocyn-Jones left on 11 December for a course in South Africa, followed some days later by Sgts. H. A. Wright and W. A. Clark.
Fragmentation and New Vistas
So far, South African units other than the Sappers seeking water or building roads had seen little of anything but that part of Kenya facing Italian Somaliland, but with 1st S.A. Division Headquarters opened at Gilgil on 16 November,7 this was soon to change. Two days later 12 Field Company under Maj. G. F. Newby arrived overland from Broken Hill. Now attached to 2nd S.A. Infantry Brigade, they sent off a reconnaissance party next day to select a site for the brigade at Timau in the Nanyuki district, and Maj. Newby was instructed to erect a camp at Ngare-Ndare.
By 27 November the company less two sub-sections was on its way to Isiolo, where Capt. F. G. Zeppenveld and Lt. C. Macaulay had already reconnoitred a camp for 1st S.A. Division, whose G.O.C. on 20 November set out to reconnoitre well forward but got no further than Marsabit, which marked the limit of any real South African activity at the time. There he was held up with his party, including Lt.-Col. Fraser-Lawrie, owing to the atrocious state of the sodden roads now that the "short rains" had begun.
It had been decided, to Gen. Brink's disappointment, that 1st S.A. Division would take over only the Marsabit area, thus leaving Wajir to 12th African Division, which took 1st S.A. Infantry Brigade under command.8 Thus began the fragmentation of the South African formation which was to remain a cause of dissatisfaction throughout the campaign, and even later. At Marsabit, therefore, 54 E.A. Field Company handed over two water points to 12 Field Company as well as mines, borehole charges and other stores on 1 December, two days after 2 S.A. Infantry Brigade had reached there from Gilgil to take over from 22nd E.A. Brigade.9
Maj. L. W. B. Proctor had reached Isiolo with 21 G.H.Q. Field Park Company on 28 November after fifteen days of continuous travelling overland from Broken Hill. They began work almost at once on a camp for Maj.-Gen. Brink's divisional headquarters, with whom Gen. Cunningham in Nairobi wished to remain in close touch. Old King's African Rifles hutments were re-erected at the new site before 21 G.H.Q. Field Park Company took over all work from 12 Field Company, who were about to leave for Marsabit to join their own brigade. On 2 December a party left for Garba Tula on the eastward road, where 19 Div. Field Park Company was already building a 9.14-metre concrete bridge over the Golana Gof, a normally dry watercourse which ran eastward towards the Lorian Swamp.
The 1st S.A. Division was still incomplete in Kenya, but on 5 December the 5 Field Company--having left Sonderwater on the overland journey nineteen days previously--reached Gilgil. All three field companies of the division were now in East Africa, as was 21
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G.H.Q. Field Park Company which was in fact to serve as the divisional field park company. Unhappily for 1st S.A. Division, 1 Field Company was with 1st S.A. Infantry Brigade under 12th African Division, but 3 Field Company moved over to 25th E.A. Brigade, which now also came under Maj.-Gen. Brink's command. Lt.-Col. Fraser-Lawrie as Divisional Engineer Officer, thus had 3, 5 and 12 Field and 21 Field Park Companies at his disposal. Both 1 Field and 19 Div. Field Park Companies were with 12th African Division, and 16 Field Company was among divisional troops in 11th African Division.
While there were two Gold Coast field companies and one each from Nigeria and East Africa with the African divisions, ALL Sapper units among Gen. Cunningham's Force Troops were South African, and so were most of those elsewhere. In the engineering sphere, East Africa Force would have found it impossible to operate without the S.A.E.C. units sent up to Kenya.
Organising for Operations
East Africa Force, as the year 1940 approached its end, was able to organise on a three-divisional front, with 11th African Division on the right, 12th African Division in the centre and 1st S.A. Division on the left, though South African Engineer and artillery units were widely distributed over the whole front, with the former also spread throughout the rear areas and along the lines of communication.
On the Tana River the forward troops were about 370 km from railhead, and at Wajir, where Lt. D. C. Midgley of 35 Works Company had handed over the almost completed defence works to 52 Gold Coast Field Company, Brig. Pienaar's brigade under 12th African Division was even further from the railway. The 2nd and 5th S.A. Infantry Brigades Gen. Brink planned to move forward to Dukana, a frontier post where there was what the Afrikaans poet Uys Krige described as a hollow formed by brown-black lava hills studded by undersized, twisted thorn trees that afforded little if any shade.8 There, in a sun-scorched, desolate spot swept by red dust devils, they would be some 626 km from the nearest railhead at Nanyuki. The 25th E.A. Brigade at Lokitaung was already 455 km from the end of the line at Kitale. East Africa Force, with half a dozen South African roads companies available, was maintaining more than 2,000 km of roads, many of them impassable because of rain.9 And 1st S.A. Division Headquarters had not yet even moved up to Marsabit from Isiolo!
Accepted Policy
At a meeting in Cairo on 2 December 1940 the commanders of the forces in the Sudan and East Africa consulted with the C.-in-C., Middle East, and a policy for future operations was considered, with the stress on the recapture of Kassala near the Eritrean-Sudanese border in February 1941. Pressure was to be maintained in the area
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of Gallabat, further south on the Sudanese-Abyssinian frontier, and rebellion was to be encouraged in Abyssinia.10
In Kenya, all that was then envisaged was an advance to the frontier of Italian Somaliland on the line from Colbio (on the Bura-Kismayu track) northward to Dif (on the Wajir-Afmadu-Kismayu road), and the maintenance of pressure by small columns on the northern frontier west of Moyale, where the boundary line beyond Dukana was described on the military communications map as "not to be regarded as official". Small columns were to penetrate Abyssinia west of Lake Rudolf, possibly in conjunction with similar action from the Sudan.
Only AFTER the Spring rains--not until May or June 1941--was there to be any attempt at capturing Kismayu. Gen. Cunningham still did not think an earlier operation possible, owing to shortage of water and lack of transport." Not until the Spring or Summer of 1941 was there to be any penetration into South-Western Abyssinia either.
With Vichy's defection ruling out the use of Jibuti, and Berbera lost, Gen. Wavell considered operations to capture the Kassala-Sabderat-Tessenei triangle in the Sudan and Kismayu in East Africa entirely divergent, both being designed towards a flank. Operations should be convergent and aimed at the area south and east of Lake Tana--on the general line Gedaref-Gallabat-Gondar from the Sudan and north or north-east from the area of Lake Rudolf in Kenya. Kassala and Kismayu were desirable objectives merely to guard the flanks.
Pre-war military experts were unanimous that attack on Italian Somaliland from the south was impossible. The 400 km stretch of low-lying bush country between the Tana and Juba Rivers was not only waterless but also virtually without even paths except for the occasional game trail or camel track. The area north of the elevated oasis of Marsabit, forbidding though the arid deserts might be, seemed to offer better chances of advance. Even that was a daunting challenge.
The South African roads companies may already have reached Marsabit, but about 900 metres below its raised plateau there stretched a belt of some 128 km of lava rock and thorn bush in the Dida Galgalla--the Desert of Night--before one came to the high Goro Escarpment running south of Mega and Moyale. A single rough track which even the Sappers reckoned not worth improving linked Marsabit to Moyale, and the scorched rock, jagged stones, lava dust and sand along this route promised to play havoc with motor transport. The rough track from Wajir through Buna to Moyale had to climb the escarpment through bush so dense as to render movement almost impossible, and the final approach was guarded by virtually impregnable natural positions.
There was no other road from Marsabit to the Abyssinian frontier and the approaches to the lakes except by way of the track to North Horr, which ran north-west for about 44 km across the almost solid lava and then dropped to the pitiless wastes of the Chalbi Desert. Every vestige of vegetation had been seared by the sun that beat
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down mercilessly over the full length of dust on the route to North Horr for about three months of the year during the dry season. For the other nine months the whole vast and desolate expanse was a morass of mud, fenced in along its northern edge by a belt of impenetrable bush.
Nowhere was the immediate prospect inviting for East Africa Force, and every move could depend on the weather. Gen Wavell decided that East Africa Force should begin an advance to a forward line at once, stimulate revolt and plan for "Operation CANVAS"--the capture of Kismayu--about June, 1941. To get to any forward area, it was still necessary to build the necessary roads, and within five days of the meeting of senior British commanders in Cairo a section of 27 Road Construction Company was on its way to construct 112 km of all-weather road between Lodwar and Kalin in the westernmost sector in Kenya, while another section improved the Suk Pass and began a new road from there up to Lodwar. Further east and aiming up the other side of Lake Rudolf, 30 Road Construction Company was improving the road to Marsabit before the end of the month, and 28 Road Construction Company was already on its way from Garba Tula to press on with work which would carry the road forward to North Horr.
Meanwhile, the Chief Engineer had spent nearly three weeks most profitably in South Africa with Capt. J. T. S. Tutton and another Intelligence Officer, Capt. F. J. Field. By the time they returned to Nairobi on 4 December, Brig. Minnis had discussed policy with Lt.-Gen. Sir Pierre van Ryneveld. Capt. Tutton had met the Director of Field Army Engineering and senior members of the S.A.R. & H. to investigate the production of pontoons for bridging, and had visited the E.T.C. Talks had been held with Col. Greathead regarding materials for the extension of the railway line in Kenya, and the production capacity of Dorman, Long Ltd. at Germiston had been estimated, as they were already providing S.B.G. bridges and were prepared to produce their first Hamilton unit construction bridge within six weeks of receiving orders.
Capt. Field visited the survey section to examine maps and air photos for the selection of possible Juba River crossings, but though the S.A.A.F. photographs were excellent, they had insufficient overlap from the Engineer point of view.
Investigation by 42 Geological Survey Section had led to recommendations that permanent water supplies, suitably spaced, should be provided on the routes Kitale-Lokitaung, Isiolo-Marsabit-Mega and Garissa-Afmadu, and isolated gangs of drillers were working at widely scattered points, often naked from the waist up and covered in perspiration, mud and dust.12 A special study, made in collaboration with the Q.M.G. of the U.D.F., had led to the organisation of motor transport convoys for carrying water in special vehicles, and both 36 Water Supply Company and the Geological Survey Section were continuing their search for water. The field companies developed whatever supplies could be found while 12th African Division planned the first of the cutting out operations to clear the Italian outpost at El Wak in the course of closing up to the frontiers.
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Contents
Previous Chapter [3] ** Next Chapter [5]
ANNOTATIONS
1. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 67.
2. ibid, p. 31; Nine Flames, p. 41.
3. SA. Sapper, March/April, 1973.
4. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 32.
10. Wavell's Despatch, 10.7.46; pp. 3527, 3528.
11. ibid, 3528. [No footnote marker found in text.]
12. SA. Sapper, May 1955.
Transcribed and formatted by Roman Hruska for the HyperWar Foundation