START 10:22:59 Filmed from the first floor balcony of Government House in Nairobi, senior European and African Anglican clergy led by Bishop Stuart (?) of Nairobi conduct an open-air Service of Thanksgiving to mark V-J Day on or near 15 August 1945, the date of the Japanese surrender. The majority of the congregation appears to consist of personnel from the armed forces; Europeans occupy the front rows, Africans at the back although a lot of the seats just behind the front row where the Commander-in-Chief East Africa Command, the Governor of Kenya and their senior army, police and colonial officials are empty.

10:24:17 Lieutenant-General Sir Kenneth Anderson, Commander-in-Chief East Africa Command, reads the First Lesson to the congregation.

10:25:06 Sir Philip Mitchell, the Governor of Kenya, reads the Second Lesson.

10:26:55 Ground level views of the congregation attending the Service of Thanksgiving, revealing the facade of the large and imposing Government Building and the Stars and Stripes draped from the first floor balcony. At the end of the service, Lieutenant-General Anderson and Sir Philip Mitchell head the large number of people - armed forces personnel, European settlers and Indians - who enter the building for an official reception (?). Five senior British Army officers chat amongst themselves. A military band from the King's African Rifles with a British officer as band leader provides the music for the occasion.

10:28:12 The Victory over Japan parade in Nairobi. European servicemen and bank employees get a good view from a memorial dedicated to African troops who died in action during the First World War and from the top of the large Standard Bank of South Africa building overlooking the parade. A large multi-racial crowd forms to line the route. A senior British Army officer takes his place at the saluting base on Delamere Avenue. Led by US-manufactured M8 Greyhound armoured cars, a procession of African-manned Morris C8 Quad artillery tractors, limbers and Ordnance QF Mk III/1 25-pounder field howitzers, jeeps, Canadian military pattern 3-ton lorries and Chevrolet 15-cwt trucks moves slowly along the parade route watched by a large number of spectators. With their European officers at their head, African soldiers of the King's African Rifles shouldering their SMLE rifles with fixed bayonets and military musicians march along Delamere Avenue, followed eventually by male and female contingents from the Royal Air Force, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (?), the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), the Kenya Police and local Kenyan nursing and civil defence services. The crowd fills Delamere Avenue after the victory parade is over.

10:34:58 A Victory parade (?) in a garrison town somewhere in Kenya (Nanyuki ?) held on a dull and wet day. A King's African Rifles band leads African troops wearing smartly-laundered khaki drill and slouch hats but carrying no weapons and European troops (personnel serving with the Kenya Regiment or a British Army unit) into the municipal sports field through its oriental-style gateway. They parade around the sports ground. The salute is taken by a middle-ranking officer standing with two junior officers standing behind him in a partly-completed sports stand. Led by the band, the marching troops retrace their steps back into the town, accompanied by a scattered crowd of local inhabitants.

END 10:38:57

Allied victory over Japan is celebrated in Kenya.

Notes

Summary: John Wernham recorded audio commentary over this film on 14 May 1992, DVD Reel 5 "Reel 29" from 14.20 to 18.00.

The artillery unit seen parading down Delamere Avenue may have been the 307th (East African) Field Regiment RA which was still in Kenya when Japan surrendered in August 1945.

Remarks: This material, together with the rest of Wernham's film record of his time in East Africa, constitutes a valuable and possibly unique pictorial record at this time in the region's colonial history.