START 10:26:00 Views of the jetty at the Headquarters of East African Naval Force (EANF) at Kilindini, Mombasa, as a small motor Royal Navy launch is seen arriving and departing; a Royal Navy armed trawler is partly visible two hundred yards or so offshore. An African naval rating in tropical naval rig on sentry duty in the grounds of the headquarters overlooking the naval anchorage at Kilindini. Close-ups of two African sailors in tropical naval rig in conversation with one another. Two American Ford (?) saloon cars motor along the perimeter fence of HQ EANF. An African naval sentry armed with an SMLE Mk III rifle guards the main vehicle entrance to the RN shore establishment.

10:27:44 Five African naval ratings are marched down by a Royal Navy Petty Officer to the jetty at Kilindini. They board a whaler, pick up oars and row out to a training vessel moored offshore; briefly visible at anchor in the background is a Royal Navy D-Class (?) light cruiser. The African naval ratings climb aboard their training ship (an armed trawler ?) and learn how to train and elevate an Ordnance QF 12-pounder 18-cwt 3-inch naval gun mounted on the vessel's foc'sle under the supervision of the Petty Officer.

10:29:30 The Petty Officer shows the African naval ratings a twin .303 Lewis Gun anti-aircraft mounting on board a naval cutter and points out to them the breech mechanism on each weapon and where to attach the two magazines, each with forty seven rounds of ammunition. An African naval rating familarises himself with handling the weapon and taking aim through its anti-aircraft sights. Other African ratings are seen sending signals with an Aldis Lamp (the signal lamp operator's Number 2 is seen copying the message with a pencil on a note pad) and with semaphore flags.

10:30:30 Twenty one African soldiers (either King's African Rifles (KAR) or East African Service Corps) arrive at Fort Jesus (?), Mombasa, in two battered Ford pick-up trucks and march down to the water's edge. From there they are ferried by boat to a dhow requisitioned by the Kenya Government. Once on board, the soldiers gather in the foc'sle to listen to instructions how to operate a dhow (?) from one of their European comrades (the Greek-born officer or NCO seen in AYY 1179). Afterwards, the hatch leading into the dhow's cargo hold is removed, allowing the men to inspect it. The men are then ferried back to shore.

10:34:19 Views of Allied shipping at Kilindini - in particular a tug boat and a cargo ship, whose tall funnel belches smoke as she prepares to head out to sea. On the quayside at Kilindini Docks, African soldiers serving with 11th (East African) Division carrying kitbags etc and their weapons prepare to embark for active service with South East Asia Command (SEAC). From the promenade deck of HMT Strathaird, an ex-P & O passenger liner pressed into wartime service as a troopship, the cameraman films African stevedores carrying heavy luggage up a steep gangway, accompanied by European soldiers serving with the East African Division and female NCOs of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). About eight or nine ATS women are seen walking along the portside lifeboat deck on the Strathaird and posing for close-up shots.

10:36:15 Four African stevedores unload a heavy wooden cargo crate from a railway box car on the quayside. Two big dockside cranes are seen loading stores into the forward cargo hold of HMT Strathaird; the cameraman focuses on one of the cranes and its African operator as it rotates on its four-legged mounting and lowers its massive jib each time it collects a cargo net of stores from the quayside and carefully lowers it into the ship. In the Strathaird's cargo hold, members of the ship's crew pick up the stores from the cargo net.

10:37:53 Assisted by tugs, HMT Strathaird, 664-feet long and displacing 22,544 gross registered tons (GRT), is slowly manoeuvred away from the docks at Kilindini; another troopship (the Motor Vessel (MV) Dilwara ?) is briefly visible in the background. Many of the Strathaird's military passengers can be seen lining the decks on her port side. A Royal Navy White Ensign flies from her stern. A large warship, possibly the battlecruiser HMS Renown, can be seen anchored in the background. An RAF 265 Squadron Consolidated Catalina flying boat flies on patrol overhead. Under her own power, HMT Strathaird then heads through the busy anchorage towards the Indian Ocean.

END 10:40:00

Scenes include training for African sailors and African soldiers departing by troopship for the British campaign against the Japanese in South-East Asia.

Notes

Summary: John Wernham recorded audio commentary over this film on 14 May 1992.

In 1942, the Kenya Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve was amalgamated with Naval Volunteer Reserves raised in Zanzibar (1938) and Tanganyika (1939) to form the East African Naval Force.

The 11th (East African) Division was transported from Mombasa to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in February 1944 before being sent to India for active service in Burma in the summer. During this movement, 1297 people, including most of the 301st (East African) Field Regiment RA, perished when the troopship Khedive Ismail was torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-27 in the Indian Ocean on 12 February 1944. It was the third worst shipping disaster suffered by the British during the Second World War. However, the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Strathaird, which P & O had been using on its Tilbury-Sydney route ever since February 1932, survived the war and was not withdrawn from commercial service until June 1961.

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.