NIGERIANS IN EAST AFRICA

Southland Times, Issue 24574, 24 October 1941, Page 5

NIGERIANS IN EAST AFRICA

TROOPS SHOW GREAT ENDURANCE (8.0.W.) RUGBY, October 22. Covering 1700 miles in 51 days, experiencing extremes of climate from the hot, dreary sea level to the bracing mountain air, as well as sometimes being reduced to only two water-bottles a day and at others suffering such torrents of rain that the transport became bogged, were incidents in the conquest of East Africa, in which a Nigerian brigade was engaged. Having crossed the continent to drive the Italians out of East Africa this brigade made an incredible journey from the Tana river in Kenya through Italian Somaliland up to Addis Ababa and even beyond that. The Nigerians’ first duty consisted of holding 250 miles of front in the Tana district, waiting for the Italian attack which never came. They put in tireless training, the benefit of which they and the whole Empire received when in February the signal for the advance on Kismayu was received. In two days this town was reached and found to be empty of Italians. The next move was to Afmadu and then across Juba to capture Mogadishu, which they readied after fighting three engagements and covering 235 miles. APPALLING COUNTRY The brigade then experienced a march over appalling country, chasing the enemy to Dagabur and Jigjiga. The next objective was Harar and in the advance on this important town the Nigerians met the second really organized resistance on the part of the enemy. They fought three pitched battles in five days and the Marda Pass, heavily guarded with a minefield, wire, tank traps and artillery, was forced in six hours’ fighting. A month after the brigade had left Mogadishu the Italians surrendered Harar to them and the Nigerians’ next town of call was the Abyssinian capital itself. Although the force was split for a while, when the Emperor Haile Selassie returned to his city in triumph a Nigerian battalion supplied the guard of honour. The brigade took part in the attack on Jimma and had two days’ hard fighting before the threat to the town was established. Even now a diversion awaited the Nigerian brigade before the capture was effected. Two Italian generals remained to be mopped up in the west. Rain had now added to its troubles and the rivers became more swollen and torrents at night washed away the work of the day, but the Nigerians got across and collected their generals.