The author explores the WW1 battlefields in the lee of Mount Kilimanjaro fought over by allied troops against the German Schutztruppe under Col. Paul von Lettow Vorbeck and what is left today. A piece about the East African campaign forgotten in the publicity of the Western Front and Gallipoli.
Views: 202 | Enquiries: 0I grew up in Kenya and served in the Royal Air Force, who also taught me to dive. On leaving the service I completed a commercial diving course, returned to Mombasa and was involved in salvage operations on the Kenya coast. In 1976 I published my first book on East African railway history and in 1977 became a commercial diver in the Arabian Gulf based in Bahrain and later established a marine salvage company. In 1982 I was appointed MD of a Kenya diving company in Mombasa responsible for operations in East Africa and later returned to Bahrain and established a new diving company with contracts in the Gulf and East Africa. With an interest in military history I was involved in the restoration of British forces graves in Bahrain, and the recovery at sea of a propeller from a crashed Air France airliner as a memorial to those killed and was honoured by the French government. In the 1990s I published a number of books on the military and transport history of East Africa and an acclaimed study of the German cruiser ‘Königsberg’ sunk in East Africa in 1915. Later writing articles for a number of aviation, medal and railway journals. In recent years I co-organised steam train safaris in East Africa and led World War 1 Kenya battlefield tours. Now resident in the UK, writing and research continues, together with presenting talks on a variety of subjects.
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