Kenya in World War II

[2] A drought in 1939–40 and accompanying crop failure, known at the time as the "Famine of the Italian", also encouraged Kenyans from the agricultural Akamba in eastern Kenya, who had not traditionally joined the army in large numbers, to enlist.

A tentative of enemy attack in the lake Rodolfo area has been defeated with the help of the local population (Daasanach tribe), with heavy losses for the enemy "Bollettino di Guerra" 36 of July 16, 1940 (Italian War bulletin 36)[5]On 6 September 1940, near Liboi a column the 2nd East African Brigade under British command was attacked and partially destroyed by a force of Banda and Italian Colonial infantry: it was the first action involving South African ground troops in World War II [6] The British troops later retaliated with a first attack on the Somali-Kenyan village of El Wak, but were not successful.

However before advancing into southern Abyssinia, General George Brink was compelled to protect his western flank and to deny water sources to the Italians.

[12] Finally, Moyale—70 miles southeast of Mega on the border between Kenya and Ethiopia—was occupied on 22 February by a patrol of Abyssinian irregular troops which had been attached to the South African Division.

[14] The vast majority of soldiers from Kenya, of whom most were volunteers, were overwhelmingly black, however racial segregation policies in the King's African Rifles and other colonial units meant that they were commanded by white officers and NCOs.

Nigel Gray Leakey, a white NCO in the King's African Rifles from Kenya, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in East Africa.

In 1942, the entire British Eastern Fleet transferred to Kilindini near Mombasa in Kenya, after its existing base at Colombo in Ceylon became threatened by the Japanese.

The Far East Combined Bureau, an outpost of the British codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park, was also moved to a former school in Kilindini in 1942, where it worked on deciphering Japanese naval codes.

[16] Significant numbers of Italian soldiers captured during the East African Campaign were interned in camps in Kenya, where they were used in civil infrastructure projects.

"we Africans were told over and over again that we were fighting for our country and democracy and that when the war was over we would be rewarded for the sacrifice we were making...The life I returned to was exactly the same as the one I left four years earlier: no land, no job, no representation, no dignity.