Remembering our WW II Veterans

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OPINION

By Amb Kintu Nyago

Tuesday, September 2, marks 80 years since World War II ended in 1945. The significance of this war in Uganda, is illustrated, in part, through peoples naming their children after it. Hence the name of our President, Museveni, derived from the Kings African Rifles 7th Battalion, that was mainly composed of Ugandan troops. These soldiers were referred The writer is a student of political science and political economy and Honorary Consul General of Eswatini in Uganda to as abaseveni.

Many children born when these smart baseveni returned after the World War, in their starched and well-ironed Khaki shorts, shirts, shinning black boots and long stocks were named Museveni! Folk songs were also composed praising them!

This war ended with Japan’s capitulation after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945.

Although this command was issued by newly installed President Harry Truman, astonishingly, Soviet leader, Marshal Joseph Stalin had known about the existence of these bombs before Truman! Truman only got to know about the top-secret Manhattan Project, which produced these bombs, two months before Hiroshima. That is, after assuming the presidency, with the death of President FDR Roosevelt. Previously, as vice-president, the Need to Know principle had kept him in the cold!

Stalin was informed by his intelligence. They further stealthily acquired from the Americans, British and defeated Germans the required technology to transform the USSR into a nuclear power. Hence, four years later, in 1949, the USSR tested its first atomic bomb! This dawned the Bi-Polar global order.

Africa contributed to the defeat of the Axis powers. Unfortunately, in Uganda, the sacrifices of our World War II veterans is all but forgotten. This is because the elite, under Milton Obote, who usurped political power after the 1966 constitutional abrogation, were detached from these struggles.

Carol Summers' article titled Ugandan Politics and World War II (1939-1949), notes that up to 77,000 Ugandan men enlisted in the KAR to fight in WW II!

Incidentally, Uganda produced the first Commissioned officers to serve in the British military. These included Lt Yozefu Musanje (MBE), son to Kabaka Rashid Kalema and his cousin Kabaka Capt. Daudi Chwa and brother Lt Kiweewa Suuna. They served in WW I. Later, Lt Suuna, like his father Kabaka Mwanga, was exiled, where he died in 1949, for his anti-colonial activities.

Ugandan Commissioned officers who served in WW II included Prince Capt. George Mawanda and Lt. Mikayiiri Kawalya Kaggwa. Others include Sgt. Wilberforce Nadiope, Sgt. Robert Kakembo, Sgt. Benedicto Kiwanuka and Sgt Jolly Joe Kiwanuka.

Nadiope became Kyabazinga of Busoga and Uganda’s vice-president. Makerere-educated Kakembo’s publication, An African Soldier Speaks, prominently articulated anti-colonial nationalism. It became the de facto voice of the WW II African veterans
and got banned by the colonial authorities!

Joe Kiwanuka was chairman of the anti-colonial UNC, and was a media proprietor and founder of the iconic Express Football Club! Benedicto Kiwanuka led the Democratic Party, was Uganda’s first prime minister and chief justice.

The KAR saw military action in Abyssinia, the North African desert and the dense jungles of Burma. One patriarch, Cpl. Paulo Maluge, who saw action in North Africa, named his son after their nemesis, German master tactician, the “Desert Fox” Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. British wartime leader Churchill also begrudgingly admired Rommel, and even issued his condolences in 1944 in Parliament, upon learning about his induced death by the NAZI regime.

Tragedy struck in February 1944 when a Japanese submarine sunk the SS Khedive, a troop ship carrier, in the Indian Ocean, near the Maldives Islands. Consequently, more than 1,000 Ugandan, Kenyan and Tanganyikan troops who were going to Burma to fight the Japanese perished at sea! They included the entire East African Artillery 301 Regiment!

Zachary Mburu, a Kenyan who witnessed this tragedy, on return from Burma, joined the Mau Mau rebellion.

Uganda also contributed materially to this war effort. Britain directly borrowed one million Pounds Sterling for this cause and further borrowed three million Pounds Sterling from Uganda’s Cotton and Coffee Funds! Hence, Uganda served as a donor through its toiling people!

The writer is a diplomat