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Episode details

World Service,29 Aug 2014,9 mins

World War One in Africa

Witness History

Available for over a year

At the start of World War One, British and German colonial forces went into battle in East Africa. Tens of thousands of African troops and up to a million porters were conscripted to fight and keep the armies supplied. We hear very rare recordings of Kenyan veterans of the King's African Rifles, talking about their experiences of the war. The interviews were made in Kenya in the early 1980s by Gerald Rilling with the help of Paul Kiamba. Photo: Locally recruited troops under German command in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (then part of German East Africa), circa 1914. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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