Great War History

There were various naval actions around Africa, most notably in East Africa on Lakes Nyasal and Tanganyika. There were other actions such as that concerning the Konigsberg and HMS Pegasus on the East Africa coast. Less well-known are the West Africa encounters around Duala. In addition to the war on water, shipping played a significant role in moving troops and goods to the various theatres and home. None of the colonies/dominions had their own navies at the time and were reliant on the imperial country for naval support. There were however, tugs, whalers and other smaller vessels which each territory galvanised for war service and men from the different territories often served in the imperial naviws or British Mercantile Marine.
Locating who served on the seas can be quite challenging for the 1914-18 years, not least because documents were purposefully not kept, such as the crew lists of the Merchant Navy – only those for 1915 – and it was only if a merchantile crew member’s death could be directly attributed to military action that they were added to the CWGC listing, so for example, while the SANLC who lost their lives when the SS Mendi went down in 1917 are listed on the CWGC database, those of the crew are not.

List of vessels and other transport vehicles used in Africa during the war, includes developing chronology of port visits with links to source
https://gweaa.com/home/theatres/?pagename=home%2Ftheatres&file=c%2BTransport%2Bvehicles%2Bincl%2Bship%2Bnames.xlsx

Crew Lists of the British Merchant Navy – 1915:
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/blog/library-archive/crew-lists-british-merchant-navy-1915-new-online-database

Naval-History Log books of British World War 1 Navy vessels:
https://www.naval-history.net/OWShips-LogBooksWW1.htm
Army Despatches with naval mentions:
https://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritishLGDispatchesArmy1916-17.htm
An invaluable starting place for researching British ships involved in the First World War, including in Africa, is Naval History which covers the Royal Navy (support vessels).

At least 150 vessels, including blockade runners, are listed as having been in the African theatres of war: on the lakes and oceans. The spreadsheet contains details of the nationality, captain, capacity in which the vessel served, and references where known.
Crew names, where known, are on the relevant theatre of war name index spreadsheet which can be downloaded. In the British forces, men were either in the Royal Navy or Royal Naval Volunteer Regiment. Some served in the Royal Naval Air Service.

Blockades
To prevent German reinforcements getting through to the various fronts, the Royal Navy implemented blockades of certain coastlines.
1 March 1915– Blockade of German East Africa started
23 April 1915 – Blockade of Cameroon (more detail)

Major encounters included:
Action on Lake Nyasa (1914)
Konigsberg in the Rufigi Delta (1915)
The Lake Tanganyika Expedition (1915-1917)

A description of the various ports on route around Africa – Union Castle Line
https://www.bandcstaffregister.com/page1864.html

Archives
UK National Archives – ADM series

Publications including memoirs See the Bibliographic listing for more details and further publications.
GWAA – The Lake Tanganyika Expedition 1914-1917: A primary source chronology (vol 1: 1914-1915; vol 2: 1916-1933; vol 3 Index and biographical info)
Max Looff – Kreuzerfahrt und buschkampf, mit S. M. S. “Königsberg” in Deutsch-Ostafrika

Novels
2017 – Fred Khumalo – Dancing the Death Drill
2009 – Alex Capus – A matter of Time
2007 – Christopher Dow – Lord of the Loincloth: The Adventures of the Royal Naval African Expedition and its Intrepid leader, Commander Geoffrey Basil Spicer-Simson
2005 – Giles Foden – Mimi and Toutou go forth: The bizarre battle of Lake Tanganyika
1984 – Alan Scholefield – Kanonenboot auf den Tanganjika-See
1976 – Alan Scholefield – The Alpha Raid
1968 – Wilbur Smith – Shout at the Devil
1966 – Hugh Wray McCann – Utmost Fish
1940 – Christen P Christensen – Blockade and Jungle: From the letters and diaries etc of Nis Kock
1937 – Christen P Christensen – Sønderjyder forsvarer Østafrika 1914-18
1935 – CS Forester – The African Queen
1916 – Percy Westerman – Rounding up the raider: A naval story of the Great War

Something missing?
If you know of a resource others might find useful on this topic, please add it to the comments or let Anne know.

Name

Date

Size

 a Bibliography_Books-Articles-Reviews-Film and more

13 Oct 2026 07:59

1.78 MB

 b Names of survived and died WW1 Africa 1914-18

14 Oct 2026 18:12

10.35 MB

 c Transport vehicles incl ship names

1 Oct 2026 08:07

410.98 KB

 d Medical sources 1914-1918

7 Jul 2023 13:11

30.37 KB

 e Chronologies and Articles

7 Jan 2018 17:14

30.94 KB

 f Sundry topics - animals - micro-nations

12 Jun 2026 10:51

15.86 KB

 g DOA-Boell-Karte-7988

11 Sep 2023 10:27

9.6 MB

 h South African Personnel Cards

 

 

 i EA Mapping Project

 

 

 SANDF WW1 indexes

14 Oct 2026 08:01

90.18 KB

 TNA WW1 Africa indexes

22 Jan 2026 15:22

412.9 KB

 WW2 Africa names

1 Apr 2026 09:14

181.42 KB