Midshipman's journal (128pp) covering his service in the battleship HMS GOLIATH (September 1914 - March 1915) including her passage from the United Kingdom to India and then, as a convoy escort, to Mombasa (September - October) and her operations in the East African campaign, notably the blockade of the German cruiser KONIGSBERG in the Rufiji River and the bombardments of Dar-es-Salaam and Lindi, and then in the light cruiser HMS HYACINTH (April - July 1915) with descriptions of further operations against the KONIGSBERG including the interception and sinking of one of her supply ships and the attack on her by the monitors HMS SEVERN and HMS MERSEY; together with two Army field message books kept when he was commanding a Naval Lewis Gun Detachment in German East Africa (March - June 1917), a Night Order Book containing steaming orders for the battleship HMS WARSPITE on the Mediterranean Station and in the North Atlantic (December 1938 - January 1940); and an Admiralty pass and Admiralty Constabulary membership card issued to Murray when he was a Rear Admiral.
Microfilm copy of an informative and well-written ts diary (127pp) kept during his work with the Consular Service in East Africa, July 1914 - December 1916, referring to the confusion which the declaration of war brought to the colonies; his hazardous journey with other British subjects from Dar-es-Salaam, where he had served as British Consul, to British-held Zanzibar; his trip to the British East Africa Expeditionary Force headquarters in Simla, India, where he briefly acted in an advisory capacity before returning to British East Africa and gazetted Political Officer to the Expeditionary Force (September 1914); his irritation with the vagaries of his position and series of stop-gap appointments; his involvement in the disastrous British landing at Tanga, just within the border of German East Africa (November 1914), as interpreter on board HMS FOX, whose mission was to make a reconnaissance of Dar-es-Salaam (November 1914), and as part of the successful expedition to take Mafia Island (January 1915), the first German territory in East Africa to be captured by the British; returning there the following month to take up the post of Political Officer, he describes his handling of native disputes, the monotonous routine of life on the island and his leisure activities of hunting and fishing, eventually returning to the United Kingdom on medical leave (September 1916). The diary incorporates a large number of photographs, taken by Sir Norman and relating to events described in the text.
No 59. 6 pp. ND (February 1917) No 60. 8 pp. 17 March 1917 No 61. 3 pp. 29 March 1917 No 62. 6 pp. 13 April 1917 No 63. 8 pp. 4 May 1917 No 64. 4 pp. 17 May 1917 No 65. 1 p. 19 May 1917 No 66. 2 pp. 4 July 1917 No 67. 2 pp. 4 July 1917 No 68. 1 p. 12 July 1917 No 69. 1 p. 19 July 1917 No 70. 1 p. 25 July 1917 No 71. 4 pp. 12 August 1917 No 72. 1 p. 26 August 1917 No 73. 2 pp. 5 October 1917 No 74. 2 pp. 25 October 1917 No 75. 3 pp. 15 November 1917 No 76. 14 pp. 1 January 1918 No 77. 4 pp. 6 January 1918 Writing during the troopship voyage to South Africa, Mountfort reflects on his year's service in France and concludes: If the hardships had not been mitigated by the society of real good fellows, many of whom I am glad to think will be my friends in after life - "though some are fallen asleep" - I honestly don't know if I could have endured them, though I suppose I could (No 59). On his arrival in South Africa he was posted to the 25th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers - the "Frontiersmen" - who had been serving with the East African Expeditionary Force, but were now doing garrison duties while they were being brought back up to strength. The local people looked after them very well since, writes Mountfort, "out here a private soldier is assumed to be as likely as not a gentleman" (29 March), but the garrison duties at Wynberg and Cape Town Castle brought in their wake "the increase in discipline and strict attention to all the piffling little trifles that constitute three fourths of the evils of army life" (13 April). He sought consolation in the fact that ". until the end of the war Africa seems to be a much more desirable spot than Europe" (4 May). The 25th Royal Fusiliers eventually returned to active service in East Africa in July 1917 and Mountfort's first impressions of his new theatre of operations were far from favourable. "This coast is a fever-stricken hole.. however I pump quinine into myself and keep smiling" (4 July). The climate proved as much of an adversary as the Germans and August found Mountfort in a comfortable base hospital at Dar-es-Salaam recovering from a bout of dysentry. At the end of the month he was back at Lindi waiting to go up the line and, by the time of his next letter (5 October), he was ". well out in the bush and life is not exactly a continuous whirl of pleasure." A stiff action with the Germans and the ravages of the "horrible, infernal climate" made serious inroads into the Battalion's strength and by November Mountfort, mentally and physically exhausted, was burdened by the onerous responsibilities of being acting CQMS. The final two letters were written from a hospital in Durban, where he was convalescing after an attack of fever. Out of 200 men in his Company, only seventeen had been able to march into the camp at Lindi at the beginning of December after their operations in the bush. On a brighter note, Mountfort gives an entertaining description of some of the troops with whom the 25th Royal Fusiliers had served in East Africa and an amusing account, of a "surprise" landing up the Lukuledi River carried out by the 'Silent Navy.'
Philip Kerr (1886-1941) was working at the Crown Mines in South Africa when the war broke out, and at Johannesburg on 26 September he enlisted as a Trooper in E Squadron of the Imperial Light Horse. After barely a fortnight's training, the Imperial Light Horse were ordered to the front to help put down the rebel forces under Maritz - ". the news was received with shouts of joy.." (10 October). They entrained for Prieska and then made a long and very tiring march across country towards Uppington. These "days of heat, dust and dirt" were followed by a couple of inconclusive skirmishes with the rebels and, finally, a fiercer action with a rebel force under Kemp, in which ten men from the Imperial Light Horse were killed (25 November). Although Kemp escaped, the government's hold on Uppington and the surrounding area was secured. In early December 1914 the Imperial Light Horse returned to Cape Town and later in the month they were landed at Walfish Bay in German South West Africa (28 December). Resistance was minimal, and Swakopmund was occupied within a few weeks, proving a rich source of booty for the South African troops (22 January 1915). Occasional counter-attacks were launched by the Germans, but Kerr did not see any further action before he was invalided back to Cape Town in March. During his convalescence and leave, he was offered a post on the Governor-General's staff, which he declined (7 May), and witnessed the anti-German riots in Johannesburg (12-16 May). At the beginning of June, he was discharged from the Imperial Light Horse and sailed home to volunteer for service in the British Army. In July 1915 Kerr was commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery and, after training in Ireland, he crossed to France in October and was posted to 114 Battery, 25th Brigade RFA, 1st Division, then in the Hulluch-Loos sector. The contrast with the cavalry skirmishes of the "gymkhana" war in Africa was painfully obvious: ". there are a good many dead people lying about, which is rather beastly" he noted (29 November). Apart from frequent German shelling, the sector proved a peaceful introduction to trench warfare, and Kerr settled into his task of acting alternately as observation point officer and liaison officer with the local infantry. The behaviour of Major-General A.E.A. Holland, the RFA commander in the area, did, however, anger Kerr and explain to him why relations between staff and regimental officers were so unsatisfactory (11 December 1915, 21 February 1916).
This group of records consists of typescript copies of the War Diary, usually compiled at the end of each month, of the Nyasaland and North-Eastern Rhodesia Frontier Force (abbreviated to Nyasa-Rhodesia Frontier Force) while serving in German East Africa under the command of Brigadier-General (later Major-General) E Northey ADC.