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Uganda World War I
World War I transformed Uganda's military
establishment. Its
personnel grew from 1,058 to 8,190. Emergency legislation
upgraded the Fourth Battalion to a regiment. Former Fourth
Battalion personnel became part of the new Uganda
Regiment, which
eventually comprised six battalions. By the end of World
War I,
16,000 Africans had served in the KAR and 178,000 had
worked as
laborers in the carrier corps, primarily in East Africa.
The
British government awarded decorations to 155 soldiers and
mentioned the valor of many others in dispatches to the
crown.
Casualties in the Uganda Regiment included 225 deaths in
battle
or as the result of injuries; in addition, 1,164 died from
disease and at least 760 were wounded.
Ugandan soldiers saw little action during the interwar
years
but provided garrison duty on Uganda's northern frontier
and at
Meru and Lokitaung (both in Kenya). The colonial
authorities
reorganized the Uganda Regiment several times, however,
and
reduced its size to about 400. It included two rifle
companies, a
machine-gun platoon, a marching band, and a battalion
headquarters staff at Bombo. In addition, 169 soldiers
made up a
reserve force.
In 1930 British officials on the Committee of Imperial
Defence combined the remnants of the Uganda Regiment with
the
Third Battalion in Kenya to form the Northern Brigade,
headquartered in Nairobi. In the late 1930s, as World War
II
approached, Uganda's governor, Sir Philip Mitchell,
established
the Seventh Territorial Battalion to bolster security in
Uganda
while other troops conducted operations in Kenya. Northern
Ugandans dominated the army, although all major ethnic
groups
were eventually represented in the fighting forces.
Data as of December 1990
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