Revolt in Tanganyika

Unit/ Formation: 45 Cdo RM

Location: Taganyika

Period/ Conflict: 1960's

Year: 1964

Date/s: 25 January 1964

On the night of the 19/20 January 1964, at Colito Barracks in Dar es Salaam, the 1st Battalion of the Tanganyika Rifles mutinied.

The then President of Tanganyika, Julius Nyerere, called in a British force comprising 45 Commando Royal Marines and HMS Centaur to re-establish constitutional government. Barely 24 hours after the outbreak of the mutiny.

Settling in aboard HMS CENTAUR at Aden. Men of 45 Commando are issued with cots as she sets sail for East Africa © IWM A 34791

Centaur and its accompanying destroyer, HMS Cambrian, left Aden for East Africa, with 45 Commando, commanded by Lt Col Paddy Stevens embarked. The speed of this deployment was remarkable and an extraordinary logistical feat.

At the main Army barracks in Dar-es-Salaam, a Royal Marine Commando disarms one of the mutineers © IWM A 34798

Over the next three days, during the passage to Dar, intensive planning meetings took place. On the 25 January the assault on Colito started with a dawn bombardment by Cambrian and the Marines were lifted ashore by helicopter.

A wounded Tanganyikan is taken by stretcher from a Belvedere helicopter on the deck of HMS CENTAUR.

Once the focal point of the resistance, the guardroom, had been neutralised, the rest of the camp was swiftly overcome.