Page 12 - C:\Users\Owner\Documents\Flip PDF Professional\SHEPPERSON MEMORIAL SoMJ working copy\

Shepperson Memorial

refitting preparatory to a future offensive. Marching to the rear on Christmas Eve
th
1944, Sam noted that the 13 (NY) KAR sang lustily and non-stop throughout the
dusty march back to the airhead. They had performed amazing feats of work under the
worst conditions while also pushing back the remnants of the always dangerous
th
Japanese. He later wrote that the men of 13 (NY) KAR, with excusable
exaggeration, attributed the Japanese retreat in the Kabaw Valley to African valour:

6
Ajapani kundithawa china cha African.
7
(The Japanese are fleeing because of the African’)

Back in India, the division moved to Dimapur and then Ranchi in May 1945
where Sam and his soldiers trained intensely for the river crossings in the anticipated
final clearance of south-east Asia. But the dropping of the atomic bomb in August
1945 ended the war although it did not mean an early return home and most of the
askari did not return to Africa until well into 1946. However, as a priority worker,
Sam was demobilised early and had to leave his platoon in India although he would
later visit ex-members when he visited Malawi after the war.
Sam was a highly literary man with an enduring interest in poetry and wrote a
8
number of pieces himself including an article for this Journal. He also recognised that
the askari of the KAR expressed themselves in song; he had a fine voice himself and
remembered many of the songs heard on the march or around the campfire. Many of
these originated from traditional tunes or songs that grew out of the First World War
when the KAR became the pre-eminent force in the East African campaign.
st
nd
Malawians provided six front-line and two training battalions in the 1 and 2
Regiments KAR in fighting that lasted over four years in conditions that were
possibly even harsher than Burma as there was no air transport, movement was
largely on foot with only limited medical and food resources. By 1917, the KAR had
grown to be the biggest force in East Africa and would be instrumental in leading the
offensive until the end of the war. The endurance, suffering and stoicism of the askari
th
would be mirrored over twenty years later in both 13 (NY) KAR and the other nine
other battalions raised there during the Second World War. In both conflicts,
Malawian troops achieved military success and a high reputation under some of the
most difficult conditions of war.
There were certain similarities: hunger was reflected in askari songs of the conflict:

When I die, bury me at Zomba,
So my heart should pain.
Hunger hunger is painful, hunger.
Yes when I die, when I die, bury me at Zomba.
So that my heart should pain, hunger.
Yes hunger is painful,
Bury me bury me,
9
Hunger is painful, hunger.

Yet, when Sam wrote a poem to capture the spirit of the song of his own
askari, it reflected the change in technology but also the enduring theme of hunger:

6 Shepperson, George, ’Malawi and the Poetry of Two World Wars’, The Society of Malawi Journal, Vol 43, No 2,
1990, p.17.
7 Imperial War Museum, Holding 19666, Interview with Professor George Shepperson, Reel 4
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80018705.
8 Shepperson, George, ’Malawi and the Poetry of Two World Wars’, The Society of Malawi Journal, Vol 43, No 2,
1990, pp.9-19.
9 Professor Melvin Page Archive, Interview 11/11 with Maulidi Mwina on 15 August 1972.
4