Orders, Decorations and Medals

An extremely rare Great War Lake Tanganyika Expedition D.S.M. group of four awarded to Seaman G. Behennah, Royal Naval Reserve, a member of that remarkable team of “Jack Tars” who transported two gunboats through 100 miles of African jungle to successfully challenge German superiority on the Lake in 1915-16 - and inspire C. S. Forester’s “The African Queen”

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (B. 3996 G. Behennah, Sea., R.N.R., Tanganyika 1915-6); British War and Victory Medals (3996B. Smn., R.N.R.); Royal Naval Reserve L.S. & G.C., G.V.R. (D. 3360 Sea., R.N.R.), minor official correction to surname on the first, one or two edge bruises, otherwise good very fine or better (4) £6,000-8,000

D.S.M. London Gazette 1 January 1917.

In the summer of 1915, the key to success in Central Africa lay in the overwhelming German supremacy on Lake Tanganyika. Just how this was challenged by a force of two gunboats - the Mimi and Toutou - commanded by an eccentric Naval Officer with a talent for public relations, Commander G. Spicer-Simson, is one of the most extraordinary stories of the whole War. Indeed no single achievement during that conflict was distinguished by more bizarre features than the successfully executed undertaking of 28 daring men who transported a ‘ready-made Navy’ overland through the wilds of Africa to destroy this enemy flotilla in control of the Lake.

Among these daring men was George Behennah - born at Meragissey in Cornwall in August 1886, he had enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve in February 1906 - who was embarked for Cape Town aboard the Llanstephen Castle in June 1915, following service in the cruiser H.M.S. Charybdis. Undoubtedly, therefore, he was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the whereabouts of which remain unknown.

To cover the three thousand miles or so that lay between Cape Town and the Lake, the boats had to be hauled by steam traction engines and ox trains over more than 100 miles of extremely wild and difficult country, where there were no roads or communications of any kind. The whole journey, by barely navigable rivers and narrow-guage railways, through country where sleep-sickness and other horrible diseases were rife, is one of the strangest passages in the history of the Royal Navy. By 23 December 1915, however, the Mimi and Toutou had been successfully launched on the Lake, and three days later they went into action.

It was on Boxing Day, which also happened to be a Sunday, and during the usual church service Spicer-Simson received a message of the impending arrival of the German ship Kingani. Coolly placing the note in his pocket, he returned his attention to the ongoing service, even though his officers - who were facing the Lake - could by now see the approaching enemy vessel. Much to the latter’s relief the service finally came to an end, and, having held up a hand to indicate that the men were not to be dismissed, Spicer-Simson took a long look at the approaching gunboat. Then he said, in a cool, clear voice, “Chief Petty Officer Waterhouse! You may dismiss the divisions - and man the launches for immediate action!”

In the ensuing engagement, it is probable that Behennah served in fellow Royal Naval Reservist, Lieutenant Arthur Dudley’s command, the Toutou, in which case he shared in the honours of the most hits gained that day, hits that resulted in the capture of the Kingani - shortly to be taken on the strength of the Royal Navy’s little flotilla and renamed Fifi, the first such enemy vessel to undergo such transformation in the War thus far. Then on 9 February 1916, in a hotly contested fight of three hours’ duration, the Hedwig von Wissman was sunk, an incident recorded in Petty Officer Waterhouse’s diary:

‘Our first hit from the Fifi’s 12-pounder exploded in the engine room, killing two and wounding one, all whites. Apparently after that all the whites that were left must have left the ship and left the ten blacks aboard; but we did not know and carried on firing till we saw someone waving a white flag. Then we ceased to fire but we had done our work very well, and she was on fire and sinking fast. She went down head first and looked a pretty sight sinking. We signalled to Mimi to rescue the blacks, for it was only then that we caught sight of all the whites away to port, for they had left their ship one hour, or about that, before she sank and left the colours flying and the poor niggers to keep them flying (Brave Germans).’

It would have been doubly satisfactory if the third and largest of the German ships - the Graf von Gotzen - could have been accounted for by the British Flotilla, but she did not risk an engagement. After being bombed by a Belgian aeroplane, she was scuttled by the Germans in Kigoma Harbour, on the eastern shore of the Lake. So ended Germany’s command of Tanganyika. Apart from the material loss inflicted on the enemy, the success of the Naval Expedition did much to enhance British prestige among the locals, not only in the immediate neighbourhood of the Lake, but in the northern districts of Rhodesia and in adjacent German territory.

In consequence of the great success of the expedition, Commander Spicer-Simson was awarded the D.S.O., three officers the D.S.C., and 12 ratings the D.S.M., among the latter being George Behennah, who returned from Africa in January 1917 and was demobilised in early 1919.

Although C. S. Forester’s famous novel The African Queen has a somewhat different story line, it was undoubtedly inspired by the Lake Tanganyika Expedition of 1915-16. So, too, of course, the subsequent oscar-winning film starring Humphrey Bogart; for further reading, in addition to the more well known title Phantom Flotilla, there is a superbly illustrated article, Transporting a Navy Through the Jungles of Africa in War Time, which appeared in The National Geographic Magazine in October 1922, by Frank G. Magee, and two interesting features in the Illustrated London News of 20 May and 3 June 1916.