HMS Tana - Mombassa

[Drobs]

Hi Listers
I'm trying to find out more about HMS Tana in East Africa where my grandfather was based in WW2.
He was stationed there between Sep 43 and Nov 45 as a Chief Canteen Manager and I'd like to know more about the base there.
I'm not sure how the troops arrived from UK in those days and which ships brought them to and from Mombassa.
I have found his service history and I think the other HMS locations were shore based not actual ships.
HMS Proserpine Aug 42 - Nov 45 (I think Scotland/Scapa Flow)
HMS Pyramus Feb 43 - July 43 (Orkney)
HMS Drake July 43 - Set 43 (Plymouth)
HMS Tana Sept 43 - Nov 45 (Kalinidini, Mombassa)
HMS Pembroke Nov 45 - March 46
Any information regarding the Mombassa base would be appreciated as I'm trying to find out what life would have been like out there at the time and what his role entailed
Many thanks
Drobs

[Tom L]

...I have been looking into Mombasa during WWII, and what life was like there, and it has proved to be a particularly poorly documented bit of history. All I have really managed to dig up is some stuff about the port protection in terms of anti-submarine defences, as well as the guns on the seaward side of the island.

In terms of what the on land bits and pieces were, I have had very little luck -just the odd titbit, about a lady who was a driver for Royal navy dignitaries who were passing through, and a few other bits and pieces.

There was certainly cypher work going on there, and there were flying boats operating out of Port Reitz, of which a Sunderland flew into a hillside near Voi, and a catalina was lost not too far out to sea, practising a new method of depth charging.

Mombasa was the main port for deployment of East African troops across to Ceylon and Burma, and was the port from which the convoy departed that led to the sinking of the Khedive Ismael was sunk with 1200 souls lost out of 1500 -the third worst troop shipping disaster in WWII. This, according to my father, was the result of a South African Sergeant who blabbed off in a bar in Mombasa. whether this was true or not, I have never been able to establish. I suspect not, and that it was simply used to reinforce the point of keeping your trap shut (my father was on the next convoy across to Colombo).

...so, all fairly general stuff, and nothing specific there. What were you interested in specifically?

Tom