When the guns opened up in Europe 99 years ago, on 28th July 1914, their thunder signalling the start of the Great War, later known as World War I, the German cruiser Koenigsberg on 31st of July slipped out of the harbour of Dar-es-Salaam. She left port before war was officially declared by Britain, managing to escape the watchful eyes of the British, a lapse they lived to rue in the early years of the war, which unfolded on and off the shores of East Africa with as much a vengeance as in the European theatre.

Across East Africa were the war cemeteries given a clean up for the occasion, not that it would be necessary really since the Commonwealth War Graves Commission keeps these locations in ship shape throughout the year, not just ahead of commemorations like the start or the end of the respective wars.

Read the whole post on the Aviation, Tourism and Conservation Blog