Italian Conquest of British Somaliland - Order of Battle

Order of Battle

The Italian force attacking British Somaliland in August 1940 was commanded by Lieutenant General Guglielmo Nasi, General Officer Commanding Eastern Sector. The force included twenty-three colonial battalions of regular native troops in five brigades, three Blackshirt battalions, and three bands (bande) of dubats and other locally recruited irregulars. The Italians also had armoured vehicles (a small number of both light and medium tanks), artillery, and, most important, superior air support. The Italians numbered about 24,000.

On Italy's declaration of war in June 1940, the British forces in Somaliland had been placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Reginald Chater, the commander of the Somaliland Camel Corps. At the start of August, the newly-promoted Brigadier Chater commanded a contingent of about 4,000 soldiers comprising the lightly armed Somaliland Camel Corps, the 2nd (Nyasaland) Battalion King's African Rifles (KAR), the 1st Battalion Northern Rhodesian Regiment (KAR), the 3/15th Punjab Regiment and 1st East African Light Battery (four 3.7 in (94 mm) howitzers). They were joined from Aden on 7 August by the 1/2nd Punjab Regiment and 8 August by 2nd Battalion Black Watch. Chaters' force was not only critically short of artillery but it had no tanks or armoured cars nor did it have any anti-tank weapons to oppose the Italian medium and light tanks.