The German colonies employed their
own locally recruited naval crews separate from the Imperial navy. These were
used to man the colonies' own shipping on their rivers, lakes and coastal routes
(mostly unarmed steamers, though they were sometimes fitted with guns or used to
transport troops in times of war) and also for tasks such as rowing small boats
out to larger vessels that could not dock at the shoreline.
Recommended Link
Dr Chris Mason has written an article on the African Auxiliary
Sailors or Bacharia
see PDF here.
Uniforms of the Naval Auxiliaries
I have found no official uniform
regulations for these sailors, and most likely none were issued.
Judging from period photographs many locally recruited auxiliary
sailors and harbour crews had no uniform at all. They simply
wore their civilian attire (often just coloured loincloths in Africa and the
Pacific).
When they were uniformed they wore
either locally improvised naval uniforms or a mixture of standard
Imperial naval uniforms. It seems from photographs taken in Cameroon
and New Guinea that locally recruited sailors and oarsmen wore
standard white Imperial navy uniforms while serving Imperial naval
ships, and may also have worn these uniforms while serving on colonial
ships. The German East African
sailors have been seen in several photographs, both working from the
main coastal ports and manning boats on the great lakes. From these
photographs it seems they wore a white naval style uniform, though it
was clearly not of standard Imperial Naval issue. It consisted of a
white naval shirt, with a dark blue square cut naval collar with three
white stripes around the edge. Unlike in the Imperial Navy, no
neckerchief or ties were worn with the collar. The cuffs were blue,
edged in white at the top and bottom, as were two pointed breast
pocket flaps (these are very distinctive from the Imperial Navy white
shirts without breast pockets). Likewise some photographs show the
three quarter length white trousers to have had a blue cuff, again
edged in white. These sailors appear to be barefooted in most
photographs. A white naval cap with a black tally but without an
imperial cockade was worn. Unfortunately the tally cannot be read in
any of the photographs I have seen. These tallies may have shown the name of
the ship on which they served (eg. "Hedwig von Wissmann") or the
title of their employer (eg. "Gouvernment Deutsch Ost Afrika")
in white or gold lettering as worn by the Imperial navy. It is also possible that they may have been blank. Other
photographs show East African sailors wearing a red fez
with a black tassel, as worn by East African askaris. The East African sailors do
not seem to have worn any footwear.
There was also a musical band formed in
Dar-es-Salaam who wore naval style uniforms. They preformed on
ceremonial occasions and were formed from African youths. They wore
white naval style uniforms with blue naval collars and white naval
caps but were not part of any maritime unit. |