Not until the British realized the full extent of the rebel’s organization and the importance of the urban Committees did they gain any strategic success. On April 24 1954, the Army launched Operation Anvil in Nairobi, and the city came under military control. Security forces screened over 30,000 Africans and arrested another 17,000 on suspicion of complicity. The entire Passive Wing leadership, including the Council for Freedom, was swept away with the arrests; the most important source of supplies and recruits for resistance evaporated.
The city remained under military rule for the rest of the year. About 15,000 Kikuyu were interned in concentration camps near the city, while thousands more were deported to the Kikuyu Land Reserves, in the highlands west of Mount Kenya.
Having cleared Nairobi, the authorities repeated the exercise in other areas, so that by the end of 1954, there were 77,000 Kikuyu locked up in local concentration camps, while almost 100,…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Scribbler -- The Golden Years to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.