{UAH} HOW DID AMIN SURVIVE A GERMAN TORPEDO?

Picture (attached): The SS Yoma, the British troop carrier that was torpedoed by Hitler's Nazi forces during World War II as Amin was on board. (Photo source Wikipedia)

On this day 17th June 1943, the British troop carrier the SS Yoma was torpedoed off the coast of Libya by a German U-boat (submarine). Over 400 British & Commonwealth soldiers died in this tragic incident. At the time, President Idi Amin was in his third year serving as KAR number N-146l0. The KAR was the Kings African Rifles, the British colonial army in East Africa. He was on board the ship when it was torpedoed by the Germans, and sank in just under five minutes. Together with other British soldiers who had managed to escape death by jumping from the sinking ship into the sea, they stayed in the waters for hours before they were rescued by Australian warships.

The SS Yoma was originally a passenger luxury ship that the British navy requisitioned and transformed into a troop carrier during World War II when the war effort demanded more logistics.

Decades later Amin would narrate to us those events as we listened as kids to all the action and drama. Though he confused the rescue team as being American warships, when in reality, while reading about the incident some years ago (thanks to the internet), I discovered that it was actually the Australian navy that had come to their rescue and not the Americans as he had thought.

451 souls were lost in this tragedy, mainly British soldiers and others conscripted from the British colonies, including KAR soldiers from East Africa.

By Hussein Lumumba Amin

Wednesday June 17th, 2020

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