MV Liemba, still going strong, a century later

It was to start life as a cruise vessel of its era, but war beckoned, and the accoutrements of war were foisted upon it; for a brief period, it lorded over the waters, but its reign wasn’t long. The war was lost, the vessel was scuttled.

Thus begins the tale of the ship known as MV Liemba.

It is the oldest passenger ship in service, having first been floated on Lake Tanganyika on February 5 1915.

But its story begins in 1913, still in Imperial Germany, with the construction of a 67-meter long steam vessel destined for the colonial territory of German East Africa. According to records, it had 7 first class and 5 second class cabins, and would ply the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika, which was almost wholly within their colony. The ship came fitted with two boilers and could manage 10 nautical miles an hour. In addition to 480 tons of cargo

But first it had to get from Papenburg, Germany, to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika. To achieve this, the ship was disassembled and packed into 5,000 boxes and moved by ship and rail to within 50 km of Kigoma, as the railway line then didn’t terminate at Kigoma. Unnamed heroes hauled the cumulative 1,150 tons of disassembled ship to Kigoma.

A team of German, Indians, and Africans then reassembled the ship over 13 months. The ship had been christened SS Von Goetzen, after then-Governor of German East Africa, Count Gustav Adolf von Goetzen.

SS von Goetzen didn’t get to be a cruise vessel; by this time World War I had been raging for about a year and had reached the African hinterland. Consequently, it was kitted for war, with guns on its decks cannibalized from other vessels.

It was thus reborn as SMS (Seiner Majestat Schiff) Goetzen, signaling its conversion into a vessel for Germany’s Imperial Navy, which was fending off the advances of Britain and Belgium in Lake Tanganyika.

Working in tandem with two other German warships, Kingani and Hedwig von Wissman, SMS Goetzen gave Germany an upper hand in Lake Tanganyika from June 1915. It ferried materiel and soldiers, helping Germany conduct ambushes in British and Belgian colonies.

However, by February 1916, the other two German gunboats had either been sunk or captured, and the German East Africa territory was being overrun.

A stalemate played out for a while on the lake, but, by July, a decision had been reached to scuttle the ship, rather than see it in the hands of the enemy, a fate Kingani had suffered.

Core machinery was removed and hidden ashore, the remaining shell coated with grease, and SMS Goetzen was sent to the watery depths on July 26 1916.

It lay forgotten until 1924, when the new British colonialists realized they had a need for a vessel to ply the Lake Tanganyika region.

It was floated and the parts that had been hidden ashore used to restore the ship.

Its name though was going to be an issue; it couldn’t just be named after a German, after all.

It could have been named SS Livingstone, but the name was rejected, having already been taken by two other vessels according to shipping records in London.

Another name that was proposed was SS Cameroon, after the British Governor of the time, Donald Cameroon; he however rejected this proposal, choosing instead SS Liemba. Liemba is the name given to the lake by the Fipa.

SS Liemba was resurrected on May 16 1927, and ferried passengers and cargo until 1974, when she was docked for renovations.

She stayed out of service for about three years, but emerged as MV Liemba, on account of the diesel engines that had been fitted. She was no longer a steam ship (SS) but a motor vessel.

And so MV Liemba continues to serve the communities around Lake Tanganyika, setting off from Kigoma, Tanzania, and delivering goods and people to and from Burundi, DR Congo, and Zambia.

It plods along, but remains a vital lifeline here, more than a century after it was put into service.

By Matengo Chwanya

Africa Global News Publication