Mackinnon Road
Mackinnon Road is a town in Kenya, with a population of around 8000 in 1999, located between Mombasa and Voi.
"MacKinnon Road" was also the name of the original road from Mombasa built in 1890 by the British East Africa Company (IBEAC) before the Uganda Railway was built. The road fell into disuse 1896 and 1901 as the railway overtook it.
Both were probably named after Sir William Mackinnon, 1st Baronet a founder of the IBEAC.
MacKinnon Road is a station on the railway between Mombasa and Nairobi.
In World War II a Fleet Air Arm airfield was established at MacKinnon Road after the British Eastern Fleet retreated to Mombasa following setbacks in Ceylon. Airfields were also built in 1942 at Voi and Port Reitz to disperse the fleet's carrier aircraft in case of attack by the aircraft carrriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. These airfields were administered by the Royal Navy shore establishment HMS Kipanga II ("Kipanga" is Swahili language for "Goshawk").[1]
Between 1947 and 1950 MacKinnon Road was the site of a large British Ordnance Depot designed to hold 200,000 tons of military stores.[2] The Britsh had anticipated the loss of miltary bases in Egypt due to a rise in nationalism in that country and decided to create another base that was able to serve their military needs in the western Indian Ocean. The plan was abandonned and the base became a detention camp for Mau Mau suspects until 1955.[3]