| Battle of Masaka | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Uganda–Tanzania War | |||||||||
  Masaka Battle of Masaka (Uganda) | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Tanzania Ugandan rebels |
Uganda | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
David Musuguri John Walden |
Isaac Maliyamungu Bernard Rwehururu | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
|
20th Division
|
First Infantry Brigade Suicide Battalion Chui Battalion | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
3 Tanzanian brigades 1 Ugandan rebel battalion | Unknown, possibly thousands of soldiers | ||||||||
The Battle of Masaka (Kiswahili: Mapigano ya Masaka)[1] was a battle of the Uganda–Tanzania War that took place on 23 and 24 February 1979 in the town of Masaka, Uganda. Following artillery bombardment, most of the Ugandan government forces fled and Tanzanian and Ugandan rebel forces captured the town.
Colonel Idi Amin had seized power in a military coup in Uganda in 1971 and established a brutal dictatorship. Seven years later he attempted to invade Tanzania to the south. Ugandan troops occupied the Kagera Salient and subsequently murdered local civilians and destroyed property. The attack was eventually repulsed, and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, unsatisfied with Amin's refusal to renounce his claims to Tanzanian territory and the international community's failure to strongly condemn the invasion, ordered his forces to advance into southern Uganda with the aim of capturing the towns of Masaka and Mbarara.
After careful planning, the Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF) crossed the border in January 1979 and moved steadily northward. Masaka was garrisoned by several thousand Ugandan troops, including the Suicide Battalion. Their performance was undermined by low morale and internal divisions. The TPDF surrounded the town on three sides and on 23 February, after beating off several harassing Ugandan probes, initiated an artillery barrage, concentrating on the Suicide Battalion's barracks. Several Ugandan units withdrew to Lukaya, leaving the Suicide Battalion alone to defend Masaka. The TPDF's 201st and 208th Brigades attacked at dawn. A battalion of Ugandan rebels and the 207th Brigade—bolstered by a tank squadron—also moved in on the town. The Suicide Battalion withdrew towards the village of Villa Maria, and, aside from opposition at Kasijagirwa camp, the TPDF seized the town with minimal resistance. As revenge for the damage wrought by the Ugandans in Kagera, the TPDF razed much of Masaka. The loss of the town greatly hurt the morale of the Ugandan forces and troubled Ugandan commanders. Amin ordered a counter-attack which was defeated in Lukaya. His promise to exact revenge on the local civilians for welcoming the invasion partly contributed to Nyerere's decision to attack Kampala. Much of Masaka was later rebuilt.
- ^ "Awamu ya pili ya vita yaanza, JWTZ yaingia Uganda-11" [The second phase of the war begins, JWTZ enters Uganda]. Mwananchi (in Swahili). 20 December 2018. Archived from the original on 27 September 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2019.