in 1940, the 631 members of the [[somaliland camel corps]] (scc) were based in five places in the colony and a small party of police worked at berbera. the scc had 29 motor vehicles, 122 horses and 244 camels but no heavy weapons, only old belgian calibre, single-shot rifles, with 1.4 million rounds of dubious quality ammunition, machine-guns and anti-tank rifles. in february, the british government planned to send 1,100 reinforcements by mid-may but financial wrangling between the war office and the colonial office delayed the arrival of the first infantry battalion until 15 may and the second until 12 july. the garrison of french somaliland was asked to block the jirreh and dobo passes but the british strategy was to hope that french somaliland was the more tempting target.