A bit of info ref the German and Italian units of Indians.
Just in case this thread starts to stray into areas that it wasnt meant to I think we should all remember that the opinions of people here are just that, their opinion. I would also like to say that if anyone brings a fact to the discussion here that it should be backed by a specific reference.
Now, not popular for some, the very fact is that some races and tribes are or were thought of as being more martial than others. Ghurkas for instance or the Old Highlanders of the 19th century.
This is not being Racist it is a fact and if you choose not to believe this fact thats your opinion.
The thread is about Indian soldiers in WW2, which encompases the entire sub-continent as in ww2 there was no Packistan or Bangladesh and therefore any soldier with origins from those regions would have been Indian.
So please stick to the specific topic and NOT get sidetracked by what came after 1945.
Thanks.
Mohan Singh and his mates certainly didn’t return to the Allied side after going over to the Japanese.
As for the rest, I don’t have a reference handy, but I have a feeling it may be covered in either or both Masanobu Tsuji’s Singapore: The Japanese Version and Gen Percival’s The War in Malaya.
as for Indian soldiers who volunteered or were asked to volunteer turning on British Soldiers and Superiors again I never heard of it
Where did I say that?
But as you’ve raised it, it depends what you mean by “turned”. About 30,000 out of about 40,000 Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese in Malaya joined the INA, for whatever reasons. Compare that with the number of British and Australian troops who went over. About zero.
But if you’re referring to the INA, then they certainly turned on British soldiers by putting a few brigades into the field against them in Burma.
The wiki on the subject (as already PMd to Pathfinder)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Army
The dubious nature of those Indians who fought on the Axis side is pretty much fact.
They mutinied against the Italians (who had a force of Indians working for them) in 1942 after the victory at Al Elemain. The Germans had better success retaining them.
The Japanese managed to pursuade some 30,000 - 40,000 Indian POWs caught in Malaya (IIRC) to swap sides. They were NOT allowed to rejoin the Indian Army after the war, or at any time, in the Indian agreement on liberty.
It is worth noting however that those who were recaught were processed by Field Int Teams (British and Indian) in to Black, Grey and White groups. Whites were realeased in batchs, as they were seen as not a threat and, in most cases, co erced to join up with the Japanese forces.
Greys were those who appeared to have small amounts of interest in the Japanese or Anti-Allied cause.
Blacks were those who had been fully indoctrinated by the Japanese, or were naturally deposed to such beleifs, and in many cases had commited atrocities such as the Japanese were want to do.
ok i should be clear that, my source is dead my source never told me about Indian soldiers turning against allied soldiers why he never told me i don’t know but my source escaped and rejoined allied soldiers when the Malaya campaign began so please pardon my ignorance because i didn’t know and i recently got interested in the campaigns that my family members were in part of. but i plan to travel and discover more about these campaign and thank you for the sources i will look into those.
Ok If I brought on anything other than circa 1945 my apologies. and the Martial Races like Gurkha and Highlander were considered more martial because of the loyalty other martial races like mine just were not as loyal to the British cause. but they were asked to volounteer which has to count for something.
what i should have said is that those martial races made a very little minority considering non martial people who were in their hundred millions. and the volunteer force could have been even larger if this belief was put away but it delivered non the less.
According to the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_Race
It is worth noting that most of the “Martial Races” listed put up more than a fight when the British were against them.
The Gurkhas, fought the British to a standstill, and only at the end did they decide that an alliance was called for.
It is worth pointing out that the Scottish Highlanders were not that loyal to the British in the past. At one point there was a war between the Highlanders and English who were supported by the Lowlanders (in the main), yet Highlanders are still considered better fighters than Lowlanders in the main.
This applies to other units or nationalities too. Zulus also were considered a Martial Race.
I think over the years that this term HAS indeed been used to sullify the names of those who were not fully on side with the British.
Please tell us about yourself Pathfinder. You seem to be hinting at your linage, yet hold it secret.
British Indian Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Indian_Army
Sikhs and the British Empire
http://www.asht.info/Sikhs+&+British+Empire.html
Naik Nand Singh VC, MVC (24 September 1914- 12 December 1947) was an Indian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. (See articles toward bottom for more)
Sikhs in World War I & II and other wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh#Sikhs_in_World_War_I_.26_II_and_other_wars
By the advent of World War I, Sikhs in the British Indian Army totaled over 100,000; i.e. 20% of the British Indian Army. In the 100 years to 1945, 14 Victoria Crosses were awarded to the Sikhs, a per capita record given the size of the Sikh Regiments.[73]
“In the last two world wars 83,005 turban wearing Sikh soldiers were killed and 109,045 were wounded. They all died or were wounded for the freedom of Britain and the world, and during shell fire, with no other protection but the turban, the symbol of their faith.”
The Sikh Regiment in the Second World War[74]Across the world Sikhs are commemorated in Commonwealth cemeteries.[75]
In 2002, the names of all Sikh VC and George Cross winners were commemorated by being inscribed on the pavilion monument of the Memorial Gates[76] on Constitution Hill next to Buckingham palace, London.[77] Lieutenant Colonel Chanan Singh Dhillon (retd), Punjabi Indian World War II hero & Veteran, and president of the ex-services league (Punjab & Chandigarh) was instrumental in campaigning for the memorials building.
Sikh Regiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh_Regiment
The Sikh Regiment is the most highly decorated regiment of the Indian Army, with 72 Battle Honours, 15 Theatre Honours and 5 COAS Unit Citations and 1596 other gallantry awards.
The Sikh Regimental Centre is presently located in Ramgarh Cantonment, 30 km from the Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand state in India. The Centre was earlier located in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh State.
Over its life of more than 150 years, the regiment has participated in various actions and operations both in the pre and post-independence era in India and abroad, including the First and the Second World War.
With a humble beginning of two battalions, today the fraternity has grown 20 battalions strong.
The war cry of regiment is: Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal (He who cries God is Truth, attains bliss)
The Sikh Regiment
Indian Army’s Most Decorated Regiment
D.S. Sandhu
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE3-6/sandhu.html
World War 2
To over come the heavy demands of manpower six new battalions of the Sikh Regiment were raised. They being 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 25th [5]. Out of the old battalions 1st and 5th saw action in Burma and three others, 2nd, 3rd and 4th fought in the Middle East.
The 4 Sikh were in Siddi Barrani and El Alamein in 1941. When the Germans launched their offensive on El Alamein the battalion was forced to disperse to the rear in small parties and over 500 became prisoners of war. The battalion was reformed and was back in action in Italy [5]. 2nd and 3rd Sikh were at Basra, Iraq. 2 Sikh later moved on to Italy where they took part in the fighting at the Gothic Line.
On the Burma-Malaya front, the 5 Sikh were the first to reach Malaya in April 1941. They fought the Japanese in Malaya, but had to disperse in small parties. About 200 of the men reached Singapore while the others were combined with elements from another battalion to form a composite 5 Sikh. The battalion could not hold back the Japanese tide and was pushed back to Singapore along with the rest of the British Forces. When Singapore fell in February 1942 the remnants of the 5 Sikh became POWs. While in the prison camps about 90 % of the men joined the Indian National Army (INA).
1 Sikh landed in Rangoon in February 1942 and took part in some fierce fighting but the Japanese had built up their strength in the area and pushed the British forces to the Indian border. The battalion was rested and refitted and was back in the war zone on the Indo-Burma border. On March 11, 1943 the battalion was the advance party along the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road. The Japanese were holding a knife-edge hill feature and putting up stiff resistance. The only way to approach the hill was by means of a narrow track. On this track leading the attack was the section commanded by Naik Nand Singh. When the section reached the crest it came under heavy machinegun fire and every man in the section was killed or wounded. Naik Nand Singh dashed forward alone, he was wounded by a grenade as he neared the first Japanese trench. He took out his bayonet and killed the two occupants. Under heavy fire Nand Singh jumped up and charged the second trench, he was again wounded by a grenade and knocked down, but he got up and hurled himself into the trench again killing two Japanese with his bayonet. He then moved on to the third trench and captured it single-handed. With the capture of the third trench the enemy fire started to die away and the rest of the platoon charged the other Japanese positions, killing with bayonet and grenade thirty seven out of the forty Japanese holding it. Naik Nand Singh wounded six times in the assault literally carried the position single-handed. For his valour an immediate award of Victoria Cross was bestowed upon him. The company commander Maj. John Brough was awarded the DSO and the platoon commander Jemadar Mehr Singh the IOM. Two IDSMs were also awarded for this attack [5].
The battalion then moved to Imphal and took part in the famous battle at Kanglatongbi. After this battle the battalion was among the vanguard in pushing the Japanese back and recapturing Rangoon. During the Second World War the battalions of the Sikh Regiment won 27 battle honours.
At the end of WW2 all the newly raised battalions except for the 7 Sikh were disbanded and 5 Sikh was not re-raised, because of its men joining the INA. At the time of independence to accommodate the Sikh soldiers coming to India from regiments allotted to Pakistan, three new battalions were raised. They being the 16th, 17th and 18th Sikh.
Naik Nand Singh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nand_Singh
Nand Singh VC, MVC (24 September 1914- 12 December 1947) was an Indian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Details
He was 29 years old, and an Acting Naik in the 1/11th, Sikh Regiment, Indian Army during the Second World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.On 11/12 March 1944 on the Maungdaw-Buthidaung Road, Burma (now Myanmar), Naik Nand Singh, commanding a leading section of the attack, was ordered to recapture a position gained by the enemy. He led his section up a very steep knife-edged ridge under very heavy machine-gun and rifle fire and although wounded in the thigh, captured the first trench. He then crawled forward alone and, wounded again in the face and shoulder, nevertheless captured the second and third trenches.
He later achieved the rank of Jemadar in the post-independence Indian Army, and his unit [1 Sikh] was the first to be involved in the Jammu & Kashmir Operations or Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 which began in October 1947 as Indian troops went into action to repel a planned invasion of J&K by raiders from Pakistan.
On 12th December 1947 Nand Singh led his platoon of D Coy in a desperate but successful attack to extricate his battalion from an ambush in the hills SE of Uri in Kashmir. He was mortally injured by a close-quarters machine-gun burst, and posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra(MVC), the second-highest Indian decoration for battlefield gallantry. This makes Nand Singh unique in the annals of VC winners.
Sikh Regiment
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/rgt-sikh.htm
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/LAND-FORCES/Army/Regiments/Sikh.html
Sikh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh
Advanced Google Image Search: “British Indian Army”
http://images.google.com/images?q=+“British+Indian+Army”&as_st=y&ndsp=20&svnum=10&hl=en&start=0&sa=N
An excellent, informative thread. My initial reasoning for raising this thread is the fact that I myself am half English and half Indian; Anglo-Indian. 
This is an interesting topic. I can kind of relate to it as my mother has a colonial background. Her father was Dutch career military and served in the KNIL (Royal Netherlands Indies Army) and her mother was Indonesian from Java. So my mother is half Dutch and half Indonesian; Dutch-Indonesian. My dad is American - 8th generation (German, English, Scottish and Irish), but my last name is German. My German ancestor Georg Michael Eller came to America from Germany in 1743.
One of the Indian Divisions that fought against the Italians, Germans and then the japanese was the Fifth. Their amazing war service was recorded in a history entitled “BALL OF FIRE” by ANTONY BRETT-JAMES. The book is long out of print (and copies sell for over £60 now). However, the entire book has been uploaded, so have a read:
http://www.ourstory.info/library/4-ww2/Ball/fireTC.html
The site has also uploaded the wartime publication entitled “The Tiger Triumphs” about the Fourth, Eighth and Tenth Indian Divisions in Italy:
http://www.ourstory.info/library/4-ww2/Tiger/triumphsTC.html#TC.
And for those who state that some Indians joined the Axis, that is true, but then so did many from the USSR, Western Europe and other Asian countries. But I would ask you to remember these words (though written about WW1 the words are just as apt for the WW2 - at the time of writing it was referring to the Indian Mutiny):
Though mutineers some of them might have been,
They were not trusted soldiers of the Queen,
…
Britannia, do not blame, I beg of you,
The loyal many for the trait’rous few;
When once again the star of peace has beamed,
Then India’s pledge to you will be redeemed.
They only plead for one reward,
Repaying every loss,
The right to wear like Britain’s sons,
The great Victorian Cross.
India’s reply in the days gone by,
To other nations may have been absurd,
But when Britain’s flag unfurl’d,
They prov’d to all the world,
How the Sons of India kept their word.
well the story of Indian Soldiers Fighting Against Allied Soldiers is true but they were not in its majority. majority fought alongside the allies.
For something that is even less well known about Indian soldiers
http://www.awm.gov.au/journal/j37/indians.htm
On the face of it, it seems like the Indian POW’s in New Guinea were doing better than the Australians and British and Asians on the Burma Railway etc as they staged a hunger strike, which would have been a meaningless demonstration to reject the scant food in Burma etc. A similar action in Burma etc would have resulted in a massacre.
However, the reference to beri beri suggests that the Indian POW’s in New Guinea might have been in similar lousy condition to the other Imperial / Commonwealth POW’s elsewhere.
But it’s apparent from the link that it’s difficult to work out how badly, or how well, Indian POW’s were treated in New Guinea.
The other, and most important, thing is, the Indian POW’s in New Guinea were there only becuase they didn’t go over to the INA.
India seems to have disowned its own POW’s, unlike the English speaking countries which accord them a status as revered victims of Japanese brutality.
Note this from the link above in particular
Many Indians still hail members of the INA as fighters for India’s freedom. Those who rejected Japanese blandishments and remained loyal to their oath of service were regarded as dupes of the imperial power and have been disregarded by an independent India, which does not provide pensions to former members of Britain’s Indian army.
Indian prisoners of war have also been largely overlooked in the war literature of both India and of the western Allies. Official histories provide scant coverage. The Indian official history devotes almost no space to the experience of captivity, only to a brief summary of the work of the Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees organisation (RAPWI). An appendix to Volume V of S. Woodburn Kirby’s British official history The war against Japan provides a short summary of the numbers captured and the locations at which prisoners were held. It makes clear that Indians were held in Hong Kong, Burma, Singapore, Malaya, Sumatra and British and Dutch Borneo. Although at war’s end nearly 6,000 Indians were recovered in Australian New Guinea the British official history omits any mention of them. The only reference is in relation to Singapore, stating that “many of the Indians eventually left the island, mainly in forced labour battalions for islands in the south-west Pacific”.3 The Australian official history, which deals extensively with the war in the South-West Pacific Area, accords them half-a-dozen references in Gavin Long’s volume The final campaigns. In spite of the importance of loyalty as a central idea in Indian Army history, Philip Mason’s history of the Indian Army barely mentions loyal prisoners – though INA members are discussed at length.4
I should mention that the author of the paper, Peter Stanley, is in my view a superficial historian on the only areas I know anything about, notwithstanding his position until recently as the Principal Historian at the Australian War Memorial. I don’t doubt that he has far wider and deeper knowledge than me and most other amateur historians on just about everything, but he has also displayed a spectacular ability to put forward superficial, inadequately researched, and demonstrably false bullshit as history in two other contentious papers about the risk of Japan invading Australia and a whole lot of related matters.
‘We Were There’.
I never knew it but 58 Years after the war ended a memorial was placed for the volunteers in 2002 to be exact. well never too late i suppose.
Amrit,
And for those who state that some Indians joined the Axis, that is true, but then so did many from the USSR, Western Europe and other Asian countries.
We know that many countries had people fighting on both sides, there were some Italians who fought for the Allies and some Germans who fought for us too. And of course there was the despicable treatment of the Japanese in America, the men of whom often fought with courage and valour.
This isn’t a witch hunt where all Indians are regarded as traitors. It is simple fact being brought up. There is no need to get all defensive about it.
Defensive? I ask that the INA be put into context, and I get accussed of being defensive. Maybe you should re-read what I said.
but then why is it that only Indian subjects are being brought up more often as back-stabbers. 40-50000 out of the millions turned against the allies for which there are reasons, but that is not even the overwhelming majority either.
Perhaps because nobody likes turncoats.
Contrast the rest of the huge mass of Indian volunteers with those who were captured in Malaya, the vast bulk of whom went over to Japan, although some of those who didn’t suffered appallingly .
I don’t have a problem with Indian nationalism or India wanting independence from Britain, but when it came to the real test in Malaya the Indian volunteer soldiers were overwhelmingly disloyal to Britain.
I don’t blame them as Indians, because it wasn’t their fight, but I don’t have any regard for them as soldiers as you fight for and are loyal to the flag you’ve joined. If you don’t, you’re just a mercenary.
Mercenaries rank one step above turncoats, in my book anyway.
Like it’s been stated, the majority of Indians did fight for the allies and Great Britain very loyally, winning a number of Victoria Crosses!
Although, when you think about it, would you have fought for a country that occupied your own and discriminated you as a 2nd class citizen?
I think it was a purely a question of choosing the lesser of two evils, in your own mind that is.
And while we’re on the topic, where are the memorials for Indian aircrews, men who had to pay their own passage to get to England and fight in many cases. I see the Poles, the Czechs, Free French, Canadians and the Eagle Squadron mentioned, but the Indians? I’ve seen nothing!
As for turncoats: the Italians? The Departments of France that became Vichy France? The Russians before the Germans did the dirty and attacked them? The Fins? We could go on and on…within the SS their were volunteers from many nations, including a small amount of British.
I personally don’t think there can be any clearly defined lines when using colonial forces in such traumatic times.
It would have surely been right for Germans to turn against the Nazi party, and I’m sure it could have been achieved, but would that have made them turncoats in our eyes, or humanitarians?