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Post by sandypine on Nov 5, 2024 17:05:24 GMT
quick google search The Indian Army was involved in the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 in several ways: Force K6: A support unit of 300 Muslim soldiers from the Punjab, led by Major Mohammed Akbar Khan, who were part of the British Indian Army. They were not frontline soldiers, but were trained to fight and did fight in the Battle of France. Most of Force K6 was evacuated from Dunkirk, but one company was captured. 25th Animal Transport Company: A group of Indian soldiers who traveled 7,000 miles with their mules to help the British army. They were Muslim, wore khaki, tin helmets, caps, and pagris (turbans), and carried no weapons. The British army needed mules to replace motorized vehicles to carry supplies. Mules: India provided more than 2,500 mules to the war effort. Why the lack of Indian and African faces in Dunkirk matters ... So there were some 500,000 allied troops in and around Dunkirk with over 300,000 being evacuated. So Force K6 was about 0.1% of those evacuated and about 0.02% of the total involved. People named Smith were probably there in greater abundance. If people are concerned about what they are taught at school they should widen their horizons. There was Look and Learn, Hotspur, Warlord, Wizard and Commando mags all of which included tales of Indian troops fighting in both wars. To my recall the VCs were mostly gained by Turban wearing Sikhs. They are by no means excluded it is just you have to allow perspective and not overegg their existence. They were present in Italy to a greater degree. Most histories I have read of WW1 and WW2 specifically mention. Most of my early learning came outside school including the weekly publication Knowledge where I saw many things that were never covered at school. |
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Post by Pacifico on Nov 5, 2024 17:06:09 GMT
Let's get back on topic.
Here's something to ponder on.
Mobeen complains that he was never taught about the British Indian Army and its role in WWII while at school in Huddersfield. He's probably right about that. He also gets quite agitated that Christopher Nolan didn't depict any Indian soldiers in his recent epic about Dunkirk. Is he right? Were any Indian troops involved in the evacuation from Dunkirk?
I don't know why he gets agitated, that film was a joke when it came to historical accuracy. |
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Post by Bentley on Nov 5, 2024 17:13:31 GMT
well seeing the war was won by the Russians it dosent matter Funny, I thought it was the Allies. Maybe you're talking about a different war. He’s thinking of the Russian revolution 😁 |
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Post by Dan Dare on Nov 5, 2024 17:59:16 GMT
Nothing like Google to dig up half a story. Force K6 was a detachment of the Royal Indian Service Corps sent to France in December 1939. It consisted of four Animal Transport Companies and 2000 mules. Here is a picture of one of the companies (the 28th) on parade in Northern France.  Three of the companies were evacuated from Dunkirk, while the fourth, the 22nd, got caught up by the Maginot and those not killed (about 300) became prisoners of war. A number of them defected to Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (as did most of the Indians captured in Singapore) but that's another story.
So yes, there were a few Indians at Dunkirk. Perhaps if they'd brought their mules along Nolan might have had a story to tell, but they left them all behind when they retreated to Dunkirk.
PS There were no Africans in Dunkirk. The black sergeant who was the hero in the film version of Atonement[/] was a diversity hire.
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Post by thomas on Nov 5, 2024 18:20:37 GMT
Nothing like Google to dig up half a story. Force K6 was a detachment of the Royal Indian Service Corps sent to France in December 1939. It consisted of four Animal Transport Companies and 2000 mules. Here is a picture of one of the companies (the 28th) on parade in Northern France. Three of the companies were evacuated from Dunkirk, while the fourth, the 22nd, got caught up by the Maginot and those not killed (about 300) became prisoners of war. A number of them defected to Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (as did most of the Indians captured in Singapore) but that's another story.
So yes, there were a few Indians at Dunkirk. Perhaps if they'd brought their mules along Nolan might have had a story to tell, but they left them all behind when they retreated to Dunkirk.
PS There were no Africans in Dunkirk. The black sergeant who was the hero in the film version of Atonement[/] was a diversity hire.
I didnt actually realise that dan. Anyone who has done a tour of the commonwealth war graves in northern France will know they graveyards are full of Indian soldiers , but I wasnt aware that many if any served there in the Second World War. The ones I saw were First World War soldiers who died in the trenches. I thought the French had North African soldiers serving in Europe ,some of which were also evacuated at Dunkirk? |
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Post by Dan Dare on Nov 5, 2024 18:35:11 GMT
Force K6 was the only Indian unit to see action in Northern Europe in WWII. They were returned to India in January 1944. Practically all the graves of Indians you will find in that area were members of the Indian Labour Corps, non-combatants who served behind the lines in the First World War. The role of the British Indian Army in Europe in both world wars has been greatly exaggerated for ideological purposes.
"I thought the French had North African soldiers serving in Europe ,some of which were also evacuated at Dunkirk?"
I don't know the answer to that, but do know there were no Africans with the British Expeditionary Force in 1940.
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Post by sandypine on Nov 5, 2024 20:56:51 GMT
Force K6 was the only Indian unit to see action in Northern Europe in WWII. They were returned to India in January 1944. Practically all the graves of Indians you will find in that area were members of the Indian Labour Corps, non-combatants who served behind the lines in the First World War. The role of the British Indian Army in Europe in both world wars has been greatly exaggerated for ideological purposes.
"I thought the French had North African soldiers serving in Europe ,some of which were also evacuated at Dunkirk?"
I don't know the answer to that, but do know there were no Africans with the British Expeditionary Force in 1940.
In WW1 and WW2 the French had Zouaves from Morrocco I think and several units were made up of African troops in WW2 as the German propaganda machine was pleased to point out when the Africans were captured during the fall of France. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Nov 5, 2024 22:08:21 GMT
I haven't had a chance to check on the French Army organisation in WWI but can see from the order of battle just prior to the 1940 capitulation that there were only a small number of colonial infantry divisions (fewer than 5) out of the seventy or so in the field at the time. There were additionally two Spahi light cavalry brigades but it's hard to believe they saw much action if any against the Wehrmacht.
The Free French forces post D-Day had a much higher proportion of colonial troops than the 1940 army which as is well known created many problems in the French zone of occupation so in that sense German propaganda contained more than a grain of truth.
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Post by Dan Dare on Nov 6, 2024 15:20:37 GMT
A few concluding remarks on the Channel 4 ‘The Soldiers that saved Britain’ documentary.
I won’t comment further on the presenter except to note that Channel 4’s decision to have what might have an interesting programme fronted by a historically illiterate, anti-British self-styled ‘East London Muslim homosexual’ was a major blunder. You’ll have to watch for yourself.
Two vignettes that need highlighting.
The first is Mobeen’s quest for a ‘suitable memorial’ to the Indian Army and its mission to save the world from fascism. In the event he didn’t have to look too far, there is one close to Buckingham Palace, paid for out of public funds and inaugurated by the Queen in 2002. Mobeen was unimpressed and complained that other memorials take ‘pride of place’, particularly the ‘Animals ar War’ and the Bomber Command memorials which are both close-by. He was particularly irked by the prominence of the latter, obviously unaware that Bomber Command fatalities were almost as high as the entire Indian Army, or that it inflicted far greater damage on the Axis than all the five million ‘black and brown’ people put together.
Mobeen was later shown headlining an event at the Royal Festival Hall launching a campaign to fund a more ‘appropriate’ memorial. It turns out that the RBL is a major donor, and was represented at the event by a Ms Gail Walters, its Director of Community Engagement, said to have special expertise in ‘the integration of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant groups into communities and management of ‘Superdiversity’. Perhaps another reason to review your poppy investment this time around.
The ’highlight’ of the show was perhaps Mobeen’s visit to the site of the Second Battle of El Alamein which he correctly stated was a turning point in the war against Germany. He couldn’t resist overegging the pudding however in claiming that the Indian Army made the decisive breakthrough. The 8th Army did indeed include an Indian Army division, the 4th infantry division, but it did not play a decisive role in the battle itself. The casualty figures speak for themselves: of the 14,000 total on the Allied side, 56% were British, 22% Australian/New Zealand, 6% South African and 1% Indian. It's also important to understand that an Indian army infantry division did not just consist of Indians. In every combat division, each consisting of three brigades, one of the three regiments or battalions in each brigade were British. At El Alamein the 4th Indian Division included the 1st/4th Bn Essex Regiment, the 1st Bn Royal Sussex and the 2nd Bn Cameron Highlanders, plus six Indian regiments/battalions (mostly Sikh in the 4th Div). In addition the Royal Artillery provided all the divisional artillery and all senior officers above the rank of Major were British.
PS If anyone is unsure which current memorial Mobeen was being sniffy about, it was this one on Constitution Hill.
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Post by johnofgwent on Nov 9, 2024 20:14:02 GMT
Members may recall the epic chinwag on the old forum following the BBC’s Black Nurses – The Women who Saved the NHS. The thesis under review at that time held that the NHS would have collapsed had not these gallant ladies from the Caribbean arrived in the nick of in time to save it. Complete bollocks, of course. Well, they’re at it again. Not the BBC this time, but Channel 4. The historical revisionists this time are not Afro-Cabs but subcontinentals, also equally at pains to big up their own historical ‘contributions’ in the cause of ‘belonging, harmony and cohesion’, as well as security of tenure. The subject this time is the Indian Army in WWII and its role in saving Britain from fascism. The narrator is a Punjabi Muslim from Huddersfield, a Mobeen Azhar, who enlists various second-string would-be academic historians in trying to show that if not for the 2.5 million strong Indian Army, Hitler would have prevailed and we’d all be singing Deutschland Über Alles not God Save the King. I’ll leave it there for now and return with further remarks later. I’ll just post the C4 link where it is free to view:
www.channel4.com/programmes/the-soldiers-that-saved-britainIf it was not for the British Army and the British organised Indian army then India, at least in part, would have fallen to the Japanese. Then Indians would have known how brutal an Imperial Colonialist power could be. Revising history seems like an ongoing process. By all means history should be open to reinterpretation but sometimes, no often, one gets the impression that the revisionism is political as opposed to honestly held conclusions on research. My great uncle's journal of his experience in the Medical Corps in the last days of the Raj, written as he witnessed partition, left him in little doubt the Indian and the Pakistani alike needed no lesson on how to be a murdering racist bastard from an Austrian missing a testicle. |
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