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Force K6

Force K6, also known as the Indian Contingent during their time in Britain in the 1940s, comprised four animal transport units of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps and formed part of the British Expeditionary Force. In December 1939 they became t the first Indian troops to be deployed during the Second World War and saw fighting in northern France. The majority of the men were Muslim and from Punjab. Dispersed across France, they had to retreat alongside British troops to the French coast, where they were evacuated, including at Dunkirk on 23 May as part of Operation Dynamo. They were subsequently posted across Britain, including in Cornwall, Derbyshire, Wales and Scotland, deployed to shore up Britain’s sea defences. They also provided training for soldiers in mule and horse handling in warfare.

Founded in December 1939, the Indian Comforts Fund was based at India House, Aldwych. Today the building continues to house the Indian High Commission. Run by British and Indian women, the Fund offered humanitarian relief and functioned as a welfare organisation looking after Indian soldiers stationed in Britain. It was also responsible for all South Asian Prisoners of War (PoWs) in Europe, having been officially designated as next-of-kin for all Indian PoWs and civilians interned in Europe. This was unusual insofar as British soldiers had their partner or a parent listed as next-of-kin. They worked in close collaboration with the Indian Red Cross and St John’s Ambulance Service. The Fund supplied some 1.7 million next-of-kin parcels between 1939 and 1945, including clothing, toothbrushes, toothpaste, razors and shaving soap, washing soap, pencils, combs and bootlaces, among other items. Using a calorific conversion table for all food parcels, the Fund coordinated their packing, including staples like dhal, curry powder, ghee, atta and rice. These would be shipped to the International Red Cross which would then distribute them to internment camps across Europe.

Many South Asian residents in Britain joined the war effort in 1939 and were part of initiatives for Civil Defence and Air Raid Precautions. One such example was the Auxiliary Ambulance Station 50 (Indian Section), first established on Nash Street and later moving to Augustus Street, in St Pancras, now part of Camden, London. It was set up on the initiative of Dorai Ross, an entrepreneur and rubber plantation owner. Many South Asian men and women in Britain, including those who supported pressure groups for Indian Independence, such as the India League Secretary, V K Krishna Menon (1896–1974) and Doctor and Mayor of Finsbury C L Katial (1898–1978) responded to the call for volunteers. Katial worked as a Civil Defence Medical Officer and chaired the Air Raid Precautions Medical Service and Food Control Committee. He also provided training in first aid for the St John Ambulance Brigade. For his services to the borough, he was made a Freeman of Finsbury in 1948.

While officially, the work of South Asians on the Home Front featured in publicity material to highlight the Empire’s support for Britain’s war effort, India Office Records reveal another story. In autumn 1939 the MP Reginald Sorensen raised a question in the House of Commons about incidents where South Asians had been dismissed from Air Raid Precautions stations. R Singh, of Upper Berkley Street, in an angry letter to the Medical Officer of Health stated that ‘barring Indians for no other obvious reason than that of colour, does not show much for the so called lip service and self advertisement of the Unity of the British Empire’ (L/PJ/7/2884). On 6 October 1939 the India Office also received an angry letter about Indian ambulance workers being dismissed from Ambulance Station 50, alleging discrimination. There was anxiety by the authorities about the loyalty of some working at the station and their anti-colonial sentiments, as part of pressure groups like the India League.

While most of Station 50’s workers were of South Asian heritage, it also included white British, South African, Burmese and Caribbean volunteers.

The Bevin Trainee Scheme was an initiative to deliver technical and engineering training to Indian men to support Britain’s war effort, especially in relation to the manufacturing of weapons. It was established by the Ministry of Labour and named after the then-minister in charge. This was a high-profile scheme with much publicity. These young men, often from working-class backgrounds, stayed in Britain for periods of six to eight months. They undertook initial training at the Government Training Centre near Letchworth, and then received on-site training in ship building, the steel industry and tools and armaments factories. Though based across the UK, many stayed in the Midlands, part of Britain’s industrial heartland. Pressure groups like the India League and Indian Workers’ Association were especially interested in contacting the trainees, which caused concern among the India Office and authorities. The scheme continued until 1947 when India gained independence. From 1941–47, some 900 trainees joined the scheme.

Noor Inayat Khan (1914–1944) was the daughter of Inayat Khan, musician and founder of the Sufi order in Europe. After joining the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in 1940, she was chosen to train in wireless operation. In 1942, she was recruited into the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a secret organisation sabotaging the German war machine. She was one of the first female wireless operators infiltrated into occupied France. On arrival she found that her unit had already been betrayed. As the last remaining wireless operator in France, she continued to transmit messages to London. In 1943, the Gestapo captured her. Although tortured, she refused to reveal any information. She was executed in 1944, at Dachau concentration camp. She was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre with Gold Star by the French Republic and in 1949 the George Cross by the British Government. In 2012, a permanent memorial to her was unveiled in Gordon Square, London, near where she used to live.

When the RAF advertised to cover the shortage in qualified pilots, 24 South Asians answered Britain’s call. 18 successfully passed their training and flew missions in Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancaster bombers across the English Channel. Among them was fighter pilot Mahinder Singh Pujji (1918–2010), who served with both the RAF and Indian Air Force. He flew missions with squadrons 43 and 258 between 1940–41. He later flew missions in North Africa and Burma. In 1945 he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

The situation for South Asians living in Britain and their support for the war effort differed. War, after all, had been declared on behalf of India, without consultation. Some resisted conscription into the British Army, but many who were part of pressure groups for Indian independence, like the India League, worked in Civil Defence. For example, its Secretary V K Krishna Menon contributed to the war effort as an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden – while wearing the tin hat, he refused to wear a uniform. South Asians resident in Britain campaigned for a wide range of issues for greater justice and equality. According to his biographer, T J S George, Menon saw in support of the war effort a dual approach, linking the fight for independence with the fight against fascism. As a Labour Councillor for the ward of St Pancras, Menon worked and campaigned at both local and international levels. Menon and the India League used the debate around the fight against fascism and for freedom to bolster the call for Indian self-determination.

Without support from India and its other colonies, Britain would not have been able to succeed in its war effort. In the Second World War South Asians fought in all major theatres of war, but their role in the fight against fascism has often received little wider public attention and features only fleetingly in public commemorations. According to the booklet, India and the War: The Facts (IOR/L/MIL/17/5/4263), issued by the Information Department of the India Office in January 1946, India raised an army of some 2.5 million; 8 million worked in auxiliary roles; 5 million in war industries, and 1 million extra workers were recruited to work on the railways in India. By the end of August 1945, the India Office recorded 24,338 killed, 64,354 wounded, 11,754 missing, and 79,489 Prisoners-of-War. The Commonwealth War Grave Commission records 87,700 South Asian personnel who lost their lives in the conflict.

Credit: Remaking Britain team (Rehana Ahmed, Aleena Din, Sumita Mukherjee, Susheila Nasta, Maya Parmar, Florian Stadtler, Rozina Visram).