(1/5) Timewatch The Forgotten Volunteers World War II

World War II videos

When England
went to war on September 3, 1939, the Dominions had the right to decide in their legislatures whether to fight. Ireland
remained neutral; Canada waited a few days to show their independence. India, with colonial status, had no such choice. India went to war when England went to war.

The India Congress Party, led by Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawarhal Nehru, controlled the provincial legislatures. Rather than support the war, the Congress Party pulled their deputies out of the legislatures. With only the Nazis to fight, Indian units gave good service in North Africa; but the Indian public did not mobilize to support the war.
In 1941, India went from colonial combatant to potential battlefield when the Japanese attacked the Western powers. India became the scene of political upheaval. Gandhi and Nehru tied Indian participation in the war to Indian independence. Rioting and strikes led to the outlawing of the Congress Party in August 1942.
Gandhi's political rival, Chandra Bose, went to Berlin and then Tokyo to raise an Indian National Army out of exiles and POWs captured in Singapore. Many POWs claimed they were coerced into joining. Bose raised 7,000 and joined the Japanese when they invaded India in March 1944.
In Kohima-Imphal, the British and Indian units waged a running battle with the Japanese and Indian Nationalists, who were poorly supplied and far from their base of operations. By August 1944 the invasion was repelled.
Bose and the Axis powers had assumed that there was widespread contempt for England in India. In fact, Indians would support both England and the war effort. 2,000,000 Indians served in the Army, and 24,000 were killed. Major infrastructure was built to support both the Indian Army and the Allied Armies. By war's end, most of the Indian Army's officers were Indian. With food shortages after the fall of Burma, some 1,500,000 Indians died of starvation during the war.
Bose died in 1945, enigmatically dying in a plane crash on his way to Japan. Many have criticized his alliance with Germany and Japan, since they had no real support for Asian independence and committed many reprisals against civilians. The surviving members of the Indian National Congress were put on trial in 1945 by the British Colonial Administration, and they received huge public attention as support for independence grew.
Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, turned over the government to Nehru in 1947.

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• Gandhi

[codprawn]

England did NOT go to war - it was Great Britain which comprises of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

And of course not forgetting our brave commonwealth friends!!!

[2bn442RCT]

Yes I'm not sure why they use that all the time.

[JasperLee23]

The Brits and the Indians kicked Japans back side. Look at Kohima and Imphal, the largest defeat of Japan at that time. The Indians were some of the best allied troops of the war.

[alanheath]

@2bn442RCT The Nuremburg laws were quite clear on their interpretation of Jewishness although they were interpreted differently in occupied countries - in Poland it varied from region to region.

[2bn442RCT]

@alanheath I'm not sure how you classify someone to be of Jewish extraction. I would say someone who practices Judaism or a parent who is 100% Jewish. But, to make it appear that Jews where running around in there thousands is wrong.

[alanheath]

@TheMLAWLESS As do I. One of the reasons why our Empire was destroyed was by this racism. A community of equality for all may have worked. (maybe)

[alanheath]

@JasperLee23 If you ask me, it was more Japan kicking our backside - those two battles excepted.

[alanheath]

@2bn442RCT And so was the capitain of the Bismarck - his own brother had fled to Switzerland. But it is nonsense to claim that there was 150,000 Jews in Hitler's army as the Jewish population of Germany in 1933 was around 600,000 and considerably less by 1939.

In WW1 there were 100,000 Jews in the German army - considerably more per head than Protestants or Catholics offered.

[alanheath]

@2bn442RCT It winds me up no end. England as a separate entity ceased to exist in 1707.

[alanheath]

The Imperial War Museum in London had an exhibition on the volunteers from the Caribbean. It was there in 2008 and 2009 - possibly over by now.

[2bn442RCT]

@1987naren One of the bravest actions of WW2.

[Demilich84]

This is very similar to the Irish troops after the first world war. My Uncles were Dublin born but fought in the British army during the second world war, they told me stories about the bravery of Indian troops during the pacific war. My grandfather often talked of the Indian troops he fought alongside in WWI after he was sent to the Dardanelles. They sounded like a fierce bunch of soldiers. I hope they're remembered.

[eamo1916]

im glad we got rid of britain in the ROI god knows how we wolud have been treated I heard of past generations of my friends been shot in the back of the head because they didnt get out of the trenches quick in WW1!! No one loves a monster and england cannot say its not that after the way we've been treated!! IRELAND 1 AND IRELAND FOREVER 26+6=1.