Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [56]
To a man, Britain’s Indian troops were volunteers, many from the north, where soldiering was a traditional career. The dramatic expansion of the Indian Army between 1939 and 1945—from 189,000 to 2.5 million men—caused a dilution of quality, and especially a shortage of suitable leaders, which significantly affected its performance. Yet the exotic traditions, the romance and prowess of great regiments, still thrilled British officers who felt privileged to serve with them, usually on a scale of around twelve per battalion. “Gurkhas were wonderful chaps127 to command,” said Derek Horsford, who made his military career with the little Nepalese soldiers. “They had a lovely sense of humour. You had to prove yourself, but once they liked you they would do anything for you.” Gurkha riflemen ate goat and rice, their British officers sardines and bully beef. Slim enjoyed telling a story of encountering 17th Indian Division’s famously feisty and colourful little commander, Pete Rees, leading a group of Assamese soldiers in the singing of a Welsh missionary hymn. “The fact that he sung in Welsh128 and they in Khasi only added to the harmony.”
British officers were often much moved by the loyalty and courage of soldiers who were, to put the matter bluntly, mercenaries. A man of the 1/3rd Gurkhas said to his company commander one morning: “Today I shall win the Victoria Cross129, or die.” That Nepalese died sure enough, but his shade had to be content with the Indian Order of Merit. Such was the rivalry between two Indian officers of John Cameron-Hayes’s gun battery that each declined to take cover on the battlefield within sight of the other. Personal honour—“izzat”—meant much. Captain John Randle was moved when his subadar Moghal Baz suddenly said as they ate one night: “I would like you to know, sahib, that with you I have served with great ‘izzat.’” Every man in Slim’s army heard stories such as that of a Dogra jemadar badly wounded and taken to a dressing station. The NCO insisted on crawling back to his position, and fighting on until wounded three times more. As he lay dying, he repeated again and again the war cry “Mai kali ki Jai!” His British captain crawled to where he lay. The jemadar said: “Go back and command the company, sahib, don’t worry about me.”
Slim’s chief of staff wrote to his wife: “One can’t help feeling very humble130 when one deals with men like that. This army is truly invincible given a fair chance.” Of twenty Victoria Crosses won in Burma, fourteen went to men of the Indian Army, three to a single unit, 2/5th Gurkhas. When a British officer met a Sikh colonel whose battalion he was relieving, he noted his immaculate turban, beard glistening131 in the monsoon rain: “I saw something in him that was new to me: relish for war. The Sikhs gave every impression of enjoying themselves.”
It never occurred to the British government to consult Indian political leaders about the conduct of the war, any more than they sought the views of Burman exiles. Reports of dissension132 among the Allies about Asian policy, freely aired in the British and American media, were shamelessly censored from the Indian press. The subcontinent was treated merely as a huge reservoir of manpower. An army psychiatrist’s report133 on Indian troops asserted that on the battlefield, most were “well-adjusted,” as long as they were able to serve alongside men of their own racial group. “The sepoy,” observed the report with imperialistic condescension, “accepts the army, its discipline, its customs and leaders uncritically. He is not greatly interested in the ideologies of the war, because he has a job which gives him a higher standard of living than before, an interest is