SM tipster Amol notifies us of some sad news today out of the UK:
An Indian pilot who flew Hawker Hurricanes during World War II has died, it has been announced.
Squadron Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji, 92, died at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent on Saturday following a stroke.
Sqn Ldr Pujji was believed to be the last surviving fighter pilot from a group of 24 Indians who arrived in Britain in 1940.
He survived several crashes and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for services in Burma. [Google]
The photograph in the article conveys the swagger of a pilot who knows he’s a bad-ass.
He seems to have given an interview earlier this year:
Mohinder Singh remembers the start of the war vividly. Just a year after it had begun, at the height of the Battle of Britain, he decided to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was 22 years old and in search of adventure.
‘I saw London being bombed, I saw what people were suffering and I knew what they were going through and how cruel the enemy was because they were throwing bombs on civilians. They were not fighting soldier to soldier and hundreds of people were being made homeless so that changed my perspective, then I was very keen to fight for the country, for this country where I had come to seek adventure really.’
Two or three pilots would be lost everyday and Mohinder almost became a casualty himself several times.‘From day one in every letter to my parents I said don’t expect me back.’ [Link]
Here is a newer picture from an article in The Guardian last year that detailed a permanent exhibit at the RAF museum (that I once visited as a kid) called “Diversity in the Royal Air Force”:
I will likely re-visit this whole topic in greater detail at some point in the future.
From the post:
‘I saw what people were suffering and I knew what they were going through and how cruel the enemy was because they were throwing bombs on civilians. They were not fighting soldier to soldier and hundreds of people were being made homeless so that changed my perspective, then I was very keen to fight for the country, for this country where I had come to seek adventure really.’
Am I the only one who sees the irony of these sentences? Without the sentence preceding this, it turns out to be a charitable description of the British in India. And not just homeless. In a few years hence, Churchill would gloat about a million plus who died of starvation in Bengal, thanks to a deliberate policy of commandeering crops by force to the war a continent away. A few years prior saw massacres all over the country, the most famous being at Jalianwala Bagh, ironically in Punjab.
Yeah, the British won the war and hence became the good guys. But I cringe each time a story is made about “good and evil” in WW2. It was two equally monstrous sides, only one of which had a PR machine to airbrush history after the war.
I am sorry, but this pilot seems not much more than a mercenary to me. Not that I find fault in his being one—mercenaries can be brave too. And in addition, they didn’t have the advantage of hindsight we have today.
But let us cut the deification. I don’t see this site calling up by name, the numerous people who died for the freedom struggle. Not that you have to, but if you choose instead to shed tears for a mercenary, you are making a statement.
I never seem to be able to make up my mind if I’m going to laugh, be sad or just generally disgusted everytime an Indian makes escuses for Hitlers Germany. Or the Indian celebrations of the most gullible idiot of our time Subash Chandra Bose, now if the allies had lost the war and Japans troops had entered India, would Germany and Britain had been equally monstrous?
Churchill was an imperialist and a racist, Britain denied us the industrial revolution, all this is true. Hitler however was a genocidal maniac, and Germany and Japan winning the war would have made a difference to us for the worse.
For the record, famines happened in Indian twice after the british left in both Bihar and Maharashtra. So not only the british failed with a central planned economic system in our country.
I am sorry, but this pilot seems not much more than a mercenary to me. Not that I find fault in his being one—mercenaries can be brave too. And in addition, they didn’t have the advantage of hindsight we have today. But let us cut the deification. I don’t see this site calling up by name, the numerous people who died for the freedom struggle. Not that you have to, but if you choose instead to shed tears for a mercenary, you are making a statement.
You make a good point. Another thing that I’m sort of annoyed about is how Indians praise Sikhs and Rajputs for being at the vanguard of India’s defense. This is all hogwash. They were all fighting on behalf of themselves.
Also, this mercenary was fighting FOR the British a few years after the horrors of Amritsar. This is like me fighting for the Israelis given the Shatila Massacre.
WOOOOOOOO!!! LET”S ALL MISS THE POINT OF A BLOG POST MEANT TO CELEBRATE THE LONG LIFE OF AN INTERESTING SOUL FROM A BYGONE ERA AND INSTEAD BITCH ABOUT RANDOM ARMCHAIR POLITICS AND SHOW EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET WE’RE RIGHTEOUS AS SHIIIT!!! YAAYYYYY WE KNOW INDIAN HISTORY AND A 400 YEAR OLD VICTIM COMPLEX!!!! FUCK YEAH!!!
Politics aside, I think Mohinder Singh underlines just how important India was for the British Empire. No one talks about this much but the Indian army, paid for by Indian taxpayers, was responsible for building and then holding the British Empire together.
“Or the Indian celebrations of the most gullible idiot of our time Subash Chandra Bose, now if the allies had lost the war and Japans troops had entered India, would Germany and Britain had been equally monstrous?”
I am neither an indian hitler apologist not a bengali, but I think this statement is stupid. For India, having one of the most prominent freedom fighter in the side of Hitler (however monstrous he was) seems a good strategy in hindsight. I do not know if it was a planned move (and i am not insinuating that it was), but to have Bose (who will have been one of the most significant rival to Nehru) join the Axis side seems like a rational strategy. It might have been better for India that way, incase the Axis power had won the war. I do not know what would have happened then, but neither did Bose, Nehru and Gandhi at that time.
On a related matter, the BBC did a documentary about the role of the Indian Army in World War II. It can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube, just search for “The Forgotten Volunteers”.
Numbering 2 million men, the Indian Army was the largest all-volunteer military force in history. It was the only military force that was able to stop Japan’s advance into Asia, giving time for the U.S. to pursue its ‘island-hopping” strategy. It was also essential in beating Erwin Rommel in North Africa.
Without getting into the thread-jack of British conduct in India, I will agree that Churchill is one of the most over-rated “statesmen” in history.
Quote: never seem to be able to make up my mind if I’m going to laugh, be sad or just generally disgusted everytime an Indian makes escuses for Hitlers Germany. Or the Indian celebrations of the most gullible idiot of our time Subash Chandra Bose, now if the allies had lost the war and Japans troops had entered India, would Germany and Britain had been equally monstrous?
Who on this board is making excuses for Hitler’s Germany? Since I see yours as the second comment after mine, somehow you seem to think that from what I said, though I do not see how.
The point that most people are making is that if you count deaths in the colonies as well, Britain was not much less monstrous than Japan or Germany. The famine in Bengal is different from the other two you mention, as well as the other famines during the British period—it was man made, and what is worse, Churchill would be proud of engineering it in a few years hence.
I don’t see much of a difference between Hitler and Churchill. I would say Churchill got to play Hitler, and thanks to the post war PR machinery, he gets praised for it today.