Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #forcek6
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Thread. Giving the V-sign to captors. Around 15,000 Indian soldiers were captured in North Africa & Italy in #WW2. They were held by the Germans and Italians for up to 5 years, and almost none of their stories are known. 1/9 
I am trying to track down relatives of these 15,000 Indian POWs. For example, in this group photo from a German camp for officers, there’s a #sikh officer in the back row. Was this your grandfather? 2/9
In Britain in the 60s and 70s, I grew up with images like these. POW stories were a staple, always featuring white men, usually officers, upper lips stiffened, trying to escape from #Colditz and Stalag Luft III. Where were the Indians?
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Eighty one years ago today, this man led 299 Indian soldiers along the beach at Dunkirk. They were taken off in the middle of the night from the East Mole, and spent the next 3½ years in Britain. His name?
His name was Muhammad Akbar Khan. He was a Great War veteran, and one of the very first group of Indians to be commissioned as an officer in the Indian Army, in 1919. Here he is in 1925 with his regimental hockey team.
After Dunkirk he made friends with Leo Amery, recently appointed as Secretary of State for India. They met at Pribright - this photo also shows ZA Bokhari, who went on to found🇵🇰 Pakistan Radio. @ColourHeritage
