So, Dr Bowman, where were the Indians on D-Day?
Good question, and very un-researched. This🧵is a collection of the leads I’ve come across in the last few years. Please share your stories if you know more... #DDay80 One Indian was in a German prison at Pforzheim. Noor Inayat Khan aka ‘Madeleine’ had been a highly successful SOE radio operator in Paris. Betrayed and captured, she was murdered by the Nazis in Dachau in Sept ’44. Her final word was ‘Liberté’.

Steve McQueen is not in this photo, but these men were part of the Greatest Escape of the Second World War.

On this #GreatEscape weekend, I’ve a few thoughts to share 🧵. Please read on… First, of course, we should remember the 50 escapers murdered by the Nazis. This weekend I’ll be re-watching the film and reading about the true story behind it.

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

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.