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.