|
|
| NEWSLETTER | | | | SIKH PIONEERS AND SIKH LIGHT INFANTRY ASSOCIATION | | | | DECEMBER 2006 NEWSLETTER | | | | | 4. The Sovereign’s Parade Sandhurst August 2006 | | | | | There are no discernible perks to the Newsletter Editor’s job, so in their place I am going to seize some free publicity for the family’s military record by mentioning my visit to the 151st Sovereign’s Parade, where my grandson took part. On the way to Sandhurst the weather prospects looked disastrous, the sky was black, and a storm threatened, but miraculously the rain held off throughout.
A few historical notes are justified. The Academy’s origins go back to 1720, when the first Military Academy was established at Woolwich. In 1812 there was a partial move to Sandhurst, and in 1947 the Royal Military Academy combined military and staff studies. Now 800 Officer Cadets attend each year, in addition to Territorial Army officers. The Academy is said to be “the spiritual home of the officer corps of the British Army”.
This year the Parade was taken by King Abdullah of Jordan, who was himself at Sandhurst. The King of Bahrein was in the audience of 300 or so. In a very invigorating speech King Abdullah mention some of the frank advice given by his colour sergeant “it’s character building” when he was digging a ditch in frozen ground on Salisbury plan. The king seemed o have taken that in good part and inspected the parade before presenting the Sword of Honour and other awards. 270 students had survived the 44 week course and were passing out, carrying swords on parade. The contingent who were still undergoing the course carried rifles. The “Advance in Review Order” accompanied by the Band playing “The British Grenadiers”, and then the Sovereign’s Banner, the Colours, and the Senior Division march off parade up the steps of the Grand Entrance completed the traditional and impressive ceremony.
| | | 5. Follow up Report by Lt Col. D.L. Mackay RE (Retd) on his visit to the Indian Memorial to the Missing An Extract follows: | | | | | Lt Col Mackay was born in India and attended school in Edinburgh. He was commissioned from the RMA Sandhurst into the Royal Engineers. He served in Germany, and did the Long Engineering Course and qualified as Chartered Engineer. He served in Gibraltar and Hong Kong and was Chief Instructor of the Electrical and Mechanical School. He retired from the Army in 1984 and entered the Electrical Industry.
The Indian Memorial to the Missing in the Great War 1914-1918 is at a crossroads where the road from Festubert to Neuve Chapelle, D 171, crosses the D 947 just north of la Bassee. It is about 60 kilometres SSE of Dunkerque.
Opposite the entrance is a second “chatris” which contains a bronze panel which was added in 1964. The inscription reads:
| | | In honoured memory of these men who died in captivity
and were buried at Zehrensdorf near Berlin
| | | | | The panel gives the names of 210 servicemen, including Sepoy Gopal Singh 34th Sikh Pioneers. This cemetery near Berlin lay in the Russian Sector and could not be maintained by the War Graves Commission. On the 22nd October, 2005 the Times recorded a story headed “Heroes’ graves rescued from oblivion”.
The Duke of Kent re-opened the restored cemetery on the 29th October 2005 as president of the War Graves Commission. The cemetery honours 227 Indian Army soldiers. The German Authorities did keep meticulous records and it is from these that the story of the Prisoner of War camps near Berlin is known. Zeherensdorf no longer exists, the nearest town being Zossen.
In the camp at Zehrensdorf conditions, according to the German account, were utopian. Now compare this with conditions on the Western Front. Ill-equipped, unfamiliar with their weapons, untrained for this kind of industrialized warfare or the extreme power which could be brought to bear on the battlefield and with no time to adjust to this alien environment, facing appallingly high casualty rates and the loss of trusted British officers, the one thing which stands out is the astonishing loyalty and courage of the Indian Corps.
The size of the Indian contribution to the war effort was considerable. By the end of 1918 the number of Indian troops who had served overseas was 1,105,000. During the war Indian troops served in France, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Palestine, Aden and East Africa with a small contingent in Salonica and Gallipoli. The cost was 62,000 Indian troops killed and 67,000 wounded. Individual and collective acts of gallantry and meritorious service were too numerous to mention but eleven Victoria Crosses were won by the Indian soldiers during the war, they having become eligible for the award in 1911.
The Germans invested heavily in the attempt to win Indian troops to their side to fight along side Germany’s Turkish allies. The success of this investment was very limited, but the fact that they tried reflects the very high regard in which the German Army facing the Indian Corps held their enemies. It is greatly to the credit of the present inhabitants of Zossen that they did not abandon this old war cemetery, in the derelict state it had reached as tank training area, but have taken so much care and effort to restore it regardless of cost. They did so to honour those who had lost their lives in a war against Germany. May they now rest in peace in a foreign land but in the care of those who hold them in respect.
At its peak there were 19,000 men in both camps. They were predominately Colonial soldiers of the British, French and Russian Empires who had been taken prisoner during the fighting. There were not only Muslims but also Hindus and Sikhs particularly among the Indian soldiers who fought with the British Army The two largest camps were Weinberg or Muehlenlager in Zossen and Halbmondlager in Wuensdorf. These were special camps, not POW camps in the usual sense, but had more the character of internment camps. The Colonial soldiers enjoyed considerable freedom, benefits and privileges, as was conceded by one of the internees. They enjoyed the rules of convention having excellent food, clothing, letters and religious freedom. There were wash basins with running water for religious cleansing. Along with this relatively humane treatment was a powerful propaganda machine in both camps. The preferential treatment was in line with the Hague Land Warfare Convention of 1907 and the extensive publicity was aimed at the ideological separation of Colonial soldiers from their Colonial Powers. A strong influence was from the Turkish politicians who had been detained until new German / Turkish relations were established after the then Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of Germany.
The authorities wanted to win over, as quickly as possible, the sympathy of Colonial POWs to the side of Germany and the Ottoman Empire against their own motherland. In particular this was to support the Turkish army against the British in the war in the Middle East.
During the two World Wars about a hundred military and civilian dead from the Wuensdorfer Military Hospital and from the Military camp in Zossen were buried in the cemetery. Victims of a heavy bombing strike on Wuernsdorf on 15 March 1945 are also buried there. The graves in the cemetery and a small chapel were cared for until the end of the war in 1945. Responsibility for this lay with the respective German commanders for the Wuernsdorf garrison. From 1945 until 1994 this beautiful cemetery was in the middle of a Soviet Russian training area, in a closed sealed off district. It became totally overgrown, completely ruined, was abandoned to vandalism and finally the graves were robbed. The 1.3 hectares were a total wilderness. Large memorial stones were destroyed and smaller grave stones stolen. It was no longer recognizable as a cemetery. In the newspaper “Markischen Allgemeine’ of 5 August 1992 there was a courageous article by the town’s chronicler Hildegard Happe, “No peace in freedom at the Zehrensdorfer cemetery”. The deplorable state of affairs that the author publicity denounced made people stop and listen. Ten years then passed before, in 2002, the task of reconstruction began. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, The British commission for the care of war graves, the German Care for War Graves and the town of Zossen all cooperated in this work. The main financial, material and idealistic part of this work was British. On 29 October 2005 the formal re-opening of the cemetery took place in the presence of international figures. Ambassadors and representatives of Commonwealth countries were present and elite soldiers from Nepal, once under British influence, mounted guard. The ceremonial speech was made by the Duke of Kent, President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. After fifty years of decay and devastation, this memorial Cemetery is now again assessable to visitors.
| | | |
|
|
|
|
|
Page 4 of 6 |
|
|
