X-Nico

24 unusual facts about British Indian Army


1st Australian Wireless Signal Squadron

At the outbreak of World War I, the British Indian Army had a severe shortage of wireless equipment and trained operators.

1st Wessex Artillery

With a reformed Brigade Ammunition Column, CCXV Bde moved in October 1916 to Basra to take part in the Mesopotamian campaign, and on 8 December 1916 it joined 3rd (Lahore) Division of the Indian Army on the Tigris front.

Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta on July 11, 1956 in a Bengali Hindu family, to Lieutenant Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh, a retired officer of the pre-independence Indian Army, and was educated at The Doon School; St. Stephen's College, Delhi, Delhi University, India; the Delhi School of Economics and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was awarded a D. Phil. in social anthropology under the supervision of Peter Lienhardt.

Austin Henry Williams

Brigadier Austin Henry Williams (11 February 1890 - 5 September 1973) was a British polo champion and officer in the Indian Army.

Australind, Western Australia

The name Australind is a combination of Australia and India, which was chosen due to the belief that the area could be used for breeding horses for the British Indian Army, as was later achieved in Cervantes, Northampton and Madura.

BL 5.4-inch howitzer

The Ordnance BL 5.4-inch howitzer was a version of the British 5-inch howitzer designed for British Indian Army use, especially on the Northwest Frontier.

Cecil Kaye

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Cecil Kaye CBE CSI CIE (27 May 1868 - 5 March 1935) was an officer in the British Indian Army.

Charles Wilbraham Watson Ford

Brigadier Charles Wilbraham Watson Ford (1896-1972) was an officer in the British Indian Army during World War II.

George Campbell Wheeler

He was 36 years old, and a Major in the 2nd Battalion, 9th Gurkha Rifles, British Indian Army during World War I when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

Godfrey Meynell

Godfrey Meynell was thirty-one years old, and a captain in the 5th Battalion (Queen Victoria's Own Corps of Guides), 12th Frontier Force Regiment, British Indian Army during the 1935 Mohmand Campaign in British India.

Hilary Hook

Hook was born on 26 September 1917 and was educated at Canford School, Dorset, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, after which he was commissioned into the Unattached List of the Indian Army on 27 January 1938.

L. H. Branson

He transferred from the 2nd battalion the Royal Munster Fusiliers to the British Indian Army 17 February 1901, joining the 9th Bombay Infantry.

Major Lionel Hugh Branson (8 April 1879 - April 1946) was a British magician and officer of the British Indian Army.

Llanddowror

Indeed, the rank-and-file soldiery of the British Indian Army was largely Celtic and Welsh, given the backwardness of their native regions compared to England; the officer corps was largely English.

Madura, Western Australia

Madura was settled in 1876 as a place to breed quality cavalry horses for the British Indian Army for use in the Northwest Frontier region of India (now part of Pakistan).

Nicholas Lash

Lash was born to Joan Mary Moore, a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, and Brigadier Henry Alleyne Lash, a Protestant officer in the British Indian Army.

Punji stick

The term first appeared in the English language in 1870s, after the British Indian Army encountered the sticks in their border conflicts against the Kachins of north east Burma (and it is from their language that term is derived).

QF 2.95-inch Mountain Gun

The weapon was not adopted by the British Army or the Indian Army, which used the BL 10 pounder Mountain Gun and later the BL 2.75 inch Mountain Gun, but it was used from 1901 by the defence forces of some British African colonies as part of the Royal West African Frontier Force (WAFF).

Ronald Gervase Mountain

Ronald Gervase Mountain DSO MC (16 January 1897 – 1983) was an officer in the British Indian Army during World War II.

Sial tribe

Following the introduction of the Punjab Land Alienation Act in 1900, the authorities of the Raj classified the Sials who inhabited the Punjab as an "agricultural tribe", a term that was administratively synonymous with the "martial race" classification that was used for the purposes of determining the suitability of a person as a recruit to the British Indian Army.

Terence Otway

Although this gave him eligibility to join the Indian Army, he chose the British and, in August 1934, was commissioned into The 2nd Battalion of The Royal Ulster Rifles, based at Gravesend.

The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly

Lieutenant Golightly is a young officer in the British Army in India who prides himself on "looking like 'an Officer and a Gentleman'".

The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel

It stars James Mason in the title role, was directed by Henry Hathaway, and was based on the book Rommel by Brigadier Desmond Young, who served in the Indian Army in North Africa.

Yoked with an Unbeliever

He takes up shortly after with a Hill-woman called Dunmaya, the daughter of a senior soldier among the troops of the Native Army and marries her.


British occupation of the Jordan Valley

The Jordan Valley was garrisoned in 1918 by the 20th (Imperial Service) Infantry Brigade, the Anzac Mounted Division and the Australian Mounted Division, until 17 May when the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions arrived.

Burma Rifles

The expansion of the British Indian Army during World War I led to the raising of two companies of Burma Pioneers in Mandalay in November 1916.

Chlorodyne

It was invented in the 19th century by a Dr. John Collis Browne, a doctor in the British Indian Army; its original purpose was in the treatment of cholera.

Clan Rattray

This famous battalion, which was regularised as an infantry unit in the British Indian Army as the 45th Rattray's Sikhs in the 1860s, later became the 3rd Battalion 11th Sikh Regiment in 1922 and then the 3rd battalion the Sikh Regiment (Rattray's) in the modern Indian army.

Daoud Bokhary

He served in the British Indian Army for four years as a logistics expert, and came to Hong Kong with the army on the first British ship after the surrender of Japan ended the occupation of Hong Kong.

George Stringer

During the effort to relieve the besieged garrison of British and Indian Army troops at Kut-el-Amara.

History of the Jews in Malaysia

The graves of the Cohens are located separately from the main group of graves on the north-eastern corner of the cemetery and it includes the grave of Eliaho Hayeem Victor Cohen, a Lieutenant with the 9th Jat Regiment of the British Indian Army killed in an accident on 10 October 1941.

Hugh Seagrim

He was educated at Norwich School, graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and joined the British Indian Army, becoming an officer in the 19th Hyderabad Regiment.

Indian Army during World War II

The Indian Army fought in Ethiopia against the Italian Army, in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia against both the Italian and German Army, and, after the Italian surrender, against the German Army in Italy.

Joseph Fox the younger

1- Emily (aft Mar 1792 – Newton Abbott, South Devon, 8 Mar 1866, ) married Philipp Sleeman (1791/2-31 Mar 1869), brother of Maj General William Henry Sleeman, Governor of Lucknow, who joined the Indian Army in 1809 and wrote the History of the Thugs (hired gangs of murderers).

M. Z. Kiani

A keen Hockey player in his youth, Kiani joined the British Indian Army in 1931 at the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun, sitting for the entrance exam in preference over a trial for the Olympic Hockey trials at Calcutta.

Pessie Madan

In 1943, Madan was commissioned into the British Army in India, where he commanded a field unit in the turbulent Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Poona Horse

The Poona Horse arrived in Egypt in April 1918, they now formed the 14th Cavalry Brigade of the 5th Cavalry Division with the Deccan Horse and the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry.

Tony Hart

He left school in 1944 and wanted to join the Royal Air Force, but as he would have been unable to fly owing to slightly deficient eyesight, he instead signed up with the British Indian Army and served as an officer in the 1st Gurkha Rifles.

Zahid Ali Akbar Khan

At the start of the Second World War his father volunteered for service with the British Indian Army in the Artillery Corps and was killed in action during the Battle of Singapore.