They fought a war that was not theirs and died anonymously on foreign shores.
- Tesserract Media Admin
- Feb 14, 2019
- 2 min read
They were sent by British Indian Army and were sent to France to fight World War 2.
The two soldiers belonged to the 39th Garhwal Rifles regiment, found in a field in northwestern France, will finally be brought home.The two men were found along with the bodies of a British and a German soldier, buried in a field near the town of Laventie, nearly 70km from Dunkirk.
A team of four Indian defence personnel, including a Garhwal Rifles brigadier, will visit the site next month. Some artefacts, including the regimental insignia, have also been found. The team will try to determine the identities of the two soldiers, and see if any details can be found," said a Garhwal Rifles officer posted in Lansdowne. We will try our best to identify them, although it will be difficult. The bodies were buried for more than 100 years, so very little is left," the officer said.
Garhwal Rifles fought in various fronts in the World War I as well as in the World War II.
In the first conflict, 721 men from the regiment were killed, while 349 died in World War II. Gabar Singh Negi, who won the Victoria Cross for his bravery at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in France, where he died on March 10, 1915.
Site where those two soldiers were found is 8 Km from Laventie which indicates both of them died in the battle.
After the battle of Neuve Chapelle , 39th Garhwal Rifles was posted to Mesopotamia (now Iraq).
1 million Indian men served in World War I, of which more than 62,000 were killed.Many of them were buried in graves maintained by the Imperial War Graves Commission in countries like France and Belgium.
In Neuve-Chapelle there is a Indian Memorial to the war dead to commemorate Indian troops' involvement in that battle.
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After World War I, 39th Garhwal Rifles was renamed 39th Royal Garhwal Rifles, and later numbered as 18th Royal Garhwal Rifles. The regiment is now known as Garhwal Rifles, with the `royal' omitted in 1950.
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