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The Hindu
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Review of The Great Épinal Escape by Ghee Bowman
I'd never heard of these POWs before — all those Great Escapes & never a brown face among them.' This line in the Epilogue of Ghee Bowman's The Great Épinal Escape perfectly expresses a reader's state after finishing the book. The tale of over 500 Indian prisoners of war escaping from a German camp during World War II has lain buried in various archives and libraries until unearthed and excavated by the historian and author. But this book is more than just a story of an escape. Theatres of action Bowman opens with an overview of 'an army in transition, from a country in transition' in which he sketches the reasons for young men to join the army and the impact of India's freedom movement on recruitment. He moves across the various theatres of action to show how widely spread the Indian soldiers were across Europe and Africa, and how many were taken as prisoners by the Germans. Even before he gets to the great escape, Bowman showcases characters such as Shriniwas Raghavendra Kulkarni, a clerk in the Mobile Workshop Company of the Ordnance Corps, who was captured in June 1942 in North Africa. He escapes, is captured, escapes again, hides in an Arab village, disguises himself as an Arab, trudges across Italy and finally falls in with New Zealand troops. A performance that was awarded the Indian Order of Merit. But not all prisoners were as lucky. Bowman offers a detailed account of the life of a PoW in a German camp with extracts from letters written by the men. As Havildar R.P. Shirke of the Postal Service writes: 'It seemed that Man had jumped from the civilised 20th century back to the Stone Age …' The escape The second part of the book is devoted to the escape. On May 11, 1944, American planes dropped bombs in Épinal in northeastern France to destroy the railway lines. With some bombs falling on a PoW camp and destroying its walls, the prisoners took the opportunity to grab 'everything we could by way of food, blankets etc ...' and escape. When you stop to think about this, it boggles the mind. Strangers in France, not knowing the language or customs, visibly different from the locals, without money or any papers... yet they did not hesitate. There's a heart-warming incident of two soldiers returning to the camp to rescue a friend before continuing on their way to freedom. In this, the attitude of the French also played a big role: whether it was feeding the escapees, hiding them, guiding them in the right direction, and hoodwinking the Germans. Yet things could get complicated, given the nature of the Swiss border, which meandered into France and Germany. Bowman narrates one story of a group of prisoners who lost their way and returned to the farm they had been sent on from. Once in Switzerland, they were free but it was of a limited nature. Bowman writes about the racism — overt and covert — with which the Indians were treated and of their return to India. The Epilogue looks at what the Épinalepisode had done to the men. Bowman also points out that while those who fought in the Indian National Army are being feted, those who served in the British army are 'not well remembered. They should be. They are no less worthy of record than the Americans and Britishers at Colditz and Stalag Luft III. For the sake of their families, and to set right the historical record, their stories should be told and retold'. The Great Épinal Escape: Indian Prisoners of War in German Hands Ghee Bowman Context ₹699 krithika.r@
Scroll.in
27-05-2025
- General
- Scroll.in
Ghee Bowman (1961-2025): A British historian who unearthed the stories of Indian soldiers at Dunkirk
One day in 2013, when Ghee Bowman was working on a project on the city of Exeter's multicultural history, he found a book featuring three photographs of Indian soldiers in the English county of Devon during the Second World War. It piqued his curiosity. 'I thought I knew about the Second World War, but I'd never imagined that there were Indian soldiers with turbans and mules in Devon,' he wrote. Though he had a BA in drama, Bowman decided to start an MA in history – and went on to write a PhD dissertation on the 4,227 men of Force K6 contingent who spent most of the war in England. Through their stories, he shone the spotlight on the often-ignored contribution of the 2.5 million men and women of the British Indian Army who had served during the Second World War When Bowman started digging, he found that the British Army arrayed against Nazi Germany in Europe early in the war needed mules to transport artillery and supplies. The men of Force K6 and their mules were shipped in from India, more than 11,000 km away. Several had been evacuated from Dunkirk in France in 1940 when the Allied defense collapsed and spent years in England. Play Before Bowman died on May 10, he had spent the previous 12 years researching the Indian Army in Europe during the Second World War. His two books on the subjects are superbly researched and cracking reads. Bowman's first book was The Indian Contingent – The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of the Battle of Dunkirk, published in 2020. It is the story of the 299 men of the 25th Animal Transport Company of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps. Because the British used to group men of the same religion and creed together, these men were mainly Muslim. The role of Indian soldiers fighting in North Africa and Italy during the war had been documented. But little was known about the men who were in France. The Great Epinal Escape – Indian Prisoners of War in German Hands was published in late 2024. Bowman had been toying with the title The Greatest Escape, a reference to the popular movie about the war, The Great Escape. It was about the escape of 500 Indian prisoners of war from a camp at Epinal in France in 1944. On May 11, 1944, American planes bombed a camp at Epinal in France housing 3,000 Indian prisoners, breaking some walls. Several hundred escaped, of whom 500 reached Switzerland. It was the largest PoW escape during the Second World War. Though the Indians were conspicuous in the middle of France, they managed to make their way across the border through their grit and the bravery of civilians who helped them along the way. #OTD 11th May 1944; a sunny day in Épinal, a small town on the river Moselle, close to the Vosges mountains and Germany. The scene is set: nobody knows that this quiet French place, untouched by war since 1940, will become the site of the largest POW escape of #WW2 🧵 — Ghee Bowman (@GheeBowman) May 12, 2024 Very little has been written about the experience of individual Indian soldiers in the Second World War. With his micro-histories, Bowman took a step towards filling this gap – and pointed the way for other researchers to do so too. Besides, in a time of rising xenophobia in the UK, Bowman's work serves as a reminder of the long presence of South Asians – and Muslims – in the country and their contributions to keeping it secure at one of its most vulnerable moments. After submitting the manuscript for his second book, Bowman wondered how he could do more to tell the story of Indian soldiers during the Second World War. About six months ago, he decided that he had he hit upon the best and most gratifying way of doing this – not by writing more books or articles and making podcasts but by helping families get to know more about a grandfather or uncle who had fought in the conflict. This would not result in thousands of social media posts and perhaps only one family would get to know about the work. But to Bowman, helping even one person trace their family history was priceless. 'I'm very happy to share what I already know with families and the wider Indian public,' he wrote. 'I've got letters, photos, recommendations for medals that I've found in archives and newspapers. I would love to be able to restore these to the descendants of these brave men.' He decided to co-opt the willing and reached out to researchers across the world. He created a page on his website listing useful resources. I was proud to be his man in India and Southeast Asia These four men were soldiers of the Indian Army, part of #ForceK6 – Muslim Punjabis sent 7000 miles to help the British in its hour of need. Here are some of their officers inspecting coastal defences in November 1941. — Ghee Bowman (@GheeBowman) August 6, 2024 I had the privilege of getting to know Bowman in June 2023, when I reached out to him as I had just begun researching the Indian Army in World War II Singapore. He helped me find sources, to write a book proposal and introduced me to his publishers and others who turned out to be crucial for my own book. Even as he was trying to help family members trace their relatives, Bowman had been going through a grave personal health crisis. In his regular newsletter in May 2024, he mentioned that he had a fall. His last newsletter was on February 1. He said he had been diagnosed with a brain tumour, was undergoing radiation and chemotherapy and doing well. He died three months later. Bowman once described himself as 'a historian, teacher and story teller…a Quaker and a lifelong learner'. He was all that and much more – he helped others without any gain for himself.
