A group known as Force K6, who were mostly from the northwest provinces, which are now in Pakistan, are the focus of Ghee Bowman's book "The Indian Contingent: The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of the Battle of Dunkirk". They worked for the British army's mule transport companies, which helped move goods to places that trucks couldn't get.
Some of these troops were taken prisoner during the Battle of Dunkirk, but many managed to flee to Britain and were moved to other locations throughout the United Kingdom to assist with army training. Bowman doesn't combine everyone into a single entity.
Until the reader has a comprehensive image of the "poets and musicians, cooks and carpenters and a veterinarian... writers, cinema lovers, boyfriends and parents," as author Yasmin Khan puts it in the Foreword, each individual has a tale to tell.
The group of Animal Transport Companies, known as Force K6, was established in the latter part of 1939 to meet the logistical and transportation needs of the snowbound supply routes to military installations in Belgium and along the Franco-German borders. Bellows-boys, blacksmiths, hammermen, farriers, cooks, dhobis, and other service providers made up the majority of these animal transport companies, which were organised around "muleteers", or mule drivers.
In addition to British commissioned officers leading each company, there would be a Viceroy's Commissioned Officer below them, who was frequently of Indian descent and perhaps a Great War veteran. The villages of Chakwal, Campbellpur, and Jhelum, which are close to the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, provided the majority of the 1,723 soldiers that arrived in Marseilles in December 1939.
Arrival in Marseilles & Evacuation at Dunkirk
From their recruitment in the North-West Frontier Province of British India to their arrival in Marseilles, their deployment to isolated military installations in the central and northern regions of France, their arduous movements during the gruesome months of the Blitzkrieg and the evacuation at Dunkirk, and, lastly, their three-year tenure at the British Home Front, Bowman chronicles the experiences of these men.
The goal of this book, according to Bowman's prologue, is to bring them back into the mainstream and acknowledge their contributions to the Second World War and the Commonwealth. It is true that he has done this.
The book represents a work of care. He has recovered lost family records and images from private albums, as well as conducted interviews with soldiers' descendants who believed their family histories were inconsequential to the larger tale of Britain's role in the Second World War.
The incredible story of the Indian Contingent, the Muslim soldiers who fought in the crucial Battle of Dunkirk, is revealed for the first time by Ghee Bowman in the captivating manner of a true storyteller.
The story begins with their arrival in France on December 26, 1939, and ends with their return to an India that was approaching partition.
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