New Delhi: The 1972 Bollywood movie, Lalkaar, was unique in its depiction of Indian pilots fighting in the Second World War. Although it was perhaps the last Bollywood movie with that war as backdrop, it did offer a glimpse, and a tiny one at that, of the contribution of India's air warriors in bringing down the combined might of the Axis powers.
But at a memorial function in the UK on Friday, this contribution was recognized and firmly engraved in stone. At St Andrew's Garden in Gravesend, Kent, Great Britain, an eight-foot bronze statue of a decorated Indian fighter pilot of WWII, Squadron Leader Mohinder Singh Pujji, was unveiled—perhaps the first such memorial to an Indian war hero in Europe.
Pujji was among the 24 officers from Indian Air Force sent to Britain in 1940 to fly with the Royal Air Force, which was fighting the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and desperately needed pilots (the RAF at that time already had 13 direct-entry Indian officers). These Indian officers were placed in different squadrons in RAF's fighter, bomber and coastal commands and flew rhubarb missions.
In fact, Indian pilots also flew bombing missions over Dresden and other German cities, and were there during the Normandy operations — a fact that's never been acknowledged in the mass media, both in the west and India.
29/11/4 Manimugdha S Sharma/Times of India
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But at a memorial function in the UK on Friday, this contribution was recognized and firmly engraved in stone. At St Andrew's Garden in Gravesend, Kent, Great Britain, an eight-foot bronze statue of a decorated Indian fighter pilot of WWII, Squadron Leader Mohinder Singh Pujji, was unveiled—perhaps the first such memorial to an Indian war hero in Europe.
Pujji was among the 24 officers from Indian Air Force sent to Britain in 1940 to fly with the Royal Air Force, which was fighting the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and desperately needed pilots (the RAF at that time already had 13 direct-entry Indian officers). These Indian officers were placed in different squadrons in RAF's fighter, bomber and coastal commands and flew rhubarb missions.
In fact, Indian pilots also flew bombing missions over Dresden and other German cities, and were there during the Normandy operations — a fact that's never been acknowledged in the mass media, both in the west and India.
29/11/4 Manimugdha S Sharma/Times of India
