By Harvinder Sandhu and Steven Purewal
On Remembrance Day, many of the stories that will be shared will touch on the immense sacrifices of Canadians in two world wars. What is rarely discussed, is that Canada was fighting as part of British Empire, and in so doing, was fighting alongside other British subjects as brothers-in-arms.
Of course, the veterans from the First World War have now all passed away. And as the ranks of the veterans from the Second World War also thin out, one of the last men standing from the British Indian Army—one that comprised the largest volunteer army in history—can be found living out his golden years in Surrey.
A veteran of the Second World War, Major Naib Singh Grewal served in the Crown’s forces from 1939 to 1945.
Grewal saw action in the most decisive battles of the Burmese Front at Imphal and Kohima. At the time, the Allied invasion of Europe steered the spotlight away from the Battle of Kohima, which was still being fought when D-Day started.
The Battle of Kohima is often referred to as the “Stalingrad of the East.” The especially bloody clash was recognised in 2013 by the British National Army Museum as “Britain’s Greatest Battle,” beating out D-Day and Waterloo.
“I was injured twice in Burma,” said Major Naib, who will turn 101 about a week after Remembrance Day. “One injury was from the bombs being dropped, the other in a firefight.”
Grewal—born Nov. 19, 1922, in Moherna Klan, District Ludhiana, Punjab—fought with Canadian troops in the Burma campaign. About 8,000 Canadians served in Burma during the World War II and 500 were killed there. Most Canadians served as part of the Royal Air Force.
The Burma campaign—rarely written about or presented on the silver screen—has never really been recognized for its importance. But it was a battle that changed the course of history. The British Indian Army prevented the invasion of India and handed Imperial Japan one its biggest defeats in WWII.
If British and Indian troops had failed to defeat the Japanese invasion, and turn the tide of the war in the Far East, the Japanese would have connected with Nazi forces across Persia and India, placing Asia in the grip of the Axis powers.
Instead, Indian troops fought in what has been described by historians as the most vicious battle of WWII. The fight for Imphal lasted more than four months, from March to July 1944. Kohima lasted three months, from April to June 1944. Some 55,000 Japanese soldiers lost their lives in Imphal and 7,000 in Kohima. British forces sustained 12,500 casualties at Imphal, while the fighting at Kohima cost them another 4,000 casualties.
“In the war you are constantly under fire from the enemy,” Grewal said. “It was either anti-tank fire, or the bombing by planes, or torpedoes being fired at you. You didn’t know if you were going to live another minute let alone another day. You also worried, what if the supply lines get cut off ? What then? How were we going to keep fighting with a chance at surviving?”
Grewal remembered the war being hard on families back home, but also hard on soldiers as they had no way to communicate with their families.
“The worst was not knowing for months about your family,” he said. “If my parents were alive or if they were safe. These worries, along with your own mortality, staring at you daily, is very tough on the mind.”
His service garnered him 16 awards.
After the war Grewal suffered from PTSD and his family also suffered having to see their hero struggle through it.
Grewal immigrated to Canada in 1980 and settled in Fort McMurray.
“It was very difficult when I came here,” he said. “Beautiful place, but life was very tough, not as tough when you are in war.”
—with files from Malin Jordan.
Steven Purewal is an author and historian. His historical graphic novel, “Duty, Honour & Izzat” can be found at renegadeartsentertainment.com. His projects can be found online at the Indus Media Foundation (imfc.org).
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SIDEBAR
First World War History: Punjabi soldiers at the Battle of Ypres
By Steven Purewal
In one of the most iconic moments in Canadian history, Punjabi soldiers came to the assistance of Canadian troops at a most desperate hour.
Having reinforced the British Expeditionary Force at Ypres in October 1914, troops from Punjab’s Lahore Division (British Indian Army) were again deployed to Ypres six months later when Germany resorted to chemical weapons to shatter Canadian defences. Standing stoically alongside Canadians amidst the carnage wrought by poison gas, the Punjabis helped secure a pivotal moment in this country’s nation-building saga.
It could well be considered Canada’s greatest battle as it “created” the Canadian Army; it set the tenor, the style and the esprit de corps that forged a fearsome reputation for Canadian troops that would carry them through the subsequent campaigns of the First World War to the iconic Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Many of these battles would feature Punjabi troops fighting alongside Canadians, including Festubert (1915), the Somme (1916), Vimy, Cambria and Passchendaele (1917).
More than 74,000 South Asians were killed in the First World War. Casualties on the Western Front are buried or commemorated alongside Canadians in 115 cemeteries in France and Belgium.
