When 800 Indian Soldiers Escaped

Photograph: Kind courtesy: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205053514/Wikimedia Commons

Which was the largest prison break of World War II?

Was it when 76 plucky Allied POWs fled the Nazis' notorious Stalag Luft III, in lower Silesia, Poland, via tunnels they had dug named Tom, Dick and Harry, of whom, sadly, 73 were re-captured, that became the subject of the nail-bitingly exciting film The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough among others?

No.

It was when some 800 POWs made a run for it from a German prisoners of war camp in Epinal, on the Moselle river, in northeastern France, close to the German border and Switzerland too.

And listen to this... They were all Indians!

It may not have been the most audacious of escapes. Or as celluloid worthy. But it certainly was more effective because 500 or so made it out safe.

IMAGE: Dr Ghee Bowman. Photograph: Kind courtesy: @GheeBowman/X

The details of this successful prison break have been published in a book titled The Great Epinal Escape by Dr Ghee Bowman.

It did not involve the epic amount of planning that happened in Stalag Luft, but was about quick thinking on your feet, grabbing a chance when it presented itself. And guts.

Apparently, an American bomb exploded at this camp on March 11, 1944, and destroyed a section of the boundary wall and 800 odd Indians did not waste a minute, snatched whatever food and clothes they could lay their hands on and bravely made a dash for it, even as gunfire boomed.

IMAGE: An astounding 2.5 million Indians fought in World War II for the British! How many of their stories do we know? Photograph: Kind courtesy: https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1990-08-65-211/Wikimedia Commons

Over the next five days, with the help of French villagers, who secretly sheltered them and aided them, some 500 of these POWs hotfooted it across the border into Switzerland and to safety.

Bowman told The Times, London: 'My research took me around France and into Switzerland. I was repeatedly meeting people who remembered the escapers -- some very elderly people who remembered seeing these guys. It's as much a French story as it is an Indian story' and he rued the fact, calling it a 'travesty', that an account of their 'extraordinary' escape is so little known.

The Indian soldier escapees hung out in Switzerland for a while, until Europe was liberated, some joined the French Resistance and then returned home to India, not to band baja, as feted conquering heroes (in fact many waited for their back pay of half a year) nor did their story, which was not as seductive as the tale out of Stalag Luft, hit the headlines.

IMAGE: World War II made 12,000 Indians POWs, like the severely malnourished soldier in this picture. Photograph: Kind courtesy: Imperial War Museum/Wikimedia Commons

The lack of recognition of their story was nothing new. The contribution of the little people of the Commonwealth to the British war effort was mostly forgotten or undocumented. Said Bowman to The Times: 'The whole question of forgetting or 'unremembering' of Commonwealth stories and specifically Indian Army stories is huge'.

Bowman, the son of author W E Bowman (The Ascent of Rum Doodle) and a specialist in the Indian role in WWII, has been working tirelessly to accumulate details of some 12,000 Indian POWs for their descendants, who may be interested in the heroic exploits of their grandfathers or great grandfathers, that no one talked about. He just needs some museum space to showcase it. New Delhi?