India's War

by Srinath Raghavan

  The government was unwilling to countenance both the economic and political stances of Indian businessmen. Worse, it suspected leading industrialists like Birla of covertly financing the Congress’s civil disobedience campaign. Be that as it may, the course of the war also forced to the government to reconsider its economic ideas. Italy’s entry into the war compelled the British government to look for alternative sources of supply – especially those that did not deplete its dollar and gold reserves.

  In September 1940, a Supply Mission was sent from London to advise India on expanding its industrial capacity for war production. Led by Sir Alexander Roger, chairman of the Tank Production Board, the mission consisted of six members and fourteen technical advisers. Over the next six months, the mission prepared no fewer than twenty-five reports on various dimensions of Indian industry. The nub of the problem, the mission argued, was that the engineering industry in India had been organized on a jobbing basis – mainly to maintain other industries and not for actual production. This underlying feature of Indian industry had to be changed if its production potential were to increase. The mission recommended a capital expenditure plan of £14.5 million and the procurement of certain machine tools and equipment from Britain and other countries. Among other things, the plan entailed creating five new ordnance factories, the expansion of the existing ones, and the conversion of three railway workshops for munition production. After protracted discussion, the Indian and London governments agreed on a watered-down version of the plan that would cost £9 million and would be carried out by 1943. More significantly, the mission’s calls for dispensing with the old system of tenders and establishing close and direct relations with various industries went unheeded.91

  The business community’s frustrations throughout this period were exemplified in the efforts of Walchand Hirachand. A leading industrial magnate and nationalist sympathizer, Walchand controlled the Scindia Steam Navigation Company. As a mandarin in the India Office observed,

  he has been for twenty years a thorn in the side of British shipping interests … His methods in the last year or two have been a suitable combination of a professed desire to help the war effort, an ambition to promote the industrialisation of India and the prosecution of his own interests.92

  Walchand had long dreamed of building ships in India – an industry that had been monopolized by British firms. After the war began, he lobbied for a site in Calcutta, but his efforts were thwarted by the Calcutta Port Trust authorities. In January 1940, he broached the idea of constructing a shipyard in the eastern Indian port of Vizag. Walchand’s proposal was examined by the government in June 1940 – only for him to be told that the site had already been earmarked for the Royal Indian Navy. Another six months passed before the navy could be convinced to waive its claim over the site.

  After leasing the location, however, Walchand found the government unwilling to support his efforts to import the requisite equipment. Although he promised to place every vessel built in the yard at the government’s disposal, his request was rebuffed: ‘Government does not consider it to be a part of the War effort, and therefore no direct assistance can be given.’ Walchand went ahead just the same. In June 1941, the foundation stone of the yard was laid by the Congress president, Rajendra Prasad. Yet the delays in procuring equipment, especially railway wagons, ensured that the yard was not functional before the Japanese turned on Britain’s Asian empire. Subsequent Japanese air raids on Vizag put paid to Walchand’s plans.93

  Walchand’s attempt to manufacture automobiles in India fared no better. The idea was originally floated in 1934 by the engineer, statesman and diwan of the princely state of Mysore, M. Visvesvaraya. Walchand worked with him on the business plan and managed to persuade the Congress government of Bombay to support the industry. Thereafter, he travelled to the United States to explore the possibility of collaboration with an American car manufacturer. Negotiations with Ford Motor Company fell through owing to the latter’s insistence on having a majority interest in the venture, but Walchand managed to stitch up a more favourable agreement with Chrysler Corporation.94 By this time, however, the Congress ministries had resigned. Walchand’s plans now received a double blow. The governor of Bombay was opposed to honouring the commitment made by the Congress ministry. More damagingly, the government refused to declare his proposed automobile factory as essential for the war effort – and so deprived him of critical imports and capital.95 Walchand’s Premier Automobile would not roll out its first car until after the war.

  Yet more dogged were Walchand’s attempts to manufacture aircraft in India.96 A chance meeting with the chairman of an American aircraft conglomerate in October 1939 set him on this tortuous road. After discussions with his American interlocutors, Walchand cabled the commander-in-chief of India offering to build military aircraft according to their specifications. He promised to hand over the first aircraft nine months after starting production. In the tenth month he would produce ten planes; thereafter, twenty a month. The government’s response was tinged with scepticism and lethargy. Not until the summer of 1940 was Walchand summoned to Simla for discussions. The trigger, of course, was the fall of France. However, the viceroy and the commander-in-chief were impressed by Walchand’s plans and gave him the go-ahead.

  The stumbling block proved to be the British government. The minister of aircraft production, Lord Beaverbrook, argued that India’s demands would detract from Britain’s own requirements of the United States. Eventually, it was agreed that Walchand could set up his factory but not import materials from Britain or America. Raising the requisite capital also proved tricky. Walchand turned to the state of Mysore, which agreed to provide land near Bangalore as well as other concessions, including finance. On 23 December 1940, the Hindustan Aircraft Company came into existence. The government placed orders for seventy-four long-range bombers, forty-eight fighters and thirty trainers. At end the end of August 1941, the first trainer was handed over. Other aircraft too began to be turned out on schedule.

  It was Japan’s entry into the war that derailed the project. For one thing, the government was concerned that Japanese planes could easily target the factory. For another, while the company had begun receiving supplies from America on a Lend-Lease plan, the US government insisted that these should not be used in a profit-making venture. The Indian government decided, therefore, to take control of the factory. In early 1942, Walchand and the Mysore state were strong-armed into divesting their stakes. So cut up was Walchand with the whole affair that he told an American journalist that he might be better off under Japanese rule: ‘What do I care about losing my property? Look at me now, am I a free man? No, I am just a slave!’97 Nevertheless, the mobilization of the economy would begin in earnest after the Japanese onslaught.

  5

  Into Africa

  General Archibald Wavell was enjoying his golf at the Gezira Club in Cairo. About half way through the eighteen holes, the game was interrupted by his senior intelligence officer. The brigadier bore grave news: France had surrendered. Wavell paused and then moved on. ‘I thought for a moment if there was anything I could do about it,’ he later recalled. ‘There wasn’t. So I went on with the game and was rather pleased that I did the next two holes in three and four.’1 This was entirely in character. The commander-in-chief of the Middle East was a man who measured every move. His detached and taciturn demeanour masked a meticulous and imperturbable mind. Wavell’s punctiliousness tended, however, to shade into ponderousness. Fortunately, his initial adversary in the Middle East was gripped by caution and indecisiveness. Unfortunately, his own political master itched for action.

  Wavell had taken over his post only a month before the war began in Europe. The Middle East Command (MEC) lay spread-eagled from the shores of the Persian Gulf, through Iraq and Transjordan to Palestine, and from Cyprus through Egypt and Sudan to Somaliland. The multifarious strategic challenges of the command were matched by the range of political problems in almost every country that
came under it. Nevertheless, MEC was tasked with securing interests that became irreducible for Britain after the fall of France. The eastern Mediterranean – including the Suez Canal – was the windpipe of the British imperial communications system. And its defence dictated the need to dominate the sprawling region assigned to the command. The Mediterranean became an important theatre for yet another reason. In the summer of 1940, it was the only place where Britain could directly fight the Axis forces. This was as important to maintain morale as to attract American aid and inveigle the French back into the war.2

  Yet this was a prospect that Britain had striven to avoid. Not only had the Chamberlain government been keen on Italy continuing its ‘non-belligerence’, but it forbade Wavell from making any move that might impair ties with Italy – such as running intelligence networks in the Italian territories of North and East Africa. Nor had the chiefs of staff formulated any strategic plans for this theatre. Italy was an equally reluctant entrant into the Mediterranean campaign. The dissolution of the Anglo-French defences in May–June 1940 alarmed Mussolini, who was all too aware of the inadequacy of his own armed forces. He sought both to avoid all-out war and to prevent Germany from pocketing all the gains. In the event, the Duce decided on a ‘parallel war’ aimed at boosting Italy’s prestige and share of the spoils. The only problem was that he had made no preparations for such a campaign. Indeed, he had not even informed his military chiefs that he intended to fight. Worse still, Mussolini refused to accept Hitler’s offer of German mechanized forces to fight alongside the Italian army.3

  Wavell had used the previous year methodically to come to grips with the diverse tasks of his command, to ponder operational plans, and to initiate the preparation of a large administrative and logistics base in the Middle East. Following the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940, the forces under his command began raids and ambushes on Italian positions along the Egypt–Libya frontier in the Western Desert. Wavell could do no more because his command was numerically and materially inferior to the Italian forces in North Africa. MEC had a little over 85,000 men, against the 415,000 Italians in the theatre. Further, not a single unit or formation under Wavell’s command had its full complement of equipment. There was a serious shortage of anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns as well as artillery. The Italian air force was vastly bigger than the RAF, though the latter had better aircraft and pilots.

  Not surprisingly, Wavell chose to remain on the strategic defensive until his forces were increased. ‘We cannot continue indefinitely to fight this war without proper equipment,’ he informed London at the end of July 1940, ‘and I hope that Middle East requirements will be delayed no longer.’4 Churchill, however, felt that Wavell was devoid of imagination and initiative. Standing at the nadir of Britain’s military fortunes, the prime minister craved for a victory. But Wavell was not the flamboyant buccaneer for whom Churchill longed. In turn, Churchill’s relentless probing and prodding pushed Wavell to the end of his tether. He would later observe that Churchill ‘never realized the necessity for full equipment before committing troops to battle’.5 Their meetings in August 1940 only served to reinforce these impressions, and their relationship never really recovered from these early encounters.

  Meanwhile, the Italians equivocated. In Libya, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, the chief of staff of the Italian army, had assumed direct command of the forces. By sending him to Libya, Mussolini had evidently hoped to inject vigour and flourish into the lacklustre performance of the Italians in North Africa so far. Graziani was undoubtedly his most distinguished soldier – a veteran and hero of the Senussi War of 1931 and the conquest of Abyssinia in 1935–36. As chief of staff, Graziani had directed the commander in Libya to seize the initiative with an offensive against British forces in Egypt. Now in Libya himself, though, the marshal grew rather circumspect. He observed that his forces were not sufficiently mobile for fighting in the Western Desert and demanded ever more equipment. Nor were the terrain and temperature conducive to an offensive.6

  Eventually, after much nudging and cajoling by Rome, Graziani’s 10th Army commenced an advance into Egypt on 13 September 1940. The marshal had originally planned to turn the British flank in the desert in a daring manoeuvre, but the leading brigade lost its way and the plan had to be aborted. Singed by this unpropitious start, Graziani turned ever more cautious. So, the advance of 13 September was a languid affair, led by carefully positioned divisions. A British officer quipped that it resembled nothing so much as ‘a birthday party in the Long Valley at Aldershot’. Having trudged through 65 miles of desert, the elephantine column came to a halt at Sidi Barrani, a small fishing village on the coast, where Graziani’s forces erected a monument to mark their glorious advance and dug themselves in in a semi-circle of defensive camps. Italian propaganda went into overdrive, claiming that ‘British resistance has been smashed’. A British commander observed that Sidi Barrani, comprising a ‘solitary mosque, police post, and a few mud huts had achieved an unexpected rise to a big city’. Back home, the Italians bragged to the Germans that once Graziani reached the Nile Delta the Arab world would rise in revolt.7

  In fact, the Italians had suffered nearly 2,000 casualties to delaying action by small groups of British forces. More importantly, Sidi Barrani was over 80 miles from Mersa Matruh, where Wavell’s forces were concentrated. Had the Italians continued their advance they may well have inflicted substantial damage on them. But Graziani’s decision to stop at Sidi Barrani provided a reprieve and passed the initiative to Wavell.

  Against Graziani’s six divisions, Wavell and his subordinate commander of the Western Desert Force, Major General Richard O’Connor, had a paltry force of two insufficiently equipped divisions. The 7th Armoured Division consisted of two brigades, only one of which was fully equipped. The 4th Indian Division had two infantry brigades – the 5th and 11th – each of which had two Indian and one British infantry battalions. The 4th Division had received its armoured regiment, the Central India Horse, only five weeks before the Italian offensive had begun.

  The 4th Indian Division was the first formation of the Indian army to serve on the frontline of the war. The Indian government had earmarked troops for despatch to the Middle East even before the outbreak of hostilities. On 22 July 1939, the secretary of state for India, Zetland, had requested Linlithgow to send them out immediately. The 11th Indian Infantry Brigade, with an artillery regiment, had sailed from India and reached Suez in mid-August. Three weeks into the war, the 5th Indian Infantry Brigade with a force headquarters embarked for Suez. In Egypt, these units were amalgamated into the 4th Indian Division, which was then placed under the Middle East Command.

  Shortage of equipment apart, the units forming the 4th Indian Division had been seriously underprepared for desert warfare. As their official historian wryly observes, ‘Neither the officers nor the men had ever handled an anti-tank rifle or a mortar. They had no motor vehicles or trained drivers.’8 Although the mechanization of the Indian army had been approved some time back, the new equipment had not yet reached India. So, these units had at once to be equipped and trained. Prior to the Italian declaration of war, the division spent much of its time training to fight in its new fully motorized organization. The division also trained for mobile warfare alongside the 7th (British) Armoured Division, with which it enjoyed a close working relationship. Training continued even after Italy entered the war: as late as October 1940, troops from the division were being trained in anti-tank warfare by a New Zealand anti-tank battery. O’Connor knew that he was badly outnumbered and placed a premium on realistic training and careful rehearsals. In a letter to the two divisions under his command, he insisted that ‘All troops taking part must be trained to such a pitch that their action is almost automatic.’9 Thus, by the time the 4th Indian Division encountered the Italians it was very well trained. As a staff officer of the 11th Infantry Brigade recalled, ‘We were sent out into the desert … and since our training for desert warfare had been hard and continuous, w
e were fit, we were tough and we were ready for battle.’10

  Indeed, the morale of the troops remained high despite the devastating reverses suffered by Anglo-French forces in Europe. An Indian soldier wrote home from Egypt: ‘We do not hope to come back soon; not before the death of Hitler. We are determined to finish him off this year.’ With Italy’s entry into the war, the military censors noted, the Indian troops ‘appreciate the possible chance of fighting and increase in work relieves monotony’.11 However, the induction of the Central India Horse (CIH) into the division introduced an element of uncertainty.

  When the regiment was preparing for embarkation from Bombay in July 1940, 108 Sikh soldiers – equivalent to one squadron – had refused to proceed on overseas service. This was an early indication of the various concerns that were gradually enveloping the Jat Sikh peasantry of the Punjab, including the demand for ‘Pakistan’ by the Muslim League and the anti-war propaganda by radical Sikh outfits such as the Kirti Kisan. Despite attempts by officers and VCOs to cajole them, they persisted in their disobedience. The men had apparently been prepared to resist attempts at coercion and had even talked of shooting the officers and deserting with arms. Thanks to some tactful handling, the situation had not escalated into anything more than a refusal to serve abroad. But the eventual British response had been calculated to set an example. The men had been disarmed, arrested, charged with mutiny and served stiff sentences – sixteen soldiers were executed.12

  By the time the regiment joined the 4th Indian Division on 6 August, things were under control. The same day, there was a change in the divisional leadership, with Major General Noel Beresford-Peirse taking command. Once the new commander was satisfied of the combat readiness of the CIH, the division stood ready to be deployed for the first time to a forward position in the Western Desert. On 19 August, the division moved to Nagamish – just short of Mersa Matruh. The following month the division received its third brigade, the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade, which was deployed on garrison duties at Matruh.