Oz remembers Punjabi war martyrs, one is from Phillaur

Vikramdeep Johal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 27

Private Sarn Singh’s name won’t ring a bell in India, but he is being remembered with reverence in Australia. This year marks the death centenary of the soldier who was killed in the Battle of Messines in West Flanders, Belgium, during World War I.

Part of the 43rd Australian Infantry Battalion, Sarn Singh was originally a farmer hailing from Chhokran village in Phillaur subdivision of Jalandhar district.

Son of zaildar Kishan Singh, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Adelaide in May 1916. Three months later, this pint-sized Punjabi—described as “63.25 inches tall, 136 pounds in weight, chest 34 to 36 inches”—was sent to the UK. Fighting in one of the bloodiest battlefields of WWI, he lost his life on June 10, 1917. He was posthumously awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, which were given to his widow, Partap Kaur, in 1922.

“The Australian Sikh Heritage Association (ASHA), along with local South Australian Sikhs and the wider Australian community, is organising a special commemorative event in Adelaide on June 10 to remember Private Sarn Singh’s ultimate sacrifice,” says a statement issued by ASHA, whose team includes Harjit Singh, Kuljit Kaur Jassal and Tarunpreet Singh.

Earlier this month, the association had commemorated the 75th death anniversary of Manmohan Singh, a Flying Officer of the British Indian Air Force who died in Broome, Western Australia, during World War II. Rawalpindi-born Manmohan, regarded as one of the first Sikh aviators, had served as the chief pilot for Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, the then ruler of the Patiala princely state.

When WWII broke out, he was picked as the leader of an Air Force batch of pilots sent to England for training and active duty. As the oldest of the group, he was fondly called chacha (uncle). Manmohan was known to have a cold shower every morning and not eat anything until he had recited the Japji Sahib. He was killed in a Japanese air attack on the Broome harbour on March 3, 1942.

The pilot has been immortalised on the ‘Memorial Wall to the Allied Dead of World War II in Northern Australia’ in Darwin, while Private Sarn Singh’s name is inscribed on the war memorials in Adelaide and Canberra and the Menin Gate in Ypres (Belgium).