Indian PoWs’ great escape

Escape from captivity, often in harsh conditions, has been exhilarating for soldiers imprisoned by the enemy during war and offers a fascinating account of inspiration, grit, determination and survival for readers.

Over the years, dozens of films and books — both historical research projects and fictional accounts — have not only romanticised great escapes by prisoners of war (PoWs), but also contributed to the vast compendium on documentation of wars. Most of such works, however, are focused on troops from the western countries, even though colonial armies had made immense contributions in campaigns by the western powers and had equally borne the brunt.

In World War-II, about 2.5 million troops from the Indian sub-continent had fought across all theatres, out of which over 64,000 were taken as prisoners of war, but hardly any information is available in the public domain about these soldiers and their experiences in a faraway land. Filling in some of these gaps, Ghee Bowman puts together the barely known story of Indian soldiers held by Germans at a camp in Epinal, France.

These soldiers orchestrated what is said to be the biggest PoW breakout of WW-II. Of the 3,000 Indian soldiers incarcerated at the camp, some of whom had been prisoners for up to four years, 500 escaped.

The author holds a doctorate from the University of Exeter in England. His first book, ‘The Indian Contingent’, on Indian soldiers in the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk in France during WW-II, led him to discover the little-known events at Epinal.

It was on May 11, 1944, about four weeks before D-Day, when 67 American heavy bombers dropped 168 tonnes of ordnance on Epinal. The bombs destroyed the walls of the camp in several places, and the prisoners, many of whom had attempted to escape earlier, grabbed food and clothes and, dodging German bullets, made a dash for freedom towards the Swiss border, about 100 km away.

The gripping narrative, which also gives an operational background to the PoWs being congregated at Epinal, draws on meticulous research involving institutional and newspaper archives in India, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany and Pakistan, as well as speaking to historians in these countries.

The journey has been painstakingly pieced together with a host of incidents and anecdotes — what the escapees encountered en route to the Swiss border and the interplay with people they came across. Some of these episodes are spellbinding, highlighting not only the fight against great odds and the resilience and gratitude on the part of those seeking freedom, but also the humanity, generosity and warmth of the ordinary people who helped them.

Maps, pictures and illustrations, along with a complete list of the escapees categorised according to their arms and regiments, add to the perspective.

The book can be said to be a ‘pathfinder’, a term used for the first body of troops to help guide the main force into battle, as this could encourage more such research on what is now a virtually forgotten chapter in the annals of Indian military history.