Indian cadets' visit to Kingussie reviewed

Having reported on the visit of Indian cadets to Kingussie, the Strathy invited a special member of the welcoming party to review a historically significant day.

John Patchett, who served as a Regular Major in the 10th Gurkha Rifles and ran the National Cadet Corps of India visit to Scotland in 2001, writes:

I was happy to come out of retirement once more to host the visit on August 7 of the National Cadet Corps of India to Kingussie New Cemetery, so they could pay their respects to the nine Indian Army soldiers who lie there.

In 2001 I had run a week-long series of events for 12 cadets of the NCC helped by two Scottish University Officer Cadets and a driver. The most recent local call for my knowledge of the Indian Army was for the detailed design of the memorial to the Indian Contingent last September.

Seeing that my talk would be just 20 minutes long I had to be very selective in its content and still have time for questions. It’s a pity I could not go back to 1600 and the granting by the first Queen Elizabeth of the charter that led to the formation of the East India Company. In the 18th century the need to protect trading interests in the three Presidencies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay led to three separate ‘native’ armies, all supported by British regiments and individual Officers and NCOs.

I did not touch on the key date of 1857 when the Bengal Army mutinied, with the result that direct Crown rule was imposed by Britain. In India this is now usually termed the First War of Independence. I also left out reference to local soldier George Gordon McBarnet, killed at the storming of Delhi and remembered in Kingussie Parish Church by a fine memorial.

Having asserted my credibility in terms of local residence, military service and family ties to India through my wife Durga, whose family reside in Darjeeling District, I also claimed a link with the NCC through a serving Indian Army Officer who is currently working as a Cadet Battalion Commander. I met him totally by chance several years ago in Pitlochry and Durga and I stayed with him twice whilst visiting India.

The history part of my talk began with the Indian Army deploying a whole Corps through Marseille in 1914, and then on how and why in 1939 Force K6 was formed and deployed through the same route with just 2,000 men, mainly Muslims of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps, and slightly more mules and horses. To bring this to life there were on display six large photo frames full of A4 prints of the troops; these I had made last year for the memorial unveiling.

At that time all front-line units had their own mules, in much the same way as units today have all-terrain vehicles, and the Indian Contingent, as Force K6 had been retitled long before they came to Scotland, usually just provided transport for stores from depots to the fighting units’ rear echelons.

I explained how the Indian troops fared when the German ‘blitzkrieg’ was launched and, after Dunkirk, how they were initially based in SW England and Wales before finding a suitable role in support of mountain warfare, to reinforce the deception ‘plan’ for the invasion of Norway.

Their mules and ponies had had to be left in France and now they had to use whatever horses they received. They were not trained to operate in snow conditions and the bulk of the troops returned south to England for the winter.

In late 1943 a decision was made to return all the Contingent to India. They lost just over 60 men who are buried in UK, France and Germany, the largest number in one location being the nine in Kingussie, with five more elsewhere in Scotland, including one Hindu who was cremated in Aberdeen.

Most of the casualties here were from illness and accidents.

One died on the hill from exposure, having been separated from his colleagues. Another, a corporal, was murdered by a fellow soldier who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour.

But, overall, the Contingent enjoyed excellent public relations wherever they were stationed in UK.

My purpose of bringing the cadets to the cemetery was in part to explain the extensive remit of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and how they had completed these nine Muslim graves. I explained how the philanthropist Fabian Ware was the driving force for the Commission in the Great War and how its work continues world-wide in perpetuity.

I also anticipated a later phase of the Kingussie visit by explaining the role taken by Mrs Isobel Harling BEM, who had been in the town when the Contingent arrived. Her brother in the RAF was killed in action over Belgium and she had then taken it upon herself to add flowers and poppy crosses to the Indian graves, just as others would care for her brother’s grave in Belgium, and also because she felt it was the right thing to do.

Isobel’s daughter Mrs Gaynoll Craig also addressed the cadets at the grave sides. I also stressed that the bond of friendship with the Indian Army had been well established before we settled in Kingussie in 1991 and that Colonel Girdhari Singh AVSM of the Army Service Corps Association had paid several visits, particularly for the 2005 commemoration of 60 years since the end of the Second World War.

My memories from 2001 were of the piercing questions asked by the cadets and 22 years later I was not disappointed by their intellect and unfailing good manners.

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