Whats the story behind this gravestone

Coming soon!

Death of a Forum: Commonwealth Forces of WW2

Commonwealth Forces of WW2 was started by a friend a few years ago with much fan fare. The forum proved to be promising - trying to focus on personnel from countries in the commonwealth other than UK. The admin (Amrit) built it up into a large resource with thousands of posts over the couple of years since it started. Ably supported by hundreds of posts by Andy Wright, Adrian Roberts, Lyffe, Oggie .

For me personally with an interest in the Indian contribution, I would make the odd contribution here and there. Inspite of my my lack of participation there was still a considerable amount of 'data' that was collected. Some threads of mention included those on Gp Capt A S Mann, W/O R D Garware, a thread on MS Pujji and so on. the site would be an online resource to consult whenever i needed to build up on the preliminary research.. so I thought

Big Mistake..

Two months ago, Andy Wright sent an email stating the forum will be closed down soon - it was not in his control, Amrit decided to pull the plug. for what reasons - I will never know. He didnt respond to my email either. The shut down happened abruptly with virtually no way to retrieve the information before the site went down.. The whole experience leaves a bad taste in the mouth.. but Lesson learnt..

A decal for a WW2 era RIAF Spitfire VIII

...or how your research benefits the (modeling) world at large ...(and in turn we benefit from it)

A friend of mine sent me a link to modeling website which released a new decal sheet for a Spitfire Mk.VIII. This sheet contains specific decals for an RIAF aircraft from No.2 Squadron , "MT841" and features a pin-up model. An accompanying 'guide' sheet shows how the Spitfire looks (See below right).

"Pauline My Wee xxxx" as the Pin-up goes was designed thanks to in no small measure to this photograph from late Fg Offr O D Agnihotri's Photo Collection (As generously shared by his son Arun on the Bharat Rakshak Website )

At that time (2004!), I had asked around on the KeyForums on whether an 'original drawing' was available of the pin-up.

Seven Years later, we now have a decal sheet by a model decal manufacturer... The enthusiasts with an Indian interest benefits out of this.. .. We, the research blokes get a 'colour artwork profile' of how the Spit Looks.. .. The RIAF gets a wee bit more publicity.... and.. Everyone benefits!

If you go looking for IAF History, you will find it...

...Pennsylvania edition....

Watch in HD

Visitor's to the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Museum's yearly "World War Two Weekend" event would never guess that one of the Star attractions - an airworthy Supermarine Spitfire Mk XVIII (S No SM969) is an ex-Indian Air Force aircraft. The aircraft was flown in by its owner Jim Beasley, and gave an splendid display of aerobatics. This Spitfire is local to Pennsylvania, with its homebase at Coatesville. In a departure from other aircraft, this aircraft was displayed without any ropes cordoning it off.. so visitors could walk straight upto the aircraft, look inside the cockpit, see it ..up CLOSE..

I had captured the start up and taxing on High Definition Video, which can be seen above. Hit the maximise button to see it in all its glory. Watching an ex-IAF Spitfire made my day - and a photo of myself next to it is my now official mugshot on facebook!.

Spitfire SM969 started off with the IAF as HS877 in 1949 (there is a story about it serving in the RIAF Before and getting involved in an accident.. but are now easily disproven). Probably towards the end of 1957, When No.14 Squadron was converting to Hunters and got rid of the Spitfires, this aircraft was flown to Delhi and kept on (semi) permanent display at Western Air Command HQ.

Pic Copyright: Peter Arnold

In 1978, it was one of the numerous Spitfire airframes auctioned off to the West, it was recovered by Haydon-Baylie, and after numerous stops and owners, is currently owned by Jim Beasley Jr , a Vintage aircraft fanatic from Philadelphia - who flies a P-51 and now the Spitfire. (Just in case you were wondering, Jim Beasley is an Attorney, a Medical Doctor and accomplished "Super Lawyer in PA)...

The Spitfire is based out of the airfield at Coatesville, PA, at the Chester County Airport. Thats reason for me to file this post under the "If you go looking for IAF History, you will find it... PA edition".

Air India Website FAIL

Air India's Website brings this up today - Sigh....

The Moment.... India won the World Cup 2011

The Moment.. India won the Cricket World Cup 2011 from J Pillarisetti on Vimeo.

Once in a while I have to make a non-defence related post - What best than to post one related to the spectacular match yesterday in which India won the World Cup playing against Sri Lanka? Colleagues from Work gathered at another colleaugue's house where he had a projector system showing the match live.. We had been going crazy for the past few overs with all the boundaries - Trust Dhoni to deliver the Pièce de résistance

I had this camera running near the corner of the room facing us and it did the job just right - captured the moment! The Clip was even featured on CNN in their ireports segment of CNN News Hour on April 3rd

The Westland Lysander in India

Amazon Kindle e-books opens up some great possibilities of 'publishing' ebooks to niche audiences. One can get to write and publish stuff that normally would not get done so by traditional publishing houses - yet at the same time may hold the interest of the audience out there.

Kindle gives an opportunity to put these ebooks out for those who are interested. Now that they are not platform specific - they can be read not only on the Kindle, but also on iPads, iPods, PCs - it makes sense that this new market should be tapped. Two of my ebooks are out there now - Westland Lysanders of the Indian Air Force and Westland Lysanders of No.28 Squadron, RAF . Now if I can do the history of the aircraft with No.20 Sqn, RAF and No.357 Sqn RAF (whose ORBs incidentally are available at http://www.rquirk.com/357.html ), then I will have completed the history of one aircraft type in India across all squadrons! That would be something

Now regarding the interest these ebooks generate - surprisingly, the Lysanders in the IAF ebook has done well. and by well, sales are well into double figures :)

RAF India WW2 - Which buiding is that?

An RAF group photo from India - pretty large group. Atleast ten Indian airmen in there, and one WAC(I) in the front row.

No idea as to which unit, year or building it is. Seems to be on of the Delhi based palace type building..

Can anyone identify the building in the background?

Update August 2013:  Readers in the Comments Section have identified this building as "Hyderabad House" which served as the Command HQ for the RAF during the Second World WAr

Hand Crafted RIAF Toy figures - Shamus Wade

Normally I would go after any curio sold on ebay that has some connection to the Indian Air Force. Imagine my surprise when an item was listed - titled "Nostalgia / Ookjah Privy by Shamus Wade - Indian Air Force" was listed by an ebay seller hobo2150.

Description given as follows:

INDIAN AIR FORCE PERSONNEL - from the companion range "Oojah cum Pivy"
5 Figures beautifully hand painted
2 x Pilots
3 x Ground crew

A great set for your collection very unusual subject and very scarce dating from 1984/5
A set of figures modelled from a photograph of Indian Airforce personnel and intended to be grouped around an aircraft which some of the figures are posed leaning against. Comes with an explanatory biography sheet of each of the figure represensted and is still in Shamus Wade's original packing box (these sets came without a presentation/disply box. Some figures have very minor paint chips from storage, but have never ben displayed so their colours are still bright and
glossy.

The five "Indian Air Force" figurines , it turns out were based on a famous Second World War photograph of a Vengeance Crew from No.7 Squadron No.8 Squadron. The photograph (reproduced below from "The Eagle Strikes" shows Flt Lt Haveli Shah Chopra (one of the RAF 24) and his Gunner Fg Offr P J Chandran leaning against a Vengeance. They are flanked by three airmen/ground crew Zahir-ud-din, Mathews and Veliram. Shamus Wade took this photograph and modelled their figurines .


.
Anyways - If I had any thoughts of grabbing this set, I may well have not bothered. When bidding ended on 17th October 2010, the figurines sold for US $125! - five toy figurines - for 125 bucks!..four bidders got into a bidding war ... I must have missed the memo somewhere.

Turns out that Shamus Wade (Company?) was quite famous for its toy soldier figures. Focussing on obscure and exotic subjects - the range of figurines have a strong following. There was no way that I get it as to why they went for such an astronomical figure. With passionate collectors out there I dont think I will even bother the next time.

Update:2 Jan 2011: Towards the last week of December, another set came up on sale on Ebay. The Seller from UK was rather too smart - he broke up the set and sold them individually - piece by piece.. and the bidding went upto 83.12 GBP for the five figures (plus postage)!. Thats $129.80.. beating the previous auction by $4!

Review: For King and Another Country: An Amazing Life Story of an Indian WW2 RAF Fighter Pilot

Fighter Pilot Biographies are innumerable.. there are thousands of books out there dealing with the lives of World War Two era fliers. But try to locate anything specific to World War 2 pilots from India, and you will be hard pressed to locate one. In that context the availability of the biography of Squadron Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji DFC was welcome news. Sqn Ldr Pujji, till recently was one of the last remaining pilots still living from that era. Only 21 Indians ever received the DFC in the Second World War - and Pujji was the rare survivor among them. He had been in the news in recent years, highlighting the contributions of the Indian volunteers to the cause of the Allies. Thus a book that was to be his biography was a much awaited one. Sadly even as I was awaiting reciept of the book, news came in that Sqn Ldr Pujji had passed away in UK at the age of 92. The book arrived just a day after.

The title page of the book gives an idea on what the book is about - Below the main title "For King and Another Country : An amazing story of an Indian WW2 RAF Fighter Pilot" is another sub title - "Recollections of Squadron Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji as told to Graham Russell". This book is just that - Recollections of a ninety year old WW2 RAF Veteran. Unfortunately as many a historian will note - such recollections while welcome, are often cloudy, inaccurate and can muddle the waters. The Author Graham Russell writes in his introduction "A detailed inventory of the Second World War Operations he took part in will not be found in this book - that type belongs to a Pilots Logbook..."

There you have it, it just so happens that was exactly the information I was looking for in the book ... I suspect if this statement had been printed openly in any of the promotional material, there would have been a tad fewer sales than normal. Granted perhaps there is a market among schools as text book, but definitely the hardcore WW2 Aviation reader will surely be disappointed if he had any higher expectations.

Whats inside the book? Well for starters - its about 182 Pages in total. Remove the 10 pages of title, information and author's preface, and the 88 pages of copious illustrations, it leaves roughly 84 pages of text of Pujji's recollections. These 84 pages are equally split between his career before the end of the Second World War, and his career details after that. These 84 pages of text do make a significant contribution - in recording and immortalizing Pujji's words and memories. Certainly not much has been reported about Pujji's aviation career after WW2 and the book does make its contribution in that regard.

But all this doesn't shake off the disappointment of not learning about Pujji's war time operations in detail. While there are several anecdotes directly from Pujji, stories and memories of some of the sorties. The lack of dates and timeline is a distraction. It would have been good if the author had researched Pujjis' WW2 career and rightly annotated the information in sections. By not choosing to do so, the book introduces many inaccurate statements that may set the historian astray.

Among the errors that caught this reviewers eye - "Pujji applied for the RAF and was selected in it" (Pujji volunteered for the IAF - there are several key differences between an IAF commission and an RAF commission). "12 of Pujjis colleagues were killed in UK" (About 7 were killed - 1 died later in Australia). "Pujji Joined 6 Squadron under Sharp" (It was clear that Pujji was confusing his 4 Squadron tenure under Sqn Ldr G S Sharp RNZAF with that of his earlier 6 Squadron tenure under Sqn Ldr Mehar Singh). "CO Sharp went missing for months, Pujji took over command" (The ORBs of 4 Squadron indicated that Sharp went missing only for a week before news was telegraphed to the Squadron that He had been recovered, albeit slightly bruised. Moreover it was Flt Lt D M Finn and later P A Kennedy who assumed command of the Squadron). It was errors like this that distract away from the pages dealing with Second World War days.

Ofcourse I do understand the author's dilemma - how would you correct your subject's recollections knowing they are in error ? But in this case Graham Russell probably didn't know they were wrong in the first place.

The saving grace in the book - are the details of Pujjis life after the war. The photos that accompany the book could have been cut down in place of better researched text - but since the meat on the book is lacking, the additional photographs are a welcome addition.

In final summary, the book is a disappointment to any WW2 Aviation Researcher. Though it may be a good book for the novice reader who wants to learn about the Indian Contribution to the Second World War. In my personal opinion, this book rates two stars at best.