HAPPY WARRIORS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 61, 2 April 1943, Page 3

HAPPY WARRIORS

FIGHTING A JOY

THE INDIAN SOLDIERS

South of Bardia, a New Zealand Railway Construction Company and Indian engineers were building a railway, writes G. R. Stevens in Parade, tlic Middle East weekly. Sometimes the supply train was late, and, for want of sleepers or spikes or fishplates, the gang sat waiting in little groups., in the blinding heat. At such times New Zcalanders and Indians clustered tc> gctlicr, and made the handful of words: which they had in common go a long way. T heard, one New Zealander telling the Indians about Stewart Island oysters, which he claimed were as large as soup plates. The Indians,, who had never seen an oyster in their lives, laughed as uproariously as though thejr understood, the .joke. The New Zealand commander, a fine, lean man who knew his job. talked to the Indians rather than of his own men. "They don't need us," he said. "They could build this line themselves.'' Born to be Soldiers After, when I was privileged to be with the. Indians in action, I knew I low truly lie had spoken. They are happy warriors. In battle they are fierce, in adversity serene, but no circumstance daunts their pride in being born to be soldiers. I doul|fc if many European troops find battle in the Western Desert a pleasant experience. European morale is largely sustained by hope for victory and the. end of fighting. Indian troops, on the other hand, being soldiers by he red.it 3% regard themselves as fortunate men. They believe arms to be the noblest 'Vocation and battle the culmination of emotional experience. You need only watch them wh<en action is imminent, You can feel a joyous tension grow. The men leap to their tasks, with a .flash of whlijb teeth-and a quick smile. On night patrols they are cat-footed, moving like shadows; but they must talk or burst. The non-commissioned officers. old. hands, make it clear that they will stand no skylarking. Beliefs Unjustified In mechanised warfare the unadaptable species dies, as surety as the giant lizards died Avhen the glaciers crept down upon them. We have learned, pitifully and at great cost, that, morale counts for little against outmatched guns. .Because of this, many have believed that the Indian troops, reared, and trained in conservative concepts of war, would prove, cannon fodder when confronted with the specialised cadres of. the Axis. Or else, that they would be victims of the eavaliy tradition of battle at any price. Both beliefs were unjustified. Neither the section nor the platoon nor the company is the battle unit to-day. When every vehicle is equipped to fight every possible* enemy tlie optimism will have been achieved. But if every fighting vehicle is completely armed in the Russian fashion, with tommy guns and mortars and antMank guns and a small cannon towed behind, it still is not a perfect lighting unit without, a single-minded crew. The best battle section to-day would be a family, with a father and perhaps a couple of uncles, commanding in thoroughly patriarchal fashion a clutch of sons and nephews, over whom they would wield the authority of blood ties, of whose frail tites they would, be well aware, in whose, welfare they would have a common stake. The Indian regiments more closely approximate to this ideal than any other force in the world. They are men of the same caste, the. same villages, the same faith, the same expectations.