History of Indian Air Defence Artillery 1940-1945
Regular price
€68.99
In 1921, the eighth Anti-Aircraft Battery of Royal Artillery was first stationed in India. However, it was only after two decades that the threat from the Japanese expansionism made India to finally realise how ill-prepared its anti-aircraft defences were. Starting from a Battery raised at Colaba, Indian Anti-Aircraft Artillery soon expanded to over thirty- four regiments for India to have the second largest concentration of Anti-Aircraft defences outside the Great Britain. At one time, India had more Anti-Aircraft Regiments than that of field artillery. Numbers aside, Indian Anti-Aircraft gunners served in varied battlefields with honour, both during defeat and victory. If they were at Singapore as the fortress fell, they kept the Japanese Air Force at bay when Allied forces retreated from Burma, and later formed part of the vanguard when the Allies returned to Burma in triumph. Indian Anti-Aircraft Regiments served in Singapore, Malaya, Burma, Maldives, Aden and Iraq. They were truly representative as all regiments comprised of varied races and castes. It had a separate training centre for women and was one of the first to enlist women when the WAC(I) manned its operation rooms and drove lorries.
Col Mandeep Singh was commissioned in Air Defence Artillery in 1982, and commanded an Air Defence Group. Singh writes regularly for defence journals on air defence and aerospace matters. He has authored four books on air defence and this book is his first research project with the USI, New Delhi.