By IANS,
New Delhi : Eight volumes of the Indian Army’s World War II history, which have been out of print for a long time, are being published here again.
When World War II began in 1939, the Indian Army’s strength was about 200,000 men. When it ended in August 1945, it became the largest volunteer army in history, rising to over 2.5 million men.
A series of 24 volumes describing the role of the Indian armed forces was published by the History Division of the defence ministry some 60 years ago.
Eight of these volumes, describing major operations by the Indian troops, have been out of stock for some time.
Re-published by Pentagon Press, these volumes will be released here Tuesday by Lt Gen (retd) J.F.R. Jacob at an event also attended by Arvind Gupta, director of the Indian Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA).
World War II cost the lives of over 36,000 Indian servicemen while 34,354 were wounded. Another 67,340 became prisoners of war.
The British awarded some 4,000 decorations to the Indian soldiers.