INDIA'S WAR DEAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

INDIA'S WAR DEAD.

MEMORIAL ARCH 200 FT. HIGH. India's dead in the Great War were honoured in a beautiful and very moving ceremony on the threshold of New Delhi on February 12, when the fire of remembrance was lit on top of the Indian War Memorial .Arch—the gateway to the completed capital—in the presence of representatives of every unit in the Indian Armv and the Auxiliary Services of the Eastern Empire.

The ceremony was so timed that the western sky should be. a great curtain of gold set behind the towers and domes of the new city. On eithei' side of the arch, which is nearly 200 ft. high, were drawn up in two sections the 556 officers, N.C.O.s, and men selected by lot from the Indian Army and Imperial Service troops.

Major-General Sir Fabian Ware, the permanent vice-chairman of the Imperial War Graves Commission, delivered the opening address, and Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, declaring the arch open, described it as a memorial men who went forth from home when the King-Emperor called on them for aid, acquitted themselves like men. and added a new chapter to Indian chivalry. Then all eyes were turned to the great stone bowl on top of the arch, and the flame, which, it is hoped, will be kept burning perpetually, was lighted. A bugler sounded the Last Post as the suu sank. behind the plain, and for a minute the assemblage stood in silence.