INDIA’S WAR EFFORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1940, Page 6

INDIA’S WAR EFFORT

GREAT & EXPANDING ACHIEVEMENT LAND & AIR FORCES PRODUCTION OF MUNITIONS. GENEROSITY OF PRINCES _ & PEOPLE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 11.15 a.m.) RUGBY, April 29. The scale of India's war effort is most impressive when its many i manifestations over the past eight months are seen in perspective. ; Regular units 'of the Indian Army are now serving overseas in France, Malaya, Aden and Egypt. Indian territorials and men of the auxiliary forces are serving in Indit beside then' professional comrades. The .Army is being expanded in al. branches of the service and. apart from the growth of the Regular units, eight new Territorial battalions have been formed and more are contemplated. Pilots and mechanics for the growing Air Force requirements arc being systematically recruited and trained in India, in addition to five new auxiliary volunteer flights which have already been brought into being. Recruiting has been so successful that the authorities have had to slow up the rate for volunteers. The Indian princes have been overwhelmingly generous and. to quote but one instance, the Nizam of Hyderabad gave £lOO.OOO towards the cost of the R.A.F. squadron which bears his name. So many contributions in money or hi kind, from rich and poor alike, have been sent to the Viceroy that he has found it necessary to open a War Purposes Fund, the total of which is approximately £600,000. Generous donations have also been, made to the Indian Red Cross, St.- John’s Ambu lance Association and other funds. In the industrial field, great ordnance .factories are producing munitions at a speed and in a quantity which a few months ago would hardly have been contemplated.. When expansion schemes are complete, it is anticipated that India will become an ■important centre of munitions production. able not only to meet her own needs, but to an appreciable extent those of the Allied forces abroad.