Citizen Historians in action.
With a determination to learn about their WW1 ancestor, the Gill family from Southall were able to trace the story of their grandfather, Harnam Singh. Parduman Singh Gill wrote to us to tell us how they did it:
I read about UKPHA receiving funds from the Heritage lottery fund to research into the role of Sikhs in WW1 and this prompted me to write to you about my grandfather's story. I hope you find it a useful addition to your research.
My grandfather Jemadar Harnam Singh, served and died in WW1 and received a medal for bravery and 40 acres land, which my father did not take up as he was active in the independence movement and had his reasons for not accepting the land granted by the then British government out of principle.
In 2007, with my daughter's assistance, I began to research through the internet to gain more information as to the when and why of his death and we got in touch with a military historian who advised us to contact the commonwealth War Graves commission. Armed with just two bits of information, the name and the war, the commission emailed us a list of 240 Harnam Singhs who died in the war. We finally found our grandfather's details as follows:
Jemadar Harnam Singh, son of Buda Singh of Chogawan, Moga, Ferozepore, Punjab, 1st battalion Queen Victoria's Own Corps of Guides Infantry (F.F) (Lumsden's) who died on the 14th August 1918, remembered with honour, Heliopolis (Port Tewfik) memorial.
It was truly a hair raising and emotional moment for us.
However I still needed to know how and why and our research led us to The National Archives in Kew. The staff were able to locate the actual war diary of that exact period. As we looked through the period of August we found the following entry:
13/8/18 Enemy snipers very accurate, especially near Castle Cochrane. Jemadar Harnam Singh did a daylight reconnaissance in front of own wire and was badly wounded and died within 5 minutes. Har Gopal Singh and 1020 sepoy Kartar Singh immediately went out to bring him in. Gopal Singh was hit almost immediately and Kartar singh went on and under heavy rifle fire brought in Harnam Singh. Recommended for I.D.S.M. Bde Changed it to recommendation for I.O.M
(Extract from war diary of 1st Battalion guides Infantry 13th-14th August 1918, Volume VIII)
So now we finally knew the circumstances of his death and that he was awarded the Indian Order of Merit. It was a mix of sadness and Pride after reading the diary. As the original letter from the army and medal were lost due to floods in the 1950s we got in touch with the Ministry of Defence who redirected us to an authorised specialist medal maker who made the exact replica of the medal issued to my grandfather.
On 14 August 2008, exactly ninety years to the day, the whole family visited the Port Tewfik memorial in Heliopolis, Egypt to pay our respects and see for ourselves the inscription. Three generations were finally able to close the missing chapter of our grandfather's short and tough life.
I hope you found our story interesting and I would be happy to talk to you further if required and furnish copies of the original war diary, details of my grandfather from the CWGc and photos of our visit. I would also like to say how happy I am that your organisation is making efforts to highlight the significant role of Sikh soldiers in WW1.
We are going to help the family find a photograph of Jemadar Harnam Singh.
Join the Citizen Historian program yourself and find your First World War past, or you can adopt a hero, where we can help you research the lives of all kinds of people that were affected by the war.
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