title: Indian Army during World War II

text: There were variations on the infantry formation, depending on role. The light divisions (14th, 17th and 39th) as formed in 1942 had only two brigades and lacked much heavy equipment. Transport was provided by six mule and four Jeep companies. This type of division was later dropped. The Animal and Mechanised transport divisions (A & MT) (7th, 20th and 23rd and later the 5th) had a mixture of animal and vehicle transport, as the name suggests. In particular, one of the vehicle-drawn field artillery regiments was replaced by a mountain artillery regiment with twelve 3.7-inch howitzers, carried on mules. The anti-tank and light anti-aircraft regiments were replaced by a single regiment, with two batteries each of anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. The divisional reconnaissance unit was replaced by a lightly equipped infantry battalion. Another standard infantry battalion provided the HQ Defence unit.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: On 27 May 1944, General George Giffard (the commander of 11th Army Group) ordered that all Indian divisions fighting in Burma should adopt the A & MT establishment. Late that year, however, Lieutenant General William Slim (commanding Fourteenth Army) converted two divisions (the 5th and 17th) to a mixed establishment of two motorised brigades and one airportable brigade, in anticipation of mechanised operations in the comparatively open terrain of central Burma. In April 1945, the 20th Division was also converted to a partially motorised establishment by acquiring the vehicles from a British division whose personnel were being withdrawn from Burma.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: It was intended to form an armoured division in the plans for 1940, 1941 and 1942. However, the Indian armoured formations suffered from a lack of equipment. The shortage of tanks in 1940 was reflected in the organisation of 31st Armoured Division, which first had one armoured and two motor brigades. At the end of 1940, this was changed to two armoured and one motor brigade. When the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade was sent to Egypt, the British armoured division organisation of two armoured brigades and a Support group was adopted.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: In June 1942, the division's establishment was fixed as one armoured and one infantry brigade. The surplus armoured brigades (50th, 254th, 255th and the 267th) became independent brigades and served in the Burma campaign. In March 1943, the shortage of technical staff forced another review of the armoured force and the 32nd and 43rd armoured divisions were amalgamated to become the 44th Indian Armoured Division. In March 1944, a further review reduced the armoured force to one division (the 31st Armoured Division serving in the Middle East) and three tank brigades (the 50th, 254th and 255th) serving in Burma.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The 50th Independent Indian Parachute Brigade was formed on 29 October 1941, with the British 151st Parachute Battalion, 152nd Indian Parachute Battalion and 153rd Gurkha Parachute Battalion, a medium machine gun company and a medium mortar detachment. The 151st Battalion was later renumbered as the 156th Battalion and returned to Britain and another Gurkha battalion (154th) was formed, but had not joined the brigade when it was heavily involved in the Battle of Sangshak in March 1944.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The headquarters of the 44th Indian Armoured Division was converted in April 1944, to 9th Indian Airborne Division, which was renamed the 44th Airborne Division a few weeks later. After a delay caused by the Japanese invasion of India, the division resumed forming in July. It absorbed the 50th Parachute Brigade, and later two brigades from the disbanding Chindit force The division now consisted of the 50th, 77th Parachute Brigades and 14th Airlanding Brigade, two field artillery regiments, two anti-aircraft regiments and a joint anti-aircraft and anti-tank regiment.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Royal Artillery still provided some of the artillery required for Indian Army formations, but the Indian Regiment of Artillery had been formed in 1935, initially consisting of four horse–drawn batteries. The regiment was expanded during the war and, by 1945, had formed 10 field artillery regiments, 13 mountain artillery regiments, 10 anti–tank artillery regiments. Three anti–aircraft brigades were formed from the four heavy anti–aircraft artillery regiments and five light anti–aircraft artillery regiments created. For the regiments service during the war, it was granted the title "Royal Indian Artillery" in 1945.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Indian Engineers were a part of every division in the army. The engineers corps started the war with two army troops companies, 11 Field Companies and one field park company. Expansion during the war took the totals of engineers to; five army troops companies, 67 Field companies, six independent field squadrons, 20 field park companies and two independent field park squadrons.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Women's Auxiliary Corps (India) was formed in May 1942; recruits had to be a minimum age of 18 years and their duties were clerical or domestic. In December 1942, the minimum age was reduced to 17 years and 11,500 women had enlisted by the end of the war. Volunteers could enlist on Local service or General service terms. Those on General service could be sent to serve anywhere in India. Compared to over two million men, the corps of 11,500 women was small, but recruitment was always hampered by caste and communal inhibitions. Indian women at the time did not mix socially or at work with men and a large part of the corps was formed from the mixed-race Anglo–Indian community. The WAC(I) had an autonomous Air Wing, which served as the Indian counterpart of the WAAF: the women operated switchboards and similar duties at airfields and air headquarters (AHQ). In the earlier part of the war there was likewise a Naval Wing, but with the very localised environment of naval base and the very distinct ethos of the wartime naval services, British and Indian, this department was formally hived-off, in 1944, to become: the Women's Royal Indian Naval Service (WRINS), with its own uniform, similar to WRNS.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The armies of the Indian States or Princely states provided a further 250,000 men during the war. They contributed five cavalry regiments and 36 infantry battalions, and between them they had 16 infantry battalions plus signal, transport and pioneers companies away on active service. One of their men, Captain Mahmood Khan Durrani, was awarded the George Cross while in Japanese captivity.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Chindits (named after a mythical beast, statues of which guarded Burmese temples) were the brainchild of Brigadier Orde Wingate, who intended that long-range penetration raids behind enemy lines would become the main effort against the Japanese in Burma. In 1943, he mounted Operation "Longcloth" by the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade. In 1944, they staged a much larger operation which involved disbanding the 70th British Infantry Division, its three brigades together with three more brigades were grouped as "Special Force" and referred to for cover purposes as 3rd Indian Infantry Division. In practice, the four Indian Army battalions in Special Force were all from regiments of Gurkha Rifles. There was also a battalion of Burma Rifles, to provide reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. Chindits were in fact ordinary infantry units arbitrarily selected for the mission on the basis of their availability. There was no commando, airborne or other selection procedure, although there was some "weeding out" of less fit personnel during training for operations.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Chindits were disbanded in February 1945. Several of the brigade headquarters and many of the veterans of the Chindit operations were reformed and merged into 44th Airborne Division, while the force headquarters and signals units formed the core of XXXIV Indian Corps.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Eighth Army was formed from the Western Desert Force in September 1941, under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Alan Cunningham. Over time, the Eighth Army would be commanded by Generals Neil Ritchie, Claude Auchinleck and Bernard Montgomery. In the early years of the war, the Eighth Army suffered from poor leadership and repeated reversals of fortune until the Second Battle of El Alamein when it advanced across Libya into Tunisia.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Ninth Army was formed on 1 November 1941 with the re-designation of the Headquarters of the British Troops in Mandate Palestine and Transjordan. It controlled British and Commonwealth land forces stationed in the eastern Mediterranean. Its commanders were General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson and Lieutenant-General Sir William George Holmes.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Tenth Army was formed in Iraq and from the major part of Paiforce after the Anglo-Iraqi War. It was active in 1942–1943, under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Quinan, and consisted of the III Corps and the XXI Indian Corps. Its main task was the maintenance of the lines of communication to the Soviet Union from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian and the protection of the South Persian and Iraqi oilfields that supplied Britain with all its non American sourced oil.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Twelfth Army was reformed in May 1945, to take control of operations in Burma from the Fourteenth Army. The army Headquarters was created by re-designating the Headquarters of the XXXIII Indian Corps, under Lieutenant-General Sir Montagu Stopford.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Fourteenth Army was a multinational force comprising units from Commonwealth countries, many of its units were from the Indian Army as well as British units and there were also significant contributions from 81st, 82nd and 11th African divisions. It was often referred to as the "Forgotten Army" because its ongoing operations in the Burma Campaign were largely overlooked by the contemporary press, as the War in Europe drew to a close and even after Victory in Europe (VE), when people took the view the war was over everywhere. It still remained more obscure than those of the corresponding formations in Europe long after the war. The Fourteenth Army was formed in 1943, under the command of Lieutenant General William Slim and was the largest Commonwealth Army during the war, with nearly a million men by late 1944. At various times, four corps were assigned to the army: IV Corps, XV Indian Corps, XXXIII Indian Corps and the XXXIV Indian Corps.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Eastern Army was formed from Eastern Command in 1942. It served as the rear area command for the Twelfth and Fourteenth Armies:


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: units being rested or reforming would be posted to this command, as would newly-formed or newly-posted units, being prepared for active service. It provided the training bases and depots, the equipment stores and the lines of communication (LOC) to headquarters. In addition, it provided force protection for the front-line forces, cushioning them from any domestic unrest and from any enemy attack from the rear. Its Commanders-in-Chief included Broad, Irwin and Giffard.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Southern Army was formed from Southern Command in 1942, and disbanded in August 1945. Mostly a British formation used on internal security and for units out of the front line. The 19th Indian Infantry Division was one of its units from 1942 to 1944.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The North Western Army was formed from North Western Command in April 1942, formed to guard the North West Frontier it controlled the Kohat, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Baluchistan and Waziristan Districts.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Just before the declaration of war, one Indian infantry brigade was sent to reinforce the British garrison in Egypt. In October 1939, a second brigade was sent; they were grouped together as the 4th Indian Infantry Division. By March 1940, two additional brigades and a divisional headquarters had been sent to Egypt; these became the 5th Indian Infantry Division.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Operation Compass (4th Indian and 7th Armoured Division) was the first major Allied military operation of the Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. It resulted in British and Commonwealth forces pushing across a great stretch of Libya and capturing almost all of Cyrenaica, 115,000 Italian soldiers, hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces and more than 1,100 aircraft with very few casualties of their own.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Allies' success against the Italians forced the Germans to reinforce North Africa. The Afrika Corps commanded by Erwin Rommel attacked in March 1941. The 3rd Indian Motor Brigade, fought a delaying battle at Meikili on 6 April, which allowed the 9th Australian Division to safely withdraw to Tobruk.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Operation Battleaxe (4th Indian and 7th Armoured) in June 1941 had the goal of clearing eastern Cyrenaica of German and Italian forces; one of the main benefits of this would be the lifting of the Siege of Tobruk. The operation did not succeed losing over half of their tanks on the first day and only achieved victory at one out of three thrusts. On the second day, they achieved mixed results, being pushed back on their western flank but repelled a significant German counter-attack in their centre. On the third day, the British narrowly avoided outright disaster by successfully withdrawing just prior to a German encircling movement which would have cut them off from retreat.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Operation Crusader (4th Indian, 7th Armoured, 1st South African, 2nd New Zealand and 70th British divisions) between 18 November–30 December 1941. The initial plan was to destroy the Axis armoured force before advancing its infantry. 7th Armoured were heavily defeated by the Afrika Korps at Sidi Rezegh. Rommel's subsequent advance of his armoured divisions to the Axis fortress positions on the Egyptian border failed to find the main body of the Allied infantry, which had bypassed the fortresses and headed for Tobruk, so Rommel had to withdraw his armoured units to support the fighting at Tobruk. Despite achieving some tactical successes at Tobruk, the need to preserve his remaining forces prompted Rommel to withdraw his army to the defensive line at Gazala, west of Tobruk, and then all the way back to El Agheila.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: 4th Division left the desert for Cyprus and Syria in April 1942. By May 1942, their 11th Brigade had returned attached to the 5th Indian fighting south of Tobruk. Their 5th Brigade returned in June 1942, and fought at Mersa Matruh. The 10th Indian Infantry Division arrived from Syria, in time to take part in the Battle of Gazala May–June 1942, then held the Axis forces for 72 hours, in the First Battle of El Alamein permitting Eighth Army to safely withdraw.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: HQ 4th Division returned for the Second Battle of El Alamein, holding Ruweisat Ridge at the centre of the Eighth Army's line, made a mock attack and two small raids intended to deflect attention to the centre of the front.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Operation Pugilist (4th Indian, 2nd New Zealand and 50th Northumbrian divisions) was an operation in the Tunisian Campaign The object of was to destroy the Axis forces in the Mareth Line, and to capture Sfax. Pugilist itself was indecisive and failed to make a decisive breakthrough. It did, however, establish an alternative route of attack and thus laid the ground for Supercharge II, an outflanking manoeuvre via the Tebaga Gap.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Italian conquest of British Somaliland started on 3 August 1940, the 3/15th Punjab Regiment were amongst the forces on hand and they were quickly reinforced from Aden by the 1/2nd Punjab Regiment on 7 August. After the Battle of Tug Argan, the British force was forced to withdraw, the 3/15th Punjab forming part of the rearguard. By 19 August, the British and Indian battalions were evacuated to Aden. British ground losses were 38 killed, 102 wounded, and 120 missing, compared to Italian casualties of 465 killed, 1,530 wounded, and 34 missing.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: In December 1940, the 4th Indian Infantry Division was rushed from Egypt to join the 5th Indian Infantry Division in the Sudan. From February to April 1941, the Indian 4th and 5th Infantry Divisions took part in the Battle of Keren, By the end of the campaign, the Italian forces had been cleared from Eritrea and Abyssinia 220,000 of them becoming prisoners of war.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: In 1941, forces were required to participate in the Anglo-Iraqi War, to safeguard the overland supply route to the Soviet Union. In April, the 8th Indian Infantry Division landed at Basra and marched on Baghdad securing Iraq for the Allied cause from the pro German Rashid Ali. Operation Barbarossa the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, placed the Persian oil fields in danger from the advancing German Army. In August 1941, the Indian 8th and 10th Infantry Divisions invaded southern Persia to secure the oil installations.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The 8th and 10th Indian Infantry Divisions, 2nd Indian Armoured Brigade and the British 4th Cavalry Brigade were all involved in the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran (August–September 1941), which was rapid and conducted with ease. From the south, two battalions from 8th Divisions 24th Indian Brigade making an amphibious crossing of the Shatt al-Arab, captured the petroleum installations at Abadan. The 8th Division then advanced from Basra towards Qasr Shiekh and by 28 August had reached Ahvaz when the Shah ordered hostilities to cease. Further north, eight battalions of British and Indian troops under Major-General William Slim advanced from Khanaqin into the Naft-i-Shah oilfield and on towards the Pai Tak Pass, leading towards Kermanshah and Hamadan. The Pai Tak position was taken on 27 August after the defenders had withdrawn in the night; the planned assault on Kermanshah on 29 August was aborted when the defenders called a truce to negotiate surrender terms.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: After hostilities had ended, the 2nd Indian Infantry Division, 6th Indian Infantry Division and 12th Indian Infantry Division all remained in the region on internal security duties.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Indian Army supplied the 5th brigade, 4th Indian Infantry Division which attacked from the south with the Australian I Corps and the 10th Indian Infantry Division which also had the 17th Indian Infantry Brigade, 8th Indian Infantry Division under command was part of Iraqforce attack northern and central Syria from the east. 5th Brigade took part in the Battle of Kissoué and the Battle of Damascus, June 1941, and 10th Division the Battle of Deir ez-Zor in July.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Japanese Army attacked Hong Kong on 8 December 1941, less than eight hours after their attack on Pearl Harbor. The garrison comprised British, Indian and Canadian battalions plus local Hong Kong Chinese reservists. The Indian Army troops were the 5/7th Rajput Regiment and the 2/14th Punjab Regiment. The garrison held out for 18 days before being forced to surrender.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: As in Egypt, the Indian Army dispatched one infantry brigade to Malaya just before the start of the war. By 1941, all training and equipment was geared to fight in North Africa and the Middle East and the forces in Burma and Malaya had been depleted to supply reinforcements to the forces in the west.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: On 8 December, the Japanese Army attacked the Malayan peninsula, the defenders now included the Indian 9th and the 11th Indian Infantry Divisions, the 12th Indian Infantry Brigade and a number of independent battalions and units of Imperial Service Troops, in the III Indian Corps. The 11th Indian division fought the Battle of Jitra 11–13 December, the Battle of Kampar 30 December – 2 January, the Battle of Slim River 6–8 January 1942. The 44th Indian Infantry Brigade and the 45th Indian Infantry Brigade had arrived as reinforcement in January 1942. The 45th Brigade fought the Battle of Muar 14–22 January, of the 4,000 men in the brigade only 800 survived the battle.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Battle of Singapore 31 January – 15 February ended with the capture of 9th and 11th Indian Divisions and the 12th, 44th and 45th brigades and 55,000 Indian servicemen were made prisoners of war.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: During the battle for Singapore, Indian units fought in the Battle of Bukit Timah and the Battle of Pasir Panjang.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: In late 1940, Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham ordered the 2nd Battalion, 15th Punjab Regiment and a heavy gun battery from the Hong Kong-Singapore Royal Artillery, to be positioned at Kuching, the capital of Sarawak. The battalion, which numbered about 1,050 men, was commanded by British Lieutenant Colonel C.M. Lane and was a part of "SARFOR" (Sarawak Force). Some 230 men of the battalion were killed or captured in the defence of the airfield before the fall of the city to the Japanese on 24 December 1941. Two days later, SARFOR was disbanded; on the 27th, the remainder of the Punjabi force crossed into Dutch Borneo, where Lane placed them under Dutch command. The men continued to resist the Japanese in the dense jungle of southern Borneo until 1 April, when they finally surrendered. Arthur Percival, GOC Malaya, later called their resistance "a feat of endurance which assuredly will rank high in the annals of warfare. It says much for the morale of this fine battalion that it remained a formed and disciplined body to the end."


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: 25th Indian Infantry Division with 3 Commando Brigade, in January 1945 the Division took part in the first large scale Amphibious Operations in South East Asia, They were ferried across the Four Mile wide Mayu Estuary to land on the Northern beaches of Akyab Island, in the course of the following weeks they occupied Myrbaw and Ruywa. In April 1945. the division was withdrawn to South India to prepare for Operation Zipper the invasion of Malaya, having been chosen for the assault landing role. Although hostilities then ceased, the operation proceeded as planned, 23rd and 25th Divisions was the first formations to land in Malaya 9 September, and then accepting the surrender of the Japanese Army.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Operation Tiderace (5th Indian Infantry Division) commenced when troops set sail from Trincomalee and Rangoon on 21 August for Singapore. The fleet arrived in Singapore on 4 September 1945, and Japanese forces in Singapore officially surrendered to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command on 12 September 1945.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: After the Japanese surrender, some divisions were sent to disarm the Japanese and assist the local governments. The 7th Division moved to Thailand, where it disarmed the Japanese occupying army, and liberated and repatriated Allied prisoners of war. The 20th Division was sent to French Indochina, occupying the southern part of the colony. There were several battles with the Viet Minh, who were intent on achieving independence. The 23rd Division was sent to Java, where the end of the war had brought widespread disorder and conflict between the Dutch colonial regime and pro-independence movements.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: At the same time, the 9th Division was sent to reinforce Malaya, in the spring of 1941, an infantry brigade was sent to reinforce Burma followed by a second brigade later in the year. On 8 December, the Japanese Army invaded Burma from Siam. Withdrawing to India, the last British and Indian escaped from Burma in July 1942.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Battle of Bilin River was fought in February 1942, by the 17th Indian Infantry Division. The 17th Division held the Japanese at the Bilin River for two days of close-quarters jungle fighting. The Japanese tactics were to outflank, and eventually with encirclement imminent, they were given permission to fall back. The division disengaged under cover of darkness and began a retreat along the dusty track to the Sittang bridge. The Battle of Sittang Bridge followed after which 17th Division lost most of its artillery, vehicles and other heavy equipment. Its infantry manpower was 3,484 just over 40% of its establishment, though it was already well under-strength before the battle started. The Battle of Pegu in March was carried out by the surviving elements of the 17th Division and the 7th British Armoured Brigade, which had just arrived from the Middle East. In April, the Battle of Yenangyaung was fought between the 7th Armoured Brigade, 48th Indian Infantry Brigade and 1st Burma Division for control of the Yenangyaung oil fields. The Japanese suffered heavy casualties during the battle, but the Allied forces were too weak to hold the oil fields and had to retreat to the north. The fighting retreat to India, was successfully completed in May just before the monsoons would have cut them off. Approximately 12,000 of the 40,000 Indian prisoners of war who were captured either during the Malayan campaign or surrendered at Singapore were led by Mohan Singh as the First Indian National Army which was dissolved in December 1942.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Arakan Campaign, which began in December 1942, conducted by what at the time was an improvised formation 14th Indian Infantry Division was a failure. The average British and Indian soldier was not properly trained for fighting in jungle, which together with repeated defeats adversely affected morale. This was exacerbated by poor administration in the rear areas. Drafts of reinforcements sent to replace casualties were found in some cases to have not even completed basic training. There were also questions asked about the ability of the Indian Army's high command, which led to the creation of the position of Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command, leaving the army high command to concentrate on internal security and administration. There was continual patrol activity and low-key fighting south of Imphal, but neither army possessed the resources to mount decisive operations. 17th Division held positions around the town of Tiddim south of Imphal, and skirmished with units of the 33rd Japanese Division. The Japanese had a shorter and easier supply line from the port of Kalewa on the Chindwin River and had the upper hand for most of 1942 and 1943.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Battle of the Admin Box (5th, 7th and 26th Indian, 81st (West Africa) Division, 36th British Infantry Division) in February, came after a limited allied offensive. The Japanese had infiltrated the widely dispersed lines of the 7th Division, and moved north undetected crossed the Kalapanzin River and swung west and south, and attacked the HQ of the 7th Division. The forward divisions were ordered to dig in and hold their positions rather than retreat, while the reserve divisions advanced to their relief. On the ground, the fighting for the Admin Box was severe and Japanese fire caused heavy casualties in the crowded defences and twice set ammunition dumps on fire. However, all attempts to overrun the defenders were thwarted by the tanks of the 25th Dragoons. Although Allied casualties were higher than the Japanese, the Japanese had been forced to abandon many of their wounded to die. For the first time in the Burma Campaign, the Japanese tactics had been countered and turned against them and British and Indian soldiers had held and defeated a major Japanese attack.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Battle of Imphal and the Battle of Sangshak (17th, 20th, 23rd Indian Divisions, 50th Indian Parachute Brigade and 254th Indian Tank Brigade) took place in the region around the city of Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipur in North-East India from March until July 1944. Japanese army and the Indian National Army attempted to destroy the Allied forces at Imphal and invade India, but were driven back into Burma with heavy losses.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Battle of Kohima (50th Indian Parachute Brigade 5th, 7th Indian and 2nd British Division) was the turning point of the Japanese U Go offensive. The Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the major British and Indian troops at Imphal were supplied. British and Indian reinforcements counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. The Japanese abandoned the ridge, but continued to block the Kohima-Imphal road. From 16 May to 22 June, the British and Indian troops pursued the retreating Japanese and reopened the road. The battle ended on 22 June when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay (5th 7th, 17th, 19th, 20th Indian, 2nd British Divisions and 254th and 255th Indian Tank Brigades) between January and March 1945, were decisive battles near the end of the Burma Campaign. Despite logistical difficulties, the Allies were able to deploy large armoured and mechanised forces in Central Burma, and also possessed air supremacy. Most of the Japanese forces in Burma were destroyed during the battles, allowing the Allies to later recapture the capital, Rangoon, and reoccupy most of the country with little organised opposition.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Battle of Ramree Island (26th Indian Infantry Division) was fought for six weeks during January and February 1945, as part of the XV Indian Corps 1944–45 offensive on the Southern Front of the Burma Campaign. Ramree Island lies off the Burma coast and was captured along with the rest of Southern Burma, during the early stages of the Campaign, by the rapidly advancing Imperial Japanese Army in 1942. In January 1945 the Allies were able to launch attacks to retake Ramree and its neighbour Cheduba, with the intention of building sea-supplied airbases on them.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Operation Dracula and the Battle of Elephant Point (5th, 17th Infantry, and 44th Indian Airborne Division 2nd, 36th British Division and 255th Tank Brigade) was the name given to an airborne and amphibious attack on Rangoon by British and Indian forces. When it was launched, the Imperial Japanese Army had already abandoned the city.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Indian Army units formed part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in occupied Japan. BCOF was responsible for supervising demilitarisation and the disposal of Japan's war industries, as well as the occupation of the western prefectures of Shimane, Yamaguchi, Tottori, Okayama, Hiroshima and Shikoku Island.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Probably the most unusual posting of any unit of the Indian Army during World War II was in 1940, when four mule companies of the Indian Army Service Corps joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France. They were evacuated from Dunkirk with the rest of the BEF in May 1940, and were still stationed in England in July 1942.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Allies landed in Italy on 9 September 1943. The 4th, 8th and 10th Indian Divisions and the 43rd Independent Gurkha Infantry Brigade were all involved during the campaign


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: In October 1943, the 8th Indian Division fighting on the Adriatic front reached the Barbara Line which was breached in early November. The 8th Division led the assault on the German defensive Bernhardt Line, crossed the Sangro River and advanced to just short of Pescara where Eighth Army halted to wait for better weather in the spring.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The 4th Indian Division took part in the second battle of Monte Cassino, In the final fourth battle of Monte Cassino on 11 May, on the Eighth Army front, XIII Corps had made two strongly opposed night crossings of the Rapido by the British 4th Division and 8th Indian Infantry Division. By 18 May, the Germans had withdrawn to their next line.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The Gothic Line formed the last major line of defence in the final stages of the war along the summits of the Apennines The Gothic Line was breached on both the Adriatic and the central Apennine fronts during the Battle of Gemmano in August (4th Indian Divisions last battle before moving to Greece). On the United States Fifth Army's far right wing, on the right of the XIII Corps front, 8th Indian Division fighting across trackless ground had captured the heights of Femina Morta, and 6th British Armoured Division had taken the San Godenzo Pass on Route 67 to Forlì, both on 18 September. On 5 October, the 10th Indian Division, switched from British X Corps to British V Corps, had crossed the Fiumicino river high in the hills and turned the German defensive line on the river forcing the German Tenth Army units downstream to pull back towards Bologna.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: In the 1945 spring offensive, the critical role of getting across the Senio, honeycombed with defensive tunnels and bunkers front and rear, was given to the 8th Indian Division, reprising the role they played crossing the Rapido in the final Battle of Monte Cassino. On 29 April 1945, the Germans signed an instrument of surrender; hostilities in Italy formally ceased on 2 May.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: On 24 October 1944, the 4th Indian Infantry Division were shipped to Greece, to help stabilise the country after the German withdrawal. The plan called for the division to be dispersed in three widely scattered areas. The 7th Indian Brigade and Divisional troops were allocated Greek Macedonia, Thrace and Thessaly, with instructions to keep watch on the borders of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The 11th Indian Brigade would garrison the towns of Western Greece and the Ionian islands. The 5th Indian Brigade would take over the Aegean area and the Cyclades, and would move into Crete when the enemy garrisons in that island capitulated.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: On 3 December, the ELAS members of the Greek Government resigned. A general strike was declared, and police opened fire on demonstrators. In Italy, the 4th and 46th British Infantry Divisions were ordered to leave for Greece. On 15 January, a truce had been concluded in Athens, by the terms of which ELAS undertook to withdraw from the capital and Salonika and to occupy rural concentration areas. Except for isolated incidents, this truce ended operations in Greece.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The 14th Indian Infantry Division and the 39th Indian Infantry Division were converted to training formations in 1943, and remained in India till the end of the war. Other units that only served in India include the 32nd Indian Armoured Division and the 43rd Indian Armoured Division which never completed forming before being converted to the 44th Indian Airborne Division in 1943. The Assam-based 21st Indian Infantry Division was also broken up to form 44th Airborne in 1944. The 34th Indian Infantry Division provided the garrison for Ceylon, and remained there during the war, it was disbanded in 1945, never having seen active service.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Indian personnel received 4,000 awards for gallantry, and 31 Victoria Crosses. The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest military decoration, which is, or has been, awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of the Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories. The Victoria Cross is awarded for


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: The George Cross (GC) is the counterpart of the Victoria Cross and the highest gallantry award for civilians as well as for military personnel in actions which are not in the face of the enemy, or for which purely military honours would not normally be granted.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: World War II cost the lives of over 87,000 soldiers, air crews and mariners from the Indian Empire, This included 24,338 killed and 11,754 missing in action. the overwhelming majority being members of the Indian Army. Another 34,354 more were wounded,


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: Of the 79,489 Indian personnel who became prisoners of war (POWs), German and/or Italian forces held 15,000–17,000. Between 2,500 and 4,000 of these POWs subsequently enlisted in the Italian "Battaglione Azad Hindoustan" and/or German "Indische Legion", with the intention of fighting the Allies. More than 40,000 Indian POWs captured by Japanese forces volunteered for the pro-Japanese Indian National Army (INA), which fought the Allies in Burma and north-east India. Out of 60,000 Indian POWs taken at the Fall of Singapore, 11,000 died in Japanese camps from disease, malnutrition, physical abuse, or overwork; many of these had been transported to New Guinea or the Solomon Islands, where they were used as forced labour by Japanese forces.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: In late 1943, when Italy capitulated to the Allies, Indians were among tens of thousands of Allied POWs who escaped from, or were liberated from POW camps. During 1943 and 1944, 128 Indian POWs were repatriated from Germany in prisoner exchanges. More than 200 Indian POWs died in captivity in Europe. By 30 April 1945, only 8,950 Indian prisoners of war remained in German camps. The German "Indische Legion" saw little front-line action, suffered few casualties and many of its recruits were returned to POW camps. In July 1945, the British government reported that at least 1,045 members of the "Legion" had already been repatriated to India, or were being held for questioning in the UK, while about 700 remained at large in Europe.) Conversely, 2,615 of the POWs recruited by the INA were killed in action against the Allies or missing.


title: Indian Army during World War II

text: World War II was the last time the Indian Army fought as part of the British military apparatus, as independence and partition followed in 1947. On 3 June 1947, the British Government announced the plan for the partition of the sub–continent between India and Pakistan. On 30 June 1947, the procedure for the division of the armed forces was agreed upon. After partition the British Indian Army was divided between the armies of the new states, the Indian Army and the Pakistan Army. Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck, then Commander-in-Chief, India, was appointed Supreme Commander to ensure smooth division of units, stores and so on. It was announced on 1 July 1947, that both countries would have operational control of their respective armed forces by 15 August 1947.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Technology during World War I (1914–1918) reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass-production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began at least fifty years prior to World War I during the American Civil War of 1861–1865,


title: Technology during World War I

text: World War I weapons included types standardised and improved over the preceding period, together with some newly developed types using innovative technology and a number of improvised weapons used in trench warfare. Military technology of the time included important innovations in machine guns, grenades, and artillery, along with essentially new weapons such as submarines, poison gas, warplanes and tanks.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The earlier years of the First World War could be characterized as a clash of 20th-century technology with 19th-century military science creating ineffective battles with huge numbers of casualties on both sides. On land, the quick descent into trench warfare came as a surprise, and only in the final year of the war did the major armies make effective steps in revolutionizing matters of command and control and tactics to adapt to the modern battlefield and start to harness the myriad new technologies to effective military purposes. Tactical reorganizations (such as shifting the focus of command from the 100+ man company to the 10+ man squad) went hand-in-hand with armoured cars, the first submachine guns, and automatic rifles that a single individual soldier could carry and use.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The new metallurgical and chemical industries created new firepower that briefly simplified defense before novel approaches to attack evolved. The application of infantry rifles, rifled artillery with hydraulic recoil mechanisms, barbed wire, zigzag trenches and machine guns made it difficult or nearly impossible to cross defended ground. The hand grenade, long used in crude form, developed rapidly as an aid in attacking trenches. Probably the most important was the introduction of high explosive shells, which dramatically increased the lethality of artillery over the 19th-century equivalents.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Trench warfare led to the development of the concrete pill box, a small, hardened blockhouse that could be used to deliver machine gun fire. Pillboxes could be placed across a battlefield with interlocking fields of fire.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Because attacking an entrenched enemy was so difficult, tunnel warfare became a major effort during the war. Once enemy positions were undermined, huge amounts of explosives would be planted and detonated as part preparation for an overland charge. Sensitive listening devices that could detect the sounds of digging were a crucial method of defense against these underground incursions. The British proved especially adept at these tactics, thanks to the skill of their tunnel-digging "sappers" and the sophistication of their listening devices.


title: Technology during World War I

text: During the war, the immobility of trench warfare and a need for protection from snipers created a requirement for loopholes both for discharging firearms and for observation. Often a steel plate was used with a "key hole", which had a rotating piece to cover the loophole when not in use.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The British and German armies had already changed from red coat (British army) (1902) or Prussian blue (1910) for field uniforms, to less conspicuous khaki or field gray. Adolphe Messimy, Joseph Gallieni and other French leaders had proposed following suit, but the French army marched to war in their traditional red trousers, and only began receiving the new "horizon blue" ones in 1915.


title: Technology during World War I

text: A type of raincoat for British officers, introduced long before the war, gained fame as the trench coat.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The principal armies entered the war under cloth caps or leather helmets. They hastened to develop new steel helmets, in designs that became icons of their respective countries.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Observing the enemy in trench warfare was difficult, prompting the invention of technology such as the camouflage tree, a man made observation tower that enables forces to discreetly observe their enemy.


title: Technology during World War I

text: In the 19th century, Britain and France exploited the rapid technical developments in artillery to serve a War of Movement. Such weapons served well in the colonial wars of that century, and served Germany very well in the Franco-Prussian War, but trench warfare was more like a siege, and called for siege guns. The German army had already anticipated that a European war might require heavier artillery, hence had a more appropriate mix of sizes. Foundries responded to the actual situation with more heavy products and fewer highly mobile pieces. Germany developed the Paris guns of stupendous size and range. However, the necessarily stupendous muzzle velocity wore out a gun barrel after a few shots requiring a return to the factory for relining, so these weapons served more to frighten and anger urban people than to kill them or devastate their cities.


title: Technology during World War I

text: At the beginning of the war, artillery was often sited in the front line to fire over open sights at enemy infantry. During the war, the following improvements were made:


title: Technology during World War I

text: Field artillery entered the war with the idea that each gun should be accompanied by hundreds of shells, and armouries ought to have about a thousand on hand for resupply. This proved utterly inadequate when it became commonplace for a gun to sit in one place and fire a hundred shells or more per day for weeks or months on end. To meet the resulting Shell Crisis of 1915, factories were hastily converted from other purposes to make more ammunition. Railways to the front were expanded or built, leaving the question of the last mile. Horses in World War I were the main answer, and their high death rate seriously weakened the Central Powers late in the war. In many places the newly invented trench railways helped. The new motor trucks as yet lacked pneumatic tires, versatile suspension, and other improvements that in later decades would allow them to perform well.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Chemical weapons were first used systematically in this war. Chemical weapons in World War I included phosgene, tear gas, chlorarsines and mustard gas.


title: Technology during World War I

text: At the beginning of the war, Germany had the most advanced chemical industry in the world, accounting for more than 80% of the world's dye and chemical production. Although the use of poison gas had been banned by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, Germany turned to this industry for what it hoped would be a decisive weapon to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Chlorine gas was first used on the battlefield in April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium. The unknown gas appeared to be a simple smoke screen, used to hide attacking soldiers, and Allied troops were ordered to the front trenches to repel the expected attack. The gas had a devastating effect, killing many defenders or, when the wind direction changed and blew the gas back, many attackers.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The wind being unreliable, another way had to be found to transmit the gas. It began being delivered in artillery shells. Later, mustard gas, phosgene and other gasses were used. Britain and France soon followed suit with their own gas weapons. The first defenses against gas were makeshift, mainly rags soaked in water or urine. Later, relatively effective gas masks were developed, and these greatly reduced the effectiveness of gas as a weapon. Although it sometimes resulted in brief tactical advantages and probably caused over 1,000,000 casualties, gas seemed to have had no significant effect on the course of the war.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Chemical weapons were easily attained, and cheap. Gas was especially effective against troops in trenches and bunkers that protected them from other weapons. Most chemical weapons attacked an individual's respiratory system. The concept of choking easily caused fear in soldiers and the resulting terror affected them psychologically. Because there was such a great fear of chemical weapons it was not uncommon that a soldier would panic and misinterpret symptoms of the common cold as being affected by a poisonous gas.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The introduction of radio telegraphy was a significant step in communication during World War I. The stations utilized at that time were spark-gap transmitters. As an example, the information of the start of World War I was transmitted to German South West Africa on 2 August 1914 via radio telegraphy from the Nauen transmitter station via a relay station in Kamina and Lomé in Togo to the radio station in Windhoek.


title: Technology during World War I

text: In the early days of the war, generals tried to direct tactics from headquarters many miles from the front, with messages being carried back and forth by runners or motorcycle couriers. It was soon realized that more immediate methods of communication were needed.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Radio sets of the period were too heavy to carry into battle, and field telephone lines laid were quickly broken. Either one was subject to eavesdropping, and trench codes were not very satisfactory. Runners, flashing lights, and mirrors were often used instead; dogs were also used, but were only used occasionally as troops tended to adopt them as pets and men would volunteer to go as runners in the dog's place. There were also aircraft (called "contact patrols") that carried messages between headquarters and forward positions, sometimes dropping their messages without landing. Technical advances in radio, however, continued during the war and radio telephony was perfected, being most useful for airborne artillery spotters.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The new long-range artillery developed just before the war now had to fire at positions it could not see. Typical tactics were to pound the enemy front lines and then stop to let infantry move forward, hoping that the enemy line was broken, though it rarely was. The lifting and then the creeping barrage were developed to keep artillery fire landing directly in front of the infantry "as it advanced." Communications being impossible, the danger was that the barrage would move too fast — losing the protection — or too slowly — holding up the advance.


title: Technology during World War I

text: There were also countermeasures to these artillery tactics: by aiming a counter barrage directly behind an enemy's creeping barrage, one could target the infantry that was following the creeping barrage. Microphones (Sound ranging) were used to triangulate the position of enemy guns and engage in counter-battery fire. Muzzle flashes of guns could also be spotted and used to target enemy artillery.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Railways dominated in this war as in no other. The German strategy was known beforehand by the Allies simply because of the vast marshaling yards on the Belgian border that had no other purpose than to deliver the mobilized German army to its start point. The German mobilization plan was little more than a vast detailed railway timetable. Men and material could get to the front at an unprecedented rate by rail, but trains were vulnerable at the front itself. Thus, armies could only advance at the pace that they could build or rebuild a railway, e.g. the British advance across Sinai. Motorized transport was only extensively used in the last two years of World War I. After the rail head, troops moved the last mile on foot, and guns and supplies were drawn by horses and trench railways. Railways lacked the flexibility of motor transport and this lack of flexibility percolated through into the conduct during the war.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The countries involved in the war applied the full force of industrial mass-production to the manufacture of weapons and ammunition, especially artillery shells. Women on the home-front played a crucial role in this by working in munitions factories. This complete mobilization of a nation's resources, or "total war" meant that not only the armies, but also the economies of the warring nations were in competition.


title: Technology during World War I

text: For a time, in 1914–1915, some hoped that the war could be won through an attrition of materiel—that the enemy's supply of artillery shells could be exhausted in futile exchanges. But production was ramped up on both sides and hopes proved futile. In Britain the Shell Crisis of 1915 brought down the British government, and led to the building of HM Factory, Gretna, a huge munitions factory on the English-Scottish border.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The war of attrition then focused on another resource: human lives. In the Battle of Verdun in particular, German Chief of Staff Erich Von Falkenhayn hoped to "bleed France white" through repeated attacks on this French city.


title: Technology during World War I

text: In the end, the war ended through a combination of attrition (of men and material), advances on the battlefield, arrival of American troops in large numbers, and a breakdown of morale and production on the German home-front due to an effective naval blockade of her seaports.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Aviation in World War I started with primitive aircraft, primitively used. Technological progress was swift, leading to ground attack, tactical bombing, and highly publicized, deadly dogfights among aircraft equipped with forward-firing, synchronized machine guns from July 1915 onwards. However, these uses made a lesser impact on the war than more mundane roles in intelligence, sea patrol and especially artillery spotting. Antiaircraft warfare also had its beginnings in this war.


title: Technology during World War I

text: As with most technologies, aircraft and their use underwent many improvements during World War I. As the initial war of movement on the Western Front settled into trench warfare, aerial reconnaissance over the front added to the difficulty of mounting surprise attacks against entrenched and concealed defenders.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Manned observation balloons floating high above the trenches were used as stationary observation posts, reporting enemy troop positions and directing artillery fire. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, each equipped with parachutes: upon an enemy air attack on the flammable balloon, the crew would jump to safety. At the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots in aircraft, and smaller versions would not be developed until the end of the war. (In the British case, there arose concerns that they might undermine morale, effectively encouraging cowardice.) Recognized for their value as observer platforms, observation balloons were important targets of enemy aircraft. To defend against air attack, they were heavily protected by large concentrations of anti-aircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft.


title: Technology during World War I

text: While early air spotters were unarmed, they soon began firing at each other with handheld weapons. An arms race commenced, quickly leading to increasingly agile planes equipped with machine guns. A key innovation was the interrupter gear, a Dutch invention that allowed a machine gun to be mounted behind the propeller so the pilot could fire directly ahead, along the plane's flight path.


title: Technology during World War I

text: As the stalemate developed on the ground, with both sides unable to advance even a few miles without a major battle and thousands of casualties, planes became greatly valued for their role gathering intelligence on enemy positions. They also bombed enemy supplies behind the trench lines, in the manner of later attack aircraft. Large planes with a pilot and an observer were used to reconnoiter enemy positions and bomb their supply bases. These large and slow planes made easy targets for enemy fighter planes, who in turn were met by fighter escorts and spectacular aerial dogfights.


title: Technology during World War I

text: German strategic bombing during World War I struck Warsaw, Paris, London and other cities. Germany led the world in Zeppelins, and used these airships to make occasional bombing raids on military targets, London and other British cities, without great effect. Later in the war, Germany introduced long range strategic bombers. Damage was again minor but they forced the British air forces to maintain squadrons of fighters in England to defend against air attack, depriving the British Expeditionary Force of planes, equipment, and personnel badly needed on the Western front.


title: Technology during World War I

text: In the early days of the war, armoured cars armed with machine guns were organized into combat units, along with cyclist infantry and machine guns mounted on motor cycle sidecars. Though not able to assault entrenched positions, they provided mobile fire support to infantry, and performed scouting, reconnaissance, and other roles similar to cavalry. After trench warfare took hold of major battle-lines, opportunities for such vehicles greatly diminished, though they continued to see use in the more open campaigns in Russia and the Middle East.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Between late 1914 and early 1918, the Western Front hardly moved. When the Russian Empire surrendered after the October Revolution in 1917, Germany was able to move many troops to the Western Front. With new stormtrooper infantry trained in infiltration tactics to exploit enemy weak points and penetrate into rear areas, they launched a series of offensives in the spring of 1918. In the largest of these, Operation Michael, General Oskar von Hutier pushed forward 60 kilometers, gaining in a couple weeks what France and Britain had spent years to achieve. Although initially successful tactically, these offensives stalled after outrunning their horse-drawn supply, artillery, and reserves, leaving German forces weakened and exhausted.


title: Technology during World War I

text: In the Battle of Amiens of August 1918, the Triple Entente forces began a counterattack that would be called the "Hundred Days Offensive." The Australian and Canadian divisions that spearheaded the attack managed to advance 13 kilometers on the first day alone. These battles marked the end of trench warfare on the Western Front and a return to mobile warfare.


title: Technology during World War I

text: After the war, the defeated Germans would seek to combine their infantry-based mobile warfare of 1918 with vehicles, eventually leading to "blitzkrieg", or 'lightning warfare'.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Although the concept of the tank had been suggested as early as the 1890s, authorities showed little more than a passing interest in them until the trench stalemate of World War I caused reconsideration. In early 1915, the British Royal Navy and French industrialists both started dedicated development of tanks.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Basic tank design combined several existing technologies. It included armour plating thick enough to be proof against all standard infantry arms, caterpillar track for mobility over the shell-torn battlefield, the four-stroke gasoline powered internal combustion engine (refined in the 1870s), and heavy firepower, provided by the same machine guns which had recently become so dominant in warfare, or even light artillery guns.


title: Technology during World War I

text: In Britain, a committee was formed to work out a practical tank design. The outcome was large tanks with a rhomboidal shape, to allow crossing of an trench: the Mark I tank, with the "male" versions mounting small naval guns and machine guns, and the "female" carrying only machine guns.


title: Technology during World War I

text: In France, several competing arms industry organizations each proposed radically different designs. Smaller tanks became favored, leading to the Renault FT tank, in part by being able to leverage the engines and manufacturing techniques of commercial tractors and automobiles.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Although the tanks' initial appearance on the battlefield in 1916 terrified some German troops, such engagements provided more opportunities for development than battle successes. Early tanks were unreliable, breaking down often. Germans learned they were vulnerable to direct hits from field artillery and heavy mortars, their trenches were widened and other obstacles devised to halt them, and special anti-tank rifles were rapidly developed. Also, both Britain and France found new tactics and training were required to make effective use of their tanks, such as larger coordinated formations of tanks and close support with infantry. Once tanks could be organized in the hundreds, as in the opening assault of the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, they began to have notable impact.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Throughout the remainder of the war, new tank designs often revealed flaws in battle, to be addressed in later designs, but reliability remained the primary weakness of tanks. In the Battle of Amiens, a major Entente counteroffensive near the end of the war, British forces went to field with 532 tanks; after several days, only a few were still in commission, with those that suffered mechanical difficulties outnumbering those disabled by enemy fire.


title: Technology during World War I

text: In the last year of the war, despite rapidly increasing production (especially by France) and improving designs, tank technology struggled to make more than a modest impact on the war's overall progress. Plan 1919 proposed the future use of massive tank formations in great offensives combined with ground attack aircraft.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Even without achieving the decisive results hoped for during World War I, tank technology and mechanized warfare had been launched and would grow increasingly sophisticated in the years following the war. By World War II, the tank would evolve into a fearsome weapon critical to restoring mobility to land warfare.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The years leading up to the war saw the use of improved metallurgical and mechanical techniques to produce larger ships with larger guns and, in reaction, more armour. The launching of HMS Dreadnought (1906) revolutionized battleship construction, leaving many ships obsolete before they were completed. German ambitions brought an Anglo-German naval arms race in which the Imperial German Navy was built up from a small force to the world's most modern and second most powerful. However, even this high-technology navy entered the war with a mix of newer ships and obsolete older ones.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The advantage was in long-range gunnery, and naval battles took place at far greater distances than before. The 1916 Battle of Jutland demonstrated the excellence of German ships and crews, but also showed that the High Seas Fleet was not big enough to challenge openly the British blockade of Germany. It was the only full-scale battle between fleets in the war.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Having the largest surface fleet, the United Kingdom sought to press its advantage. British ships blockaded German ports, hunted down German and Austro-Hungarian ships wherever they might be on the high seas, and supported actions against German colonies. The German surface fleet was largely kept in the North Sea. This situation pushed Germany, in particular, to direct its resources to a new form of naval power: submarines.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Naval mines were deployed in hundreds of thousands, or far greater numbers than in previous wars. Submarines proved surprisingly effective for this purpose. Influence mines were a new development but moored contact mines were the most numerous. They resembled those of the late 19th century, improved so they less often exploded while being laid. The Allies produced enough mines to build the North Sea Mine Barrage to help bottle the Germans into the North Sea, but it was too late to make much difference.


title: Technology during World War I

text: World War I was the first conflict in which submarines were a serious weapon of war. In the years shortly before the war, the relatively sophisticated propulsion system of diesel power while surfaced and battery power while submerged was introduced. Their armament had similarly improved, but few were in service. Germany had already increased production and quickly built up its U-boat fleet, both for action against British warships and for a counterblockade of the British Isles. 360 were eventually built. The resulting U-boat Campaign (World War I) destroyed more enemy warships than the High Seas Fleet had, and hampered British war supplies as the more expensive surface fleet had not.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The United Kingdom relied heavily on imports to feed its population and supply its war industry, and the German Navy hoped to blockade and starve Britain using U-boats to attack merchant ships. Lieutenant Otto Weddigen remarked of the second submarine attack of the Great War:


title: Technology during World War I

text: Submarines soon came under persecution by submarine chasers and other small warships using hastily devised anti-submarine weapons. They could not impose an effective blockade while acting under the restrictions of the prize rules and international law of the sea. They resorted to unrestricted submarine warfare, which cost Germany public sympathy in neutral countries and was a factor contributing to the American entry into World War I.


title: Technology during World War I

text: This struggle between German submarines and British countermeasures became known as the "First Battle of the Atlantic." As German submarines became more numerous and effective, the British sought ways to protect their merchant ships. "Q-ships," attack vessels disguised as civilian ships, were one early strategy.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Consolidating merchant ships into convoys protected by one or more armed navy vessels was adopted later in the war. There was initially a great deal of debate about this approach, out of fear that it would provide German U-boats with a wealth of convenient targets. Thanks to the development of active and passive sonar devices, coupled with increasingly deadly anti-submarine weapons, the convoy system reduced British losses to U-boats to a small fraction of their former level.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Holland 602 type submarines and other Allied types were fewer, being unnecessary for the blockade of Germany.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Infantry weapons for major powers were mainly bolt-action rifles, capable of firing ten or more rounds per minute. German soldiers carried Gewehr 98 rifle in 8mm mauser, the British carried the Short Magazine Lee–Enfield rifle, and the US military employed the M1903 Springfield and M1917 Enfield. Rifles with telescopic sights were used by snipers, and were first used by the Germans.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Machine guns were also used by great powers; both sides used the Maxim gun, a fully automatic belt-fed weapon, capable of long-term sustained use provided it was supplied to adequate amounts of ammunition and cooling water, and its French counterpart, the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun. Their use in defense, combined with barbed wire obstacles, converted the expected mobile battlefield to a static one. The machine gun was useful in stationary battle but could not move easily through a battlefield, and therefore forced soldiers to face enemy machine guns without machine guns of their own.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Before the war, the French Army studied the question of a light machine gun but had made none for use. At the start of hostilities, France quickly turned an existing prototype (the "CS" for Chauchat and Sutter) into the lightweight Chauchat M1915 automatic rifle with a high rate of fire. Besides its use by the French, the first American units to arrive in France used it in 1917 and 1918. Hastily mass-manufactured under desperate wartime pressures, the weapon developed a reputation for unreliability.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Seeing the potential of such a weapon, the British Army adopted the American-designed Lewis gun chambered in .303 British. The Lewis gun was the first true light machine gun that could in theory be operated by one man, though in practice the bulky ammo pans required an entire section of men to keep the gun operating. The Lewis Gun was also used for marching fire, notably by the Australian Corps in the July 1918 Battle of Hamel. To serve the same purpose, the German Army adopted the MG08/15 which was impractically heavy at counting the water for cooling and one belt of ammunition holding 100 rounds. In 1918 the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) was introduced in the US military, the weapon was an "automatic rifle" and like the Chauchat was designed with the concept of walking fire in mind. The tactic was to be employed under conditions of limited field of fire and poor visibility such as advancing through woods.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The US military deployed combat shotguns, commonly known as "trench guns". American troops used Winchester Models 1897 and 1912 short-barreled pump action shotguns loaded with 6 rounds containing antimony hardened 00 buckshot to clear enemy trenches. Pump actions can be fired rapidly, simply by working the slide when the trigger is held down, and when fighting within a trench, the shorter shotgun could be rapidly turned and fired in the opposite direction along the trench axis. The shotguns prompted a diplomatic protest from Germany, claiming the shotguns caused excessive injury, and that any U.S. combatants found in possession of them would be subject to execution. The U.S. rejected the claims, and threatened reprisals in kind if any of its troops were executed for possession of a shotgun.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Grenades proved to be effective weapons in the trenches. When the war started, grenades were few and poor. Hand grenades were used and improved throughout the war. Contact fuzes became less common, replaced by time fuzes.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The British entered the war with the long-handled impact detonating "Grenade, Hand No 1". This was replaced by the No. 15 "Ball Grenade" to partially overcome some of its inadequacies. An improvised hand grenade was developed in Australia for use by ANZAC troops called the Double Cylinder "jam tin" which consisted of a tin filled with dynamite or guncotton, packed round with scrap metal or stones. To ignite, at the top of the tin there was a Bickford safety fuse connecting the detonator, which was lit by either the user, or a second person. The "Mills bomb" (Grenade, Hand No. 5) was introduced in 1915 and would serve in its basic form in the British Army until the 1970s. Its improved fusing system relied on the soldier removing a pin and while holding down a lever on the side of the grenade. When the grenade was thrown the safety lever would automatically release, igniting the grenade's internal fuse which would burn down until the grenade detonated. The French would use the F1 defensive grenade.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The major grenades used in the beginning by the German Army were the impact-detonating "discus" or "oyster shell" bomb and the Mod 1913 black powder "Kugelhandgranate" with a friction-ignited time fuse. In 1915 Germany developed the much more effective "Stielhandgranate", nicknamed "potato masher" for its shape, whose variants remained in use for decades; it used a timed fuse system similar to the Mills bomb.


title: Technology during World War I

text: Hand grenades were not the only attempt at projectile explosives for infantry. A rifle grenade was brought into the trenches to attack the enemy from a greater distance. The Hales rifle grenade got little attention from the British Army before the war began but, during the war, Germany showed great interest in this weapon. The resulting casualties for the Allies caused Britain to search for a new defense.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The Stokes mortar, a lightweight and very portable trench mortar with short tube and capable of indirect fire, was rapidly developed and widely imitated. Mechanical bomb throwers of lesser range were used in a similar fashion to fire upon the enemy from a safe distance within the trench.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The Sauterelle was a grenade launching Crossbow used before the Stokes mortar by French and British troops.


title: Technology during World War I

text: The Imperial German Army deployed flamethrowers () on the Western Front attempting to flush out French or British soldiers from their trenches. Introduced in 1915, it was used with greatest effect during the Hooge battle of the Western Front on 30 July 1915. The German Army had two main types of flame throwers during the Great War: a small single person version called the Kleinflammenwerfer and a larger crew served configuration called the Grossflammenwerfer. In the latter, one soldier carried the fuel tank while another aimed the nozzle. Both the large and smaller versions of the flame-thrower were of limited use because their short range left the exposed to small arms fire.


title: Narendra Singh Tomar

text: Narendra Singh Tomar (born 12 June 1957) is an Indian politician and a member of the 17th Lok Sabha. He is the incumbent Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. He has been Minister of Rural Development, Minister of Panchayati Raj, Minister of Mines and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs in the Government of India during different periods of the First and Second Modi ministry. He is a leader of Bharatiya Janata Party. He was also a member of Fifteenth Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014 from Morena and Sixteenth Lok Sabha from 2014 to 2019 from Gwalior. In 2019, he changed his constituency and was re-elected to the Lok Sabha from Morena.


title: Narendra Singh Tomar

text: Tomar was born on 12 June 1957 in Morar village in Gwalior district (of Madhya Pradesh) in a Rajput family to Munshi Singh Tomar and Sharda Devi Tomar. He graduated from Jiwaji University. He is married to Kiran Tomar, with whom he has two sons and a daughter. He was nicknamed as "Munna Bhaiya" by Babulal Gaur.


title: Narendra Singh Tomar

text: He was appointed Union Cabinet Minister of Steel, Mines, Labour and Employment on 27 May 2014 in the cabinet headed by Narendra Modi. He was administered the oath of office and sworn in on 26 May 2014 by Pranab Mukherjee, the President of India.


title: Narendra Singh Tomar

text: On 5 July 2016, during the second cabinet reshuffle of the Narendra Modi ministry, Birender Singh replaced him as the Steel Minister and he replaced Birender Singh as the Minister of Panchayati Raj, Rural Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation. Piyush Goyal replaced Narendra Singh Tomar as the Minister of Mines (Minister of State with Independent charge).


title: Narendra Singh Tomar

text: In May 2019, he continued with Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj and was given charge of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.


title: Narendra Singh Tomar

text: On 18 September 2020, Tomar was assigned the additional charge of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries after Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the post.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: Ekaterina Dmitrievna Rybolovleva (born 4 June 1989, in Perm, Soviet Union) is a businesswoman, equestrian and socialite. She is the daughter of Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev. A competitor in equestrian competitions, she is also the owner of several businesses and properties, including those on the islands of Skorpios and Sparti. Rybolovleva owns the football club AS Monaco FC via a trust in her name, although her father serves as the president.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: Rybolovleva began riding horses at age 11 and has been trained by British show jumper and three-time Olympian Ben Maher.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: On 17 March 2007, she took part in the Officiel d’Evordes showjumping competition, where she placed in the first round R2/L2. In August 2007, she participated in a show jumping competition in Verbier, where she took the third position R3/M. In 2008, she placed in the first round E3/M1 in the Officiel d’Evordes, riding her mare, Eole Perruques. In addition to Eole Perruques, Rybolovleva owns several other horses which she rides in competition, Uropo, Cherubin van de Helle, Lucky the Man, Obelix du Thot, and Celesto Z.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: She first participated in the Gucci Masters in 2009, and became a winner in December 2010, with Malin Baryard-Johnsson, after performing to the music track "Rasputin" by Boney M. In 2011, she participated in the new Gucci Masters with Kevin Staut, with a choreography to musical "Moulin Rouge". She won the Gucci Masters in 2012.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: In 2011, a trust acting in the interest of Rybolovleva acquired a 627 square meter (6,700 square feet) apartment in New York for $88 million. The price for the penthouse apartment at 15 Central Park West was, at the time of the transaction, a record for the city. The apartment has served as Rybolovleva's home in the US whenever she attended psychology and finance classes at Harvard Extension School. That same year, a trust acting in Rybolovleva's interest purchased a Hawaiian mansion, on Kauai's North Shore, from Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. At the time, the property was 7 acres. The trust added a 21-acre adjacent lot, quadrupling the size of the oceanfront property.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: In 2013, a company belonging to a trust acting in the interest of Rybolovleva completed the purchase of a group of companies formerly owned by Athina Onassis, the granddaughter of shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Amongst the assets of this group of companies were the islands of Skorpios and Sparti, an uninhabited island 2 kilometers North of Skorpios. The 74-acre island of Skorpios, the second-most valuable private island in the world, was made famous by Aristotle Onassis's wedding to Jackie Kennedy there in 1968. Rybolovleva has said that she views the acquisition of the islands, which she referred to as her "private shelter" and "home away from home", as a "long-term financial investment" which she plans to develop using "environmentally friendly technology." The current plans for the island include the development of a green luxury accommodation complex with a multi sports facility, including an Olympic-sized horseback riding arena, a cinema, a spa and a large artificial lake. The development is projected to cost up to €165 million.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: The mayor of neighboring Lefkada, Kostas Aravanis, and other local officials met with Ryobovleva and her father shortly after the sale was announced. Aravanis said that Rybolovleva's investment in Skorpios "could help the local economy, because some people will be employed there, and it will promote the area internationally."


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: Onassis stated in his will that the island would remain in the family as long as they could afford to cover its maintenance expenses. According to the will, if his descendants could not cover the expenses, the island would be donated either to Olympic Airways or to the state. Therefore, the island is now leased to the heiress for 99 years time, still under the ownership of Athina Onassis.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: Rybolovleva's ownership of some assets, including the New York apartment and Skorpios, was challenged by her mother, Elena, during her divorce from Rybolovlev. In a major ruling in May 2014, a Geneva court confirmed the validity of the trust structures through which Rybolovleva owns these assets, meaning they are immune from legal challenge in the case.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: Rybolovleva married Uruguayan businessman and politician Juan Sartori on October 21, 2015, in a private ceremony in Skorpios, one day after her parents announced that they had reached a settlement in their 7-year divorce battle. The wedding was only the second one on the island since that of Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy in 1968. Rybolovleva met Sartori in Lausanne, while he was studying at HEC Lausanne.


title: Ekaterina Rybolovleva

text: The couple has two children together and live in Uruguay, where Sartori is currently a Senator. In 2019, Sartori was a candidate for the National Party's primaries for the 2019 Uruguayan presidential election and obtained 20% of the votes. Rybolovleva supported him during his campaign trail. During the presidential election, Sartori and Rybolovleva visited an animal shelter and adopted a two-month-old puppy, Esperanza.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Ludovic Vincent Giuly (born 10 July 1976) is a French former professional footballer who played as a winger.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly represented France at international level, gaining 17 caps over a five-year period and was a member of their 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup-winning squad. One of his greatest moments was being part of Barcelona's squad, as he helped the team win the UEFA Champions League in 2005–06. Since June 2022, he’s been the assistant manager of Lyon.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly was immersed in the world of football from an early age since his father, Dominique Giuly, born in the village of Zalana, in Corsica, was a former goalkeeper, who played briefly in professional football for Bastia before continuing an amateur career until the age of 32 with several clubs in the suburbs of Lyon. Ludovic Giuly made his debut in the club in which his father was then active: the ASCMO, now known as Monts d'Or Azergues Foot, in the city of Chasselay, located about twenty kilometers from Lyon. He then entered the training center of Olympique Lyonnais. In 1994, he won the Coupe Gambardella with their U18 team.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly began his career with Lyon in 1994 at age 18, and made his debut for the club in a Division 1 match on 21 January 1995 against Cannes; a 3–1 win. The following season, Giuly earned a nicknamed "the magic elf", referring to his low height (1.64 metres) and his vivacious character. In the 1996–97 season, Giuly finished the season with 16 goals in 37 matches. During the 1997–98 season, he played 19 matches with Lyon and scored one goal. He made his last appearance for Lyon on 10 January 1998 in a 1–0 loss against Marseille, where he played 90 minutes.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly was signed by Monaco in the winter break in January 1998. The transfer fee was €7.5 million (£6.6 million), although the fee was then assessed at 42 million francs, which was a considerable sum at that time.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Just ten days after playing for Lyon against Marseille, Giuly made his Monaco debut against them in a 1–1 draw on 20 January 1998. Giuly scored his first goal for Monaco in a 5–2 win over Bordeaux in May 1998, on the final day of Ligue 1. In his first half-season with Monaco, he made a total of 12 appearances, scoring once.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: In the 1999–2000 season, Giuly proved to be a key member in the Monaco squad on its right side, as he led his team to the Ligue 1 title for the first time since 1997. The next season turned out to be a troublesome campaign, after Monaco finished in 11th place in the league. Giuly scored 7 goals in 30 appearances. In the 2001–02 season, Giuly started strongly with two goals against Paris Saint-Germain and Lens respectively, before he suffered ruptured ligaments in his right knee which kept him sidelined for almost the entire season and spoiled his chances of playing in the 2002 FIFA World Cup.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: The 2002–03 season was decisive for Giuly. He made his return from injury in a match against Troyes in a 4–0 win on 3 August 2003. In the 2003 Coupe de la Ligue Final between Monaco and Sochaux, Giuly captained the side and scored a brace in a 4–1 win to win the Coupe de la Ligue for the first time in the club's history. His good performance at Monaco led him being selected in the FIFA Confederations Cup which France won.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: At the start of the 2003–04 season – Giuly's last with Monaco – he scored a superb overhead kick during a league match against Lens with an assist from Jérôme Rothen, having suffered an injury that kept him out for a week prior to the game. While the club floundered in the race for the Ligue 1 title, they had a fantastic run in the UEFA Champions League progressing through the group stage (where Giuly scored goals at home to AEK Athens and Deportivo de La Coruña) and making it through to the knockout stage. Here, Monaco eliminated Lokomotiv Moscow, Real Madrid (in which he scored a brace in the second leg) and Chelsea. Giuly captained Monaco in the final, where they lost 3–0 to José Mourinho's Porto. This was a particularly galling defeat for Giuly because he suffered a groin injury early in the match, forcing him to leave the field in the 23rd minute, being replaced by Dado Pršo. Without Giuly, the club's task of winning the final was even more compromised. Even manager Didier Deschamps admitted that losing Giuly was a "big blow" and said, "Giuly's injury was not good news for us – he is a very important player for us on the offensive side." This was Giuly's last appearance for Monaco.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Barcelona paid about €7 million to Monaco in order to sign Giuly on 28 June 2004, with Giuly signing a three-year contract. On 29 August 2004, Giuly scored on his Barcelona debut against Racing de Santander in a 2–0 win and played 90 minutes. On his move, Giuly was happy after enjoying a successful start to life in Spain.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly helped Barcelona to win La Liga in the 2004–05 season, ending a six-year championship drought. He was the second top scorer for the club with 11 goals. Although his season was disrupted by several muscle injuries, Giuly was able to fulfil his promise to reach double digits in goals in his first year at his new club.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: In 2005–06, he helped win the Spanish title again, as well as capture the second UEFA Champions League trophy for the Catalan club. Giuly propelled Barça into the Champions League final by scoring the only goal in their semi-final against Milan. After the match, Giuly said he had called on his teammates to keep calm and finish the job: "Ronnie passed me the perfect ball. I attempted a shot from the left, the ball went in, so much the better! Now we've got one foot in the final, we have to remain cool and work hard to try and go all the way."


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly played the full 90 minutes in Paris as Barcelona came from a goal behind to defeat Arsenal 2–1 at the Stade de France. Giuly subsequently scored, but the goal was ruled out due to the foul resulting Jens Lehmann sending off (making him the first player and only goalkeeper to ever be sent off in a Champions League/European Cup final). FIFA president Sepp Blatter later said he believed Giuly's goal should have stood.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: In the 2006–07 season, Giuly, although still a key member of the "Barça" squad, eventually lost his starting spot in the team, when Lionel Messi was promoted from the club's youth ranks. This resulted in Giuly saying his farewell to Barcelona.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: On 17 July 2007, Giuly signed for Roma on a three-year deal after the club paid a £2.2 million transfer fee to "Barça". A month later, Giuly won his first trophy with his new club, winning the Supercoppa Italiana against Internazionale (0–1). On 26 August 2007, he made his Serie A debut for Roma in a 2–0 win over Palermo. The next match, on 2 September, Giuly scored his first goal in a 3–0 win over Siena. In the UEFA Champions League group stage, Giuly scored and provided assist for Mirko Vučinić in a 4–1 win over Ukrainian side Dynamo Kyiv on 27 November. In the second leg of the round of 16 in the Coppa Italia, he also scored and provided two assists for Mancini and Roma fan favourite Francesco Totti in a 4–0 win over Torino on 16 January 2008.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: However, Giuly's only season at Roma had him scoring more than many starting players which made him in the top five scorers at the club for the season he spent at Stadio Olimpico.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Desiring to return to France for more playing time, Giuly was coveted by Monaco, Marseille and Lyon, but on 18 July 2008, he signed with Paris Saint-Germain on a three-year contract, with PSG paying a reported €2.5 million transfer fee to Roma. On 9 August 2008, he made his PSG debut against former club Monaco in a 1–0 loss. After an early season goal drought, marked by injury, he scored his first goal for PSG during their 1–0 win over Lille on 10 November. He scored his second goal against Le Havre and lead the team to a victory against Lyon, scoring a header against his first club. He scored his first brace of the season on 7 February 2009 against Nantes. In his first season at the club, PSG had moderate success in Ligue 1, finishing in sixth place and narrowly missing out on European play due to inferior goal difference.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: In his second season (2009–10), PSG's league form was much worse and they finished in 13th place. He scored the first goal for the Parisian team against Montpellier (1–1) on the first day of the championship and scored again in their second fixture against Le Mans, as well as in their fifth fixture, against Lyon. That season, PSG won the Coupe de France, defeating his former team Monaco in the final.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: In his third and final season (2010–11), Giuly began by scoring in play-off round of the UEFA Europa League, away at Maccabi Tel Aviv. In Ligue 1, PSG pushed up in the league table, especially after the arrival of winger Nenê, who had transferred in the summer of 2010. On 27 October 2010, Giuly scored against Lyon in Coupe de la Ligue, allowing PSG to win the match 2–1. Giuly scored four goals in the league that season, against Montpellier, Brest, Sochaux and Nice, and also made eight assists. On 29 June 2011, Giuly's contract with PSG was not renewed upon expiry.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly spent the summer of 2011 training with his former club Monaco. On 9 August 2011, he signed a two-year contract with the club, then playing in Ligue 2. His move back to Monaco was a surprise to the Monegasque supporters, though the club's goal was to return to Ligue 1 within the year. He got back the number 8 shirt he wore during his first spell at the club. A negotiated reconversion within the club was included in the contract. In his first match, the club lost 1–2 against Stade de Reims. On 29 August 2011, Guily scored his first goal in over seven years at Monaco in a 2–2 draw against Lens. On 14 January 2012, Giuly scored his second goal in a 1–0 win over Istres. On 13 April, he scored his third goal in a 2–0 win over Metz. Upon his return, he established himself in the starting eleven throughout the season.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Ahead of the 2012–13 season, Giuly found himself being frozen out of the first team by newly appointed manager Claudio Ranieri and lost the captaincy to Andreas Wolf. On 27 July 2012, Giuly left Monaco by mutual consent after just one year. In a friendly match against Tours, the club hosted a ceremony in his honour. Giuly said, "Monaco has allowed me to express the best years my life as a footballer. I want to thank the leaders for the conditions in which I ended my adventure with the ASMFC."


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: On 31 July 2012, Giuly signed for Lorient on a one-year contract on a free transfer. Giuly made his debut, coming on as a substitute for Yann Jouffre, in a 2–1 win over Montpellier and two weeks later, on 1 September 2012, Giuly scored his first goal for the club, in a 3–0 win over Nancy. Then, four months later, in the second round of Coupe de France, Giuly scored his last career goal, in a 1–0 win over Sedan.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Towards the end of the season, on 11 May 2013, Giuly announced his retirement. Giuly ended his professional career on 26 May 2013 in a home match against his former club Paris Saint-Germain, in the final round of the season. Giuly left the pitch in the 72nd minute to standing ovations, and was even awarded a shirt with his old number by the visitors. His last appearance was also his 401st appearance in Ligue 1.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Following his retirement, Giuly returned to Monts d'Or Azergues Foot, the team where he began his career. On 4 January 2014, he inspired his team to a penalty shootout win over Ligue 2 side Istres in the Coupe de France.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly has been capped for France, but was removed from his country's UEFA Euro 2004 squad due to a leg injury he sustained in the 2004 Champions League final.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly was not selected for the French 2006 FIFA World Cup squad, as young Marseille playmaker Franck Ribéry was selected over him. However, with Djibril Cissé having broken his leg in a World Cup warm-up match against China, Giuly could have been called up, but he asserted after the initial France squad was announced that he would go on holiday to Dubai and Kish instead of waiting idly in the stand-by squad, and Sidney Govou was called up instead. Despite this, France head coach Raymond Domenech opened a door for Giuly whether he want to play for the national team.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly also qualified for the non-FIFA affiliated team of Corsica, having been called up for their 31 May 2011 friendly with Bulgaria.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: On 15 May 2007, Giuly's autobiography "Giuly by Giuly" was published by Hugo & Co. In the autobiography, Giuly settles accounts with former France coach Raymond Domenech, including revelations about his alleged affair with Domenech's partner Estelle Denis.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: From September 2006 to March 2007, Giuly worked as a columnist each Thursday in Luis Attaque on Radio Monte Carlo (RMC). In 2010, he incorporated Ultimate Player, a service company for professional footballers. The company employs 40 people.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: Giuly tested positive for the H1N1 (Swine flu) virus in October 2009 along with two PSG teammates, Jérémy Clément and Mamadou Sakho. This led to the league postponing Marseille's match with Paris St Germain.


title: Ludovic Giuly

text: In January 2013, Monts d'Or Azergues Foot named their home stadium after Giuly as the Stade Ludovic Giuly.


title: Black Rob

text: Robert Ross (June 8, 1968 – April 17, 2021), known professionally as Black Rob, was an American rapper who was signed to Bad Boy Records. He was best known for his 1999 single "Whoa!", which peaked at number 43 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. He spent four years in prison in connection with a hotel robbery in 2004.


title: Black Rob

text: Ross grew up in East Harlem and began rapping between the ages of 11 and 12. He was inspired by the artists he listened to regularly, including Spoonie Gee, Doug E. Fresh, and Slick Rick. When he was 22, he joined his first rap group, the Schizophrenics, though they did not release any albums. He initially rapped under the alias "Bacardi Rob".


title: Black Rob

text: He began associating with the Bad Boy label as early as 1996, appearing on the Bad Boy remix to 112's "Come See Me". He was then featured on several Bad Boy releases, including remixes to Total's "What About Us" (1997) and Faith Evans's "Love Like This" (1998), the song "24 Hrs. to Live" (1997) from Mase, and albums by Puff Daddy & the Bad Boy Family (1997) and The Notorious B.I.G. (1999). He also made two appearances on Cru's 1997 album "Da Dirty 30", as well as albums by Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Channel Live, The Madd Rapper, Benzino, Tony Touch, and others. These guest appearances earned him media buzz.


title: Black Rob

text: In his earlier years, Black Rob headed the street rap team which he named "Alumni". His debut album "Life Story" was released in 1999 and rose above platinum sales. In early 2000, he released the hit single "Whoa!". Produced by Diggin' in the Crates Crew member Buckwild, "Whoa!" became his biggest hit. The song peaked at number 43 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and reached the top 10 on both the R&B/Hip-Hop and Rap charts. It was Rob's only solo single to reach the Hot 100. Black Rob's verse in the song "By A Stranger", was featured in the in-game radio station "Game Radio" from "Grand Theft Auto III".


title: Black Rob

text: Despite subsequently appearing on releases by P. Diddy and G. Dep, he did not make another hit single. His second album, "The Black Rob Report" (2005) failed to perform as strongly as his debut and quickly fell off the "Billboard" 100 charts. In 2005, Jemal Mosley from Off The Block Entertainment started managing Black Rob's career. In 2010, he parted from Bad Boy and signed to independent label Duck Down Records. In 2011, he released "Game Tested, Streets Approved", which peaked at number 44 on the "Billboard" Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Black Rob also started his own independent label, Box in One, with Jemal Mosley.


title: Black Rob

text: In 2013, he joined the reality series "Come Back Kings" with Ed Lover, Calvin Richardson, David "Davinch" Chance (of Ruff Endz), Jeff Sanders, Jameio, Mr. Cheeks and Horace Brown. In 2014, he appeared on the song "Take 'Em Off Da Map" on Diamond D's album, "The Diam Piece". In 2015, Black Rob released his fourth studio album, "Genuine Article" on Slimstyle Records, which he produced with Jemal Mosley. Guest emcees include Sean Price, Tek, battle legend Murda Mook, and Quas Amill. Ron Browz, former Bad Boy label-mate Q. Parker (112), Kali Ranks, and Quan all sing choruses on the album. Producers include Easy Mo Bee, Coptic, Big French, and others.