Mashuq HussainInspired by his late father Sergeant Ghulam Hussain, Mashuq Hussain OBE will be laying a Remembrance wreath today to honour South Asian soldiers who served in the British Indian Army during the World War II.
Mashuq, a senior youth and community worker at Marsden Heights Community College in Nelson, Lancashire, said Ghulam always wanted to be a soldier as he lived near an Army base at Jhelum, in present day Pakistan.
He joined the Punjab Jatt Regiment in 1943 at the age of 15, despite being originally told: “You can’t sign up, you’re too young,” Mashuq said.
“But he went back again and again and again, and they just said, walk around the block, and then come back, and say you’re old enough.”
“He got deployed straight away. The war was happening. It was just a matter of getting your uniform, getting your gun, and off you go.”
The young Ghulam was sent to the harshest of terrains to fight in Burma, Sumatra and Java fighting the Japanese in the jungle.
“It must have been a terrifying and horrible time,” his son said.
The Burma campaign was filled with challenging terrain, disease, brutal fighting, and high casualties.
UnknownThere were only a few incidents Ghulam would speak about.
One was fighting under the command of four British Colonels when a Japanese bomber had attacked them and killed 14 staff officers including the commanding officer.
Ghulam told Mashuq: “When we fought, you could never know where the enemy was, you never saw the enemy, you would be in the jungle and all of a sudden there’d be a gunshot and one of your comrades would go down, but you’d never know where it came from.”
During his service, Ghulam sustained injuries of broken ribs, a broken arm and finger, trench foot and shoulder pain that stayed with him until his death in 2017.
After the war ended in September 1945 Ghulam returned to Pakistan before accepting an invitation to work in the UK in the 1960s, joining his brother, before the whole family eventually moved over.
Settling in Colne, Lancashire, Ghulam worked in a spinning mill, and bought a house in Nelson for £500.
It was while working in the mills, that a friend who had a connection to the Royal British Legion (RBL), asked about his medals.
Ghulam had “no idea” he should have received them.
When they did the research, they found she should have received a Burma star, but he never got it.
With the help of the RBL, and 50 years after his service ended, Ghulam received four medals – the Burma Star, the 1939-1945 Star, the Defence Medal, and the War Medal 1939–1945 – at a ceremony at Nelson Town Hall.
He was also given the freedom of Nelson.
When Mashuq received his OBE in 2010 – for services to young people and to community relations in Burnley and Pendle – from the then-Prince Charles, he took his dad to Buckingham Palace.
“Prince Charles asked me who I was with,” Mashuq said.
“And I said, I’m here with my dad. And he said, is that the gentleman with the Burma Star?
“It was brilliant, he’d clocked the medal.”
EPAMashuq said he has learned so much from his dad.
“He was quite a happy chap, always positive, positive and happy, happy, happy.
“He travelled over to Lancashire, left his wife and his kids in Pakistan, to come 7,000 miles, to try to build a better life.
“I’m just so blessed to have him as my dad.
“And now on Remembrance Sunday I wear his medals and stand where he used to stand, and lay the wreath for the South Asian soldiers.
“It’s a really, really sad, but proud moment for me.
“He was a very, very proud soldier, up to his last days.
“A very proud soldier and bright as a button right till the end.”
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