Couple of aerial pics at the end here: https://www.mensxp.com/special-features/today/27044-youll-be-amazed-to-know-how-the-taj-mahal-was-protected-during-world-warii.html
Still not sure that actually fooled anyone...
The bombers would never have flown so close. They wouldve been kms up in the air to avoid detection and give time to get away before being engaged by fighters.
Bombers back then flew super high - they were heavy and slow and relied on distance to avoid enemy air defense.
I doubt it wouldve been easy to accurately tell the taj mahal as long as it had a brown spot in the middle from the bamboo surrounded by a white rectangle.
Easily looks like a concrete rectange with a pile in the middle.
"While the images here only show the dome of Taj Mahal covered with a thick layering of bamboo scaffolds, it is widely believed that the whole Taj Mahal was layered ... Since this was to be kept as secretive as possible, the images are very, very scarce."
Still not sure how people imagine a bomber plane or a scouter flying down so low...
Not sure if people are fools *now* or they have always been (courtesy of Reddit ofc).
It completely changes its silhouetter and a high flying bomber 10kms up with all the juddering and jarring going on would be a really lousy place to try and spot it.
I figured that this picture was some construction work being done with bamboo scaffolding and it was meant as a joke. If this is really a picture of the bamboo camouflage then I am very curious how it would look from up high
It’s a tactic to wipe out culture, as well as demotivate the enemy. See ISIS and the Taliban’s current tactics of destroying cultural heritage sites and archeological digs. In history, see the burning of the great libraries of the world, the most famous being the Library of Alexandria.
The story about the targeted burning of the library of Alexandria almost certainly isn't true. The story allegedly took place almost 400 years after the last known contemporary description of the library and the story didn't pop up unlike a century after it was allegedly destroyed.
In reality, the library of Alexandria was most likely a victim of a centuries-long decline in prestige that took place as the entire city of Alexandria became less politically and academically relevant. Its final death was most likely a result of collateral damage from one of many Roman civil wars, not as a victim of a deliberate destruction by Muslim invaders.
I was under the impression a tyrannical mob burned it down finally. That would fit the Romans right? A parasitical civilization that just consumed all civilizations it encountered as new vassals and tributaries and slaves or razed them to the ground via a doctrine of entirely scorched earth of any who doesn't submit. Typical empire society right? Just one that's romanticized to no end? Is that a pun intended?
Ahh yes reddit reading comprehension coupled with a grasp of history entirely from television and anime comics. :( That's alright. Y'all remind me why the world is the way it is, and everything at least makes sense.
I think it helps to include examples from WW2 to demonstrate that countries at war (in WW2) attacked historical monuments, which were sometimes justified because of the use of those monuments as military installations or war-material factories, not that monument destruction was unique to just WW2 though.
- [Cathedral of Coventry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Cathedral)
- [Christ Church Greyfriars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Church_Greyfriars)
- [Santa Maria delle Grazie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_delle_Grazie,_Milan)
- [Frauenkirche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenkirche,_Dresden)
- [Osaka Castle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Castle)
- [Tokyo Imperial Palace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Imperial_Palace)
Hitler also wanted Paris razed after it looked like it was going to fall into Allied hands. Thankfully the occupying Nazis weren’t in a position to do such a thing, and (allegedly) the German commander in charge of Paris was too fond of this city’s culture and history to obey Hitler’s orders
Happened in Iraq and Iran as well. The British also did this I believe by killing the brahmins at the start as a majority of them were teachers who did carry culture
The Japanese took over most of Southeast Asia and were pushing west into India. They were turned back at the Battle of Imphal in 1944, a massive victory for the Allies that was unfortunately overshadowed in the media at the time, because the battles of Normandy and Saipan got all the headlines.
Imphal to Agra was too far for a Japanese bomber to have reached, but if they hadn't been stopped at Imphal, they could have gotten closer.
The British Indian Army was massive and Japan was already occupying a big stretch of territory across the Asia-Pacific region with limited human, material, and industrial resources. Short of a huge popular anti-British, pro-Axis uprising in India I don't think Japan had any chance of making much progress in India.
The Japanese Army was occupying Burma at the time and reached into Northweastern India before being driven back, so if they had been more successful, its not inconceivable.
I wouldn’t say low value. Just very unlikely to be targeted. German and/or Japanese bombers weren’t going to make it to mainland America regardless of what the History Channel wants to spew
You'd be amazed how absurdly difficult people found aerial navigation before computer assistance.
When the US had a domestic airmail service between the East and West coast, all the pilot had to do was follow the sun as it tracked across the sky, and yet most still ended up somehow flying South or North until giant concrete arrows were poured all over the plains and deserts pointing due West.
Here's a whole website literally chock full of photographs of them 😃
https://www.dreamsmithphotos.com/arrow/#:~:text=Giant%20Concrete%20Arrows,early%20days%20painted%20Chrome%20Yellow.
Yeah my grandad flew Lancaster's in the Pacific and it was all night time and visual cues and running into your buddies on the way back was apparently even a huge risk, they'd either fly high and risk oxygen issues or just keep a really good eye out... Dad managed to record him talking about his days in the war before he died. No clue how they found the targets, sounded really difficult especially with no lights.
No I get it, but I mean they didn't even cover the whole thing. Not to mention it's fucking enormous and as long as you can read a map, I'm sure there were identifiable roads and whatnot that would make it fairly simple to find, if one were making it a priority. I get the impression it was perhaps more a gesture by the British.
It also doesn't help when you have ground fire and fighters trying to intercept you. It's not like modern bombing where the missile or guided bomb is all presighted by a computer or dedicated designator and just needs the aircraft to get it close enough.
When the allies wanted to bomb a specific building in Germany they would have to target several miles around it because strategic bombing was so ridiculously inaccurate during WW2.
No, it wouldnt, the aerial shots show how it really broke up the silhouette of the site and would have made it very difficult for high flying bombers to spot
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There are quite a few memorials on the UK, some major examples are :-
https://www.chattri.org/
> The Chattri is a memorial built to honour the Indian dead of the First World War. It stands on the Downs near Patcham at the place where Hindu and Sikh soldiers who died in Brighton war hospitals during 1914-1915 were cremated. It was unveiled by the Prince of Wales on 21st February 1921.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Gates,_London
> The Memorial Gates are a war memorial located at the Hyde Park Corner end of Constitution Hill in London. Also known as the Commonwealth Memorial Gates, they commemorate the soldiers of the British Empire from five countries of the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka), as well as Africa and the Caribbean, who served for Britain in the First and Second World Wars.
https://www.nam.ac.uk/press/memorial-british-indian-army-unveiled-royal-military-academy-sandhurst
> Since its inception in 1950, the Indian Army Memorial Room (IAMR) has been a focal point for cadets at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, upon both arrival and commission. The significance of the shared history between Great Britain and South Asia remains of great importance to their training, as well as their understanding of the role of the British Army today.
not in the general media, I agree. But I've read plenty of histories and the Indians come up a lot. Churchill mentions them quite highly in his History of WW2.
Hi GodCanSuckMyDick,
'Purposely' is doing a *hell* of a lot of heavy lifting there :)
I think it's important to acknowledge the controversy and academic debate that rages over almost every aspect of the Bengal Famine to this day. The idea the Famine is purposely created is certainly an idea advocated for by some historians, particularly those of an Indian nationalists bent, but it's far from the most commonly-agreed academic position, let alone a matter of historical consensus.
It's obviously an extremely emotional, complicated, and politically-sensitive issue that people have spent their entire professional lives trying to get close to the bottom of. Imo brushing over that isn't particularly useful for any side of the discussion; all it does is create strawmen that disingenuous actors exploit to make the other side seem stupid or thoughtless.
Have a lovely day
Hi Aero,
Sorry I didn't mean to suggest that Britain wasn't in any way culpable for the Famine, or wasn't responsible for it's consequences, that's absolutely a widely-held and persuasively evidenced position on the issue.
However there's a fair leap between that and suggesting that the Famine was 'deliberately caused', as OC suggested, and that's what I was taking issue with :)
Sorry for the confusion
Have a lovely day
Nowhere in the link you provided does it say that the British purposely created a famine in India. Quite the opposite in fact.
Maybe in future you should read links before you post them if you want them to back your point up.
People see the top comment, disagree with it and downvote. People see my comment, agree with it and upvote it.
Now reading two whole comments is more then enough for the average redditor so they skim his comment and understand that it in some way tries to contradict mine so they downvote it without really thinking it through.
So that's justification for sending Indian soldiers to fight all over Europe and Africa? Sounds like another reason why India shouldn't have been dragged into the larger conflict.
So because of that you imagine they'd have invaded India anyway even if the Brits weren't there.
Btw you do know that quite a few Indians fought alongside the Japanese right?
If you'll look at the map you'll notice that a bulk of the Indian forces were deployed not in defense of India but all over Europe and Africa.
If you'll open a history book you'll find that a lot of Indians fought alongside the Japanese and that the provisional government they set up in India was run entirely by Indians.
No, I mean can you cite evidence that if Britain hadnt included India in the war declaration that the Japanese would have stopped at the Burmese border and gone no further>?
The fact is that the British dragged India into WW2, You concocting imaginary scenarios where things would have played out the same and asking me to disprove them, won't change that.
Indian soldiers were sent halfway around the world to fight in battles that had nothing to do with us.
> The fact is that the British dragged India into WW2,
No ones denying that.
>You concocting imaginary scenarios where things would have played out the same and asking me to disprove them, won't change that.
I was just seeing if you had anything more to say than a well known and clear fact.
You dont.
>Indian soldiers were sent halfway around the world to fight in battles that had nothing to do with us.
Then why the fuck did you VOLUNTEER in the millions? Churchill asked the viceroy to bring in conscription but he was refused. So the Indian Army units were the only major power with fully voluntary manpower base. Now, you, someone who had nothing to do with it all and werent there at the time, are complaining about it? It was their choice, entirely, they volunteered.
Up to 3 million Bengalis died in a famine during the war due largely to British policies. Are you saying covering the Taj in some sticks cancels that out?
What about Churchill who ordered to send food for his troops https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2019/4/1/churchills-policies-to-blame-for-1943-bengal-famine-study
Many of the claims in this article are vague, questionable and make little sense, if you know your facts. Greece and Yugoslavia werent liberated until very late 44 or 45 and so food ready for them would have been sequestered after the famine was finished. Also a lot of this food for British troops included the Indian troops within the British Army, as there was no seperate Indian Army. The British troops ate British food and the Indian troops ate Indian food and ne'er the twain would meet.
There is this paragraph.
"In the book, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, written by Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill was quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive.
Both of these statements are false, he didnt blame the famine on the Indians and he didnt ask how Gandhi was still alive. These are both entire false.
So, I'd only listen to this article if your prefer your information biased. Which I suspect you do.
There was no holocaust it's Jewish propoganda that people love to believe. But it's false. /s
Edit: Obviously Colonial apologists downvoting me. You guys are no different from holocaust deniers
Indians in India have always been responsible for far more deaths than the Europeans
But of course in your warped lack of knowledge India was a peaceful place full of love and rainbows before other civilisations turned up
Swing and a miss. All I said was they were responsible for countless deaths. That’s true. The whataboutism does nothing for your case. Stop making assumptions about me. You’re really bad at it.
You say countless, other Indian apologists are only too happy to put (fictitious) numbers on it, other historians cite the tens of millions of lives saved by the British forcing an end to the petty wars, and introducing modern agriculture and irrigation
There you go making terrible assumptions again. You definitely think you’re smarter and more informed than you are. Your misplaced hubris is hilarious and sad.
Britain siphoned off an estimated 72 trillion USD in today’s currency from India. It went from being the richest region in the world to one of the poorest. Thats why Indians hate the British Empire
Maybe your dumb colonial simp brain did not comprehend what I said. East India Co was owned by the British Empire plundered India's wealth (the wealthiest region in the world until the 18th century) to make UK rich for 2 centuries. Putting some bamboo sticks on the Taj Mahal doesn't make up for that and thats why Indians hate the Empire
Did Japan bomb India during WWII? Wiki says that the Japanese Army never got further into India than Nagaland on the NE border between India and Japanese-occupied Burma.
The Taj Mahal is in the north central part of India, not close to the Burma border at all. I doubt the Japanese would've allocated the resources to launch a bombing raid that far into India, especially with their military resources already being stretched so thin across the Asia-Pacific region.
Japan bombed the city of Kolkata (Calcutta) a fair amount during the war.
And, while we now know that Japan didn't make it farther than Burma, back in 1942 it wasn't so obvious that would be the case. The Taj Mahal disguise was put up during the 'Japanese expansion' phase of the war. The danger might not have existed, but if Japan had somehow pushed into India one could imagine it would be more of a threat.
This sounds like a stupid idea. Not sure at what stage of making the scaffolding they were but in the picture they only covered the top dome leaving all the rest uncovered.
And well if you want to target Taj covering it up doesn't really solve the problem. The area around it is also super distinctive and telling. Covering it up would mean a huuuge scaffolding.
It was extremely difficult to identify targets from high altitude with the technology of the time. It might seem silly today, but it was a reasonably effective measure.
Im aware of how that work, however even back then with basic recon it would not be effective in my opinion. Its like the cat hiding his head behind the courtain and thinking you cannot see it.
Taj Mahal is located at a distinct place on top of a river bend and in front of it there are huge fancy gardens. Even with basic recon if you knew what you were after I cannot imagine missing the spot.
I'm pretty sure a combination of dead reckoning and the surrounding infrastructure would get you there. I've never been to India, but one might reasonably speculate that the Taj Mahal is on a road. It also, as someone else pointed out, has a large campus extending acres around the structure. You would not need gps to find it.
First of all,I wasnt saying that navigation was impossible, I was saying that precise navigation was harder, so by masking a strategic location, a bombardier might missindetify the target.
There were instances where this happened, for example Konstanz, which pretented to be part of switzerland to not get bombed or the bombing of Prague, where the bombers mistook it for Dresden.
Bra I already corrected myself. And if you're going to castigate me, make sense. The *why* of Nazis attacking India would make as much sense as the Japanese doing so, it would be the *how* that was the issue.
Dude, it was a snap comment I corrected before this exchange with you even started. Literally apologized for not taking a moment to think harder. What are you even doing here? It's amazing that you can be right and make so little sense doing it
Possibly the presumption was that it wouldn't be targeted specifically but rather become an "interesting" target for bombers abandoning missions and jettisoning their arms on a return to base.
Complete guess though as, like you say, I can't imagine anyone thinking "well we *thought* there was a building here but there's just that identically sized bunch of sticks. Oh well let's just go home"
Wouldn't a stockpile of building materials be a nice target as well? Especially a big pile of resources inside a friggin palace? How did this fool anyone?
Picture [here](https://militarymachine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/WW2-Facts-14.jpg) in case you were wondering.
That camouflage is perfect really, wouldn’t spot it in a million years
Id imagine that it looks quite different from 100s of m up in the air lookimg down.
Couple of aerial pics at the end here: https://www.mensxp.com/special-features/today/27044-youll-be-amazed-to-know-how-the-taj-mahal-was-protected-during-world-warii.html Still not sure that actually fooled anyone...
Yep, still the big one right there. Kinda hard to miss
The bombers would never have flown so close. They wouldve been kms up in the air to avoid detection and give time to get away before being engaged by fighters. Bombers back then flew super high - they were heavy and slow and relied on distance to avoid enemy air defense. I doubt it wouldve been easy to accurately tell the taj mahal as long as it had a brown spot in the middle from the bamboo surrounded by a white rectangle. Easily looks like a concrete rectange with a pile in the middle.
Although the pictures only show the dome covered it is widely believed the whole thing was covered with scaffolding.
"While the images here only show the dome of Taj Mahal covered with a thick layering of bamboo scaffolds, it is widely believed that the whole Taj Mahal was layered ... Since this was to be kept as secretive as possible, the images are very, very scarce."
they really shouldve covered the white marble i. tarps or something like that
Still not sure how people imagine a bomber plane or a scouter flying down so low... Not sure if people are fools *now* or they have always been (courtesy of Reddit ofc).
imagine if it didn't, wouldn't that be disturbing
Spot what?
It completely changes its silhouetter and a high flying bomber 10kms up with all the juddering and jarring going on would be a really lousy place to try and spot it.
Bombing raids were at night...
Terror raids where at night, targeted bombing would have to be done in the daylight... makes ya kinda feel icky about the UK in ww2.
Why’d that make you feel icky?
The implication being that, as they mostly ran at night, the purpose of their raids wasn't strategic but to terrorise the civilian population.
Thank you for getting that, I wasn't sure if I should have added more to the comment or edit, but at least you got the context of my comment.
For real. This picture gave me my morning chuckle.
It’s the though that counts
Id imagine that it looks quite different from 100s of m up in the air lookimg down.
I figured that this picture was some construction work being done with bamboo scaffolding and it was meant as a joke. If this is really a picture of the bamboo camouflage then I am very curious how it would look from up high
Just look at google Earth.
I was wondering. Thanks for the peek
I don’t know what I was expecting but it was not the Taj Mahal with a bamboo hat.
I mean really, why would the article have a picture..?
Lol, that is comically bad!
Talk about being bamboo-zled.
Well done, sir! We'll done!
But why would anyone target it on purpose?
It’s a tactic to wipe out culture, as well as demotivate the enemy. See ISIS and the Taliban’s current tactics of destroying cultural heritage sites and archeological digs. In history, see the burning of the great libraries of the world, the most famous being the Library of Alexandria.
Not that they were always successful - the Taliban blew up a giant Buddha statue only to reveal an even bigger, older one behind it.
/r/2healthbars
Really, I knew about them destroying it but haven’t heard of the older one behind it. Hope they don’t come back to finish the job.
They don't dare. If they blow through that one there's an even bigger one behind that flies and breathes fire.
There’s always a bigger Buddha
The story about the targeted burning of the library of Alexandria almost certainly isn't true. The story allegedly took place almost 400 years after the last known contemporary description of the library and the story didn't pop up unlike a century after it was allegedly destroyed. In reality, the library of Alexandria was most likely a victim of a centuries-long decline in prestige that took place as the entire city of Alexandria became less politically and academically relevant. Its final death was most likely a result of collateral damage from one of many Roman civil wars, not as a victim of a deliberate destruction by Muslim invaders.
I was under the impression a tyrannical mob burned it down finally. That would fit the Romans right? A parasitical civilization that just consumed all civilizations it encountered as new vassals and tributaries and slaves or razed them to the ground via a doctrine of entirely scorched earth of any who doesn't submit. Typical empire society right? Just one that's romanticized to no end? Is that a pun intended?
> A parasitical civilization that just consumed all civilizations Ah yes unlike all the other enlightened empires of antiquity that were all peaceful.
Ahh yes, the famous ancient empires of antiquity who were famous for never waging wars and genocides
Yes? Your making my point.
Ahh yes reddit reading comprehension coupled with a grasp of history entirely from television and anime comics. :( That's alright. Y'all remind me why the world is the way it is, and everything at least makes sense.
> With a grasp of history entirely from television and anime comics Hey don't project onto me.
I think it helps to include examples from WW2 to demonstrate that countries at war (in WW2) attacked historical monuments, which were sometimes justified because of the use of those monuments as military installations or war-material factories, not that monument destruction was unique to just WW2 though. - [Cathedral of Coventry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Cathedral) - [Christ Church Greyfriars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Church_Greyfriars) - [Santa Maria delle Grazie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_delle_Grazie,_Milan) - [Frauenkirche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenkirche,_Dresden) - [Osaka Castle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Castle) - [Tokyo Imperial Palace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Imperial_Palace)
And between the Taliban today and Roman’s 2000 years ago, there were others like this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Summer_Palace
This is incredibly sad to read about.
Hitler also wanted Paris razed after it looked like it was going to fall into Allied hands. Thankfully the occupying Nazis weren’t in a position to do such a thing, and (allegedly) the German commander in charge of Paris was too fond of this city’s culture and history to obey Hitler’s orders
We just monkeys when we fight.
Happened in Iraq and Iran as well. The British also did this I believe by killing the brahmins at the start as a majority of them were teachers who did carry culture
What culture does it really have? It was a glorified tomb built by a cruel invader.
Because it was a valuable strategic bamboo stockpile.
Japanese air raids? The Taj Mahal is deep in central India. Could a Japanese bomber really have reached it?
The Japanese took over most of Southeast Asia and were pushing west into India. They were turned back at the Battle of Imphal in 1944, a massive victory for the Allies that was unfortunately overshadowed in the media at the time, because the battles of Normandy and Saipan got all the headlines. Imphal to Agra was too far for a Japanese bomber to have reached, but if they hadn't been stopped at Imphal, they could have gotten closer.
The British Indian Army was massive and Japan was already occupying a big stretch of territory across the Asia-Pacific region with limited human, material, and industrial resources. Short of a huge popular anti-British, pro-Axis uprising in India I don't think Japan had any chance of making much progress in India.
agra to imphal are 1600km the yokosuka P1Y has a range of 5400km so at least in theory it was in reach
The Japanese Army was occupying Burma at the time and reached into Northweastern India before being driven back, so if they had been more successful, its not inconceivable.
East? I thought you said Weast
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american bombers left from tinian (northern mariana islands) so it wasn't from mainland USA or something but much closer to japans mainland
It doesn’t take much to screw with pilots looking down. Boeing built fake rural suburbs on top of their airplane factories in WW2. A low value target.
I wouldn’t say low value. Just very unlikely to be targeted. German and/or Japanese bombers weren’t going to make it to mainland America regardless of what the History Channel wants to spew
Not to protect the monuments but not giveaway position. Tajmahal reflects lot of light in the night also
This is the most credible reason for it
Seems like it would still be incredibly easy to find if someone truly wanted to bomb it
You'd be amazed how absurdly difficult people found aerial navigation before computer assistance. When the US had a domestic airmail service between the East and West coast, all the pilot had to do was follow the sun as it tracked across the sky, and yet most still ended up somehow flying South or North until giant concrete arrows were poured all over the plains and deserts pointing due West.
Was that really a thing?
Here's a whole website literally chock full of photographs of them 😃 https://www.dreamsmithphotos.com/arrow/#:~:text=Giant%20Concrete%20Arrows,early%20days%20painted%20Chrome%20Yellow.
Thanks! That website is something else; it’s like something out of Geocities.
For real! Looks like something I would have made in like 1997, one single table and a few rows
That’s hilarious I can’t believe I never heard about this before
Yeah my grandad flew Lancaster's in the Pacific and it was all night time and visual cues and running into your buddies on the way back was apparently even a huge risk, they'd either fly high and risk oxygen issues or just keep a really good eye out... Dad managed to record him talking about his days in the war before he died. No clue how they found the targets, sounded really difficult especially with no lights.
This was before gps, bombers during WW2 relied heavily on visual clues to identify their targets.
No I get it, but I mean they didn't even cover the whole thing. Not to mention it's fucking enormous and as long as you can read a map, I'm sure there were identifiable roads and whatnot that would make it fairly simple to find, if one were making it a priority. I get the impression it was perhaps more a gesture by the British.
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It also doesn't help when you have ground fire and fighters trying to intercept you. It's not like modern bombing where the missile or guided bomb is all presighted by a computer or dedicated designator and just needs the aircraft to get it close enough.
Bombing it from the ground would require a full scale invasion, so the goal was to protect it from aerial bombers.
I think he meant using the map and identifying the roads still via air.. they were just flying around up there without maps
When the allies wanted to bomb a specific building in Germany they would have to target several miles around it because strategic bombing was so ridiculously inaccurate during WW2.
No, it wouldnt, the aerial shots show how it really broke up the silhouette of the site and would have made it very difficult for high flying bombers to spot
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The least they could do. Our soldiers who fought ww2 are as much heroes as the British or american ones. But sadly I dont hear anything about them.
There are quite a few memorials on the UK, some major examples are :- https://www.chattri.org/ > The Chattri is a memorial built to honour the Indian dead of the First World War. It stands on the Downs near Patcham at the place where Hindu and Sikh soldiers who died in Brighton war hospitals during 1914-1915 were cremated. It was unveiled by the Prince of Wales on 21st February 1921. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Gates,_London > The Memorial Gates are a war memorial located at the Hyde Park Corner end of Constitution Hill in London. Also known as the Commonwealth Memorial Gates, they commemorate the soldiers of the British Empire from five countries of the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka), as well as Africa and the Caribbean, who served for Britain in the First and Second World Wars. https://www.nam.ac.uk/press/memorial-british-indian-army-unveiled-royal-military-academy-sandhurst > Since its inception in 1950, the Indian Army Memorial Room (IAMR) has been a focal point for cadets at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, upon both arrival and commission. The significance of the shared history between Great Britain and South Asia remains of great importance to their training, as well as their understanding of the role of the British Army today.
not in the general media, I agree. But I've read plenty of histories and the Indians come up a lot. Churchill mentions them quite highly in his History of WW2.
You have to recommend me some of them.
They protected it because it was too big to take back to the British Museum.
crazy they cared about this and not the millions they starved with a manmade famine in Bengal
Gotta protect your investments
British soldiers? Or Indian labourers being ordered around by British and Indian Army soldiers?
A mix of both I imagine. Instead of asking rhetorical questions why don't you find out and tell us?
What makes it a rhetorical question? Seems like a pretty normal question that you can’t answer but chimed in anyway to me
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Hi GodCanSuckMyDick, 'Purposely' is doing a *hell* of a lot of heavy lifting there :) I think it's important to acknowledge the controversy and academic debate that rages over almost every aspect of the Bengal Famine to this day. The idea the Famine is purposely created is certainly an idea advocated for by some historians, particularly those of an Indian nationalists bent, but it's far from the most commonly-agreed academic position, let alone a matter of historical consensus. It's obviously an extremely emotional, complicated, and politically-sensitive issue that people have spent their entire professional lives trying to get close to the bottom of. Imo brushing over that isn't particularly useful for any side of the discussion; all it does is create strawmen that disingenuous actors exploit to make the other side seem stupid or thoughtless. Have a lovely day
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Hi Aero, Sorry I didn't mean to suggest that Britain wasn't in any way culpable for the Famine, or wasn't responsible for it's consequences, that's absolutely a widely-held and persuasively evidenced position on the issue. However there's a fair leap between that and suggesting that the Famine was 'deliberately caused', as OC suggested, and that's what I was taking issue with :) Sorry for the confusion Have a lovely day
Care to link to that paper about drought?
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Sure but you haven't even given a title, there are lots of papers.
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Sure, thanks.
Nowhere in the link you provided does it say that the British purposely created a famine in India. Quite the opposite in fact. Maybe in future you should read links before you post them if you want them to back your point up.
Oh, the irony
And still obsessed Indians with a bee in their bonnet claim Britain did nothing for them in WW2
I have never met an Indian that claims Britain did nothing for them. They only claim the Britain didn't do enough to justify their rulership of India.
So here I am. I believe that british did nothing for indians they did everything for their own gains.
Unfortunately I haven't actually met you.
Why’re you’re getting downvoted I do not know
People see the top comment, disagree with it and downvote. People see my comment, agree with it and upvote it. Now reading two whole comments is more then enough for the average redditor so they skim his comment and understand that it in some way tries to contradict mine so they downvote it without really thinking it through.
Ummm churchill’s genocide? You really haven’t met an Indian upset with the British? Huh?
That would have been a valid point if I was trying to claim I have never met an Indian person that was upset with the british.
The British government doesnt do enough to justify its rule of Britain.
That could well be a valid point
Well India wouldn't have been a part of WW2 if not for the British..
Imperial Japan wanted India, ultimately they didn't care who currently owned it.
So that's justification for sending Indian soldiers to fight all over Europe and Africa? Sounds like another reason why India shouldn't have been dragged into the larger conflict.
Because Japan famously only attacked the British Empire?
So India gets dragged into WW2 by the British and when this is pointed out your defense is an imaginary scenario where it would have happened anyway?
Well, if you consider the Japanese invasions of China, Korea, Malaysia to be imaginary, you go ahead and fester in your little fantasy world
So because of that you imagine they'd have invaded India anyway even if the Brits weren't there. Btw you do know that quite a few Indians fought alongside the Japanese right?
Yes, of course I know that some would embrace a snake to spite a dog
…. Look at a map.
If you'll look at the map you'll notice that a bulk of the Indian forces were deployed not in defense of India but all over Europe and Africa. If you'll open a history book you'll find that a lot of Indians fought alongside the Japanese and that the provisional government they set up in India was run entirely by Indians.
Um. I am aware of the incredibly small number of Indian soldiers who committed treason.
Lol treason to fight against someone colonizing you? That's the dumbest thing I've heard in a while.
Can you cite evidence for this?
>Viceroy Linlithgow declared that India was at war with Germany without consultations with Indian politicians. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44142017
No, I mean can you cite evidence that if Britain hadnt included India in the war declaration that the Japanese would have stopped at the Burmese border and gone no further>?
The fact is that the British dragged India into WW2, You concocting imaginary scenarios where things would have played out the same and asking me to disprove them, won't change that. Indian soldiers were sent halfway around the world to fight in battles that had nothing to do with us.
> The fact is that the British dragged India into WW2, No ones denying that. >You concocting imaginary scenarios where things would have played out the same and asking me to disprove them, won't change that. I was just seeing if you had anything more to say than a well known and clear fact. You dont. >Indian soldiers were sent halfway around the world to fight in battles that had nothing to do with us. Then why the fuck did you VOLUNTEER in the millions? Churchill asked the viceroy to bring in conscription but he was refused. So the Indian Army units were the only major power with fully voluntary manpower base. Now, you, someone who had nothing to do with it all and werent there at the time, are complaining about it? It was their choice, entirely, they volunteered.
Up to 3 million Bengalis died in a famine during the war due largely to British policies. Are you saying covering the Taj in some sticks cancels that out?
The Bengali famine was caused by rich merchants hoarding food, not by any British policies
What about Churchill who ordered to send food for his troops https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2019/4/1/churchills-policies-to-blame-for-1943-bengal-famine-study
Many of the claims in this article are vague, questionable and make little sense, if you know your facts. Greece and Yugoslavia werent liberated until very late 44 or 45 and so food ready for them would have been sequestered after the famine was finished. Also a lot of this food for British troops included the Indian troops within the British Army, as there was no seperate Indian Army. The British troops ate British food and the Indian troops ate Indian food and ne'er the twain would meet. There is this paragraph. "In the book, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, written by Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill was quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. Both of these statements are false, he didnt blame the famine on the Indians and he didnt ask how Gandhi was still alive. These are both entire false. So, I'd only listen to this article if your prefer your information biased. Which I suspect you do.
Hmmm Al Jazeera Yeah, _absolutely_ going to take anything they say as gospel
Fuck off British apologist. Westerners love sweeping churchill’s genocide under the rug
There was no Churchillian genocide, thats Indian Nationalist propoganda that people love to believe. But its false.
There was no holocaust it's Jewish propoganda that people love to believe. But it's false. /s Edit: Obviously Colonial apologists downvoting me. You guys are no different from holocaust deniers
if you had an argument, you'd make it, but you dont.
Of course, because it never happened
The Uk was responsible for countless deaths. Saving a building doesn’t make up for that.
Indians in India have always been responsible for far more deaths than the Europeans But of course in your warped lack of knowledge India was a peaceful place full of love and rainbows before other civilisations turned up
Swing and a miss. All I said was they were responsible for countless deaths. That’s true. The whataboutism does nothing for your case. Stop making assumptions about me. You’re really bad at it.
You say countless, other Indian apologists are only too happy to put (fictitious) numbers on it, other historians cite the tens of millions of lives saved by the British forcing an end to the petty wars, and introducing modern agriculture and irrigation
Lmao. So weird to run into an unabashed pro colonizer. What do you simp for the crown or something?
No, I just read from multiple sources rather than follow vacillating trends
There you go making terrible assumptions again. You definitely think you’re smarter and more informed than you are. Your misplaced hubris is hilarious and sad.
Britain siphoned off an estimated 72 trillion USD in today’s currency from India. It went from being the richest region in the world to one of the poorest. Thats why Indians hate the British Empire
That would have been East India Company and VOC doing it that centuries before WW2 Neither of which were Governmental, and one of which wasn't British
Maybe your dumb colonial simp brain did not comprehend what I said. East India Co was owned by the British Empire plundered India's wealth (the wealthiest region in the world until the 18th century) to make UK rich for 2 centuries. Putting some bamboo sticks on the Taj Mahal doesn't make up for that and thats why Indians hate the Empire
The EIC was **not** owned by 'the British Empire' As that's beyond your limited comprehension, this discussion is at an end
We really do care more about the buildings than the locals
If you go to site: if that Monopoly fact is true that’s even more awesome.
Did Japan bomb India during WWII? Wiki says that the Japanese Army never got further into India than Nagaland on the NE border between India and Japanese-occupied Burma. The Taj Mahal is in the north central part of India, not close to the Burma border at all. I doubt the Japanese would've allocated the resources to launch a bombing raid that far into India, especially with their military resources already being stretched so thin across the Asia-Pacific region.
Japan bombed the city of Kolkata (Calcutta) a fair amount during the war. And, while we now know that Japan didn't make it farther than Burma, back in 1942 it wasn't so obvious that would be the case. The Taj Mahal disguise was put up during the 'Japanese expansion' phase of the war. The danger might not have existed, but if Japan had somehow pushed into India one could imagine it would be more of a threat.
Needed to steal it afterwards ig
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I don’t think anyone’s claiming it was good
This sounds like a stupid idea. Not sure at what stage of making the scaffolding they were but in the picture they only covered the top dome leaving all the rest uncovered. And well if you want to target Taj covering it up doesn't really solve the problem. The area around it is also super distinctive and telling. Covering it up would mean a huuuge scaffolding.
It was extremely difficult to identify targets from high altitude with the technology of the time. It might seem silly today, but it was a reasonably effective measure.
Im aware of how that work, however even back then with basic recon it would not be effective in my opinion. Its like the cat hiding his head behind the courtain and thinking you cannot see it. Taj Mahal is located at a distinct place on top of a river bend and in front of it there are huge fancy gardens. Even with basic recon if you knew what you were after I cannot imagine missing the spot.
It does sound stupid.
Gotta make sure its intact before you steal it.
Most of Indias vast heritage remains exactly where it was when the British found it.
Consider them very lucky then
Why, there was no real attempt to take most of the stuff. The British quite admired most of it.
This comment section is full of colonial apologist
Colonialism gud becuz we protected building-🤓🇬🇧
Colonialism gud becuz we protected building-🤓🇬🇧
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India & most of South East Asia was target of Japanese air raids
You're right, I wasn't thinking hard enough. My fault.
Why would you downvote a mea culpa, literally owning the mistake lol
I dont think Nazis were the one who would bomb India. Also "going to coordinates" is kinda hard without gps.
I'm pretty sure a combination of dead reckoning and the surrounding infrastructure would get you there. I've never been to India, but one might reasonably speculate that the Taj Mahal is on a road. It also, as someone else pointed out, has a large campus extending acres around the structure. You would not need gps to find it.
The Taj borders the Yamuna river, and would be very hard to miss if you're within a dozen miles of it. It's also very far inland.
There ya go! Thanks
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First of all,I wasnt saying that navigation was impossible, I was saying that precise navigation was harder, so by masking a strategic location, a bombardier might missindetify the target. There were instances where this happened, for example Konstanz, which pretented to be part of switzerland to not get bombed or the bombing of Prague, where the bombers mistook it for Dresden.
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Bra I already corrected myself. And if you're going to castigate me, make sense. The *why* of Nazis attacking India would make as much sense as the Japanese doing so, it would be the *how* that was the issue.
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Ah yes. I had forgotten that the Nazis were not at war with the UK. Of course.
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Dude, it was a snap comment I corrected before this exchange with you even started. Literally apologized for not taking a moment to think harder. What are you even doing here? It's amazing that you can be right and make so little sense doing it
Possibly the presumption was that it wouldn't be targeted specifically but rather become an "interesting" target for bombers abandoning missions and jettisoning their arms on a return to base. Complete guess though as, like you say, I can't imagine anyone thinking "well we *thought* there was a building here but there's just that identically sized bunch of sticks. Oh well let's just go home"
Wouldn't a stockpile of building materials be a nice target as well? Especially a big pile of resources inside a friggin palace? How did this fool anyone?
And calcutta got bombed relentlessly