Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
The Kohima Educational Trust is delighted to present this webinar on Thursday 21st May with Dr Robert Lyman MBE and guest speaker K. S. Nair, historian and author of The Forgotten Few - The Indian Air Force's Contribution in the Second World War.
The Indian armed forces were, at over 2.6 million personnel, the largest all-volunteer force in the Second World War. The Indian Air Force (IAF) was a relatively tiny part of this contribution, but they grew from around 300 personnel to 30,000 during the war. That was still a small force, by Allied standards, but it had symbolic importance beyond its numbers, and had little-known connections to many key battles.
The talk will run through the history of this growth, and the IAF’s accomplishments using second-line aircraft. It will tell a few representative stories of the small number of men (and an even tinier number of women) and the challenges and constraints they had to overcome, including from their own side, before establishing this force and getting to grips with the enemy. It will acknowledge the help of the British, as the colonial power, and their occasional obstruction. It will touch on the presence of Indian aircrew in the skies over England and France in the early 1940s, and in the Middle East and North Africa. It will then return to India to follow their role in the war against Japan, and at the critical turning-points of Imphal and Kohima, and the broader North East of India. It will recall their service in Burma, South-East Asia and in Japan itself for up to two years following Allied victory.
It will highlight some little-known aspects of the IAF’s story in that period, such as India’s role in protecting China; in taking on the Japanese First Air Fleet between its victory at Pearl Harbour and defeat at Midway; the sheer diversity of the people who made up the IAF; and their roles in post-1945 operations.
We will conclude with an overview of the influence of that experience on what is now the world's fourth largest air force.
The Kohima Educational Trust is delighted to present this webinar on Thursday 21st May with Dr Robert Lyman MBE and guest speaker K. S. Nair, historian and author of The Forgotten Few - The Indian Air Force's Contribution in the Second World War.
The Indian armed forces were, at over 2.6 million personnel, the largest all-volunteer force in the Second World War. The Indian Air Force (IAF) was a relatively tiny part of this contribution, but they grew from around 300 personnel to 30,000 during the war. That was still a small force, by Allied standards, but it had symbolic importance beyond its numbers, and had little-known connections to many key battles.
The talk will run through the history of this growth, and the IAF’s accomplishments using second-line aircraft. It will tell a few representative stories of the small number of men (and an even tinier number of women) and the challenges and constraints they had to overcome, including from their own side, before establishing this force and getting to grips with the enemy. It will acknowledge the help of the British, as the colonial power, and their occasional obstruction. It will touch on the presence of Indian aircrew in the skies over England and France in the early 1940s, and in the Middle East and North Africa. It will then return to India to follow their role in the war against Japan, and at the critical turning-points of Imphal and Kohima, and the broader North East of India. It will recall their service in Burma, South-East Asia and in Japan itself for up to two years following Allied victory.
It will highlight some little-known aspects of the IAF’s story in that period, such as India’s role in protecting China; in taking on the Japanese First Air Fleet between its victory at Pearl Harbour and defeat at Midway; the sheer diversity of the people who made up the IAF; and their roles in post-1945 operations.
We will conclude with an overview of the influence of that experience on what is now the world's fourth largest air force.
