WW2 – Calcutta Should Be Evacuated, 1942 Photo
This is an old 1942 photograph of an intelligence warning in WW2 that Calcutta should be evacuated. At the height of WW2 intelligence reports stated that Calcutta, now Kolkata was under threat of imminent Japanese attack. Likewise, Bombay, Madras, and few other Cities were on the radar of enemy attacks either German or Japanese.
Although Hitler’s Germany and Hirohito’s Japan were allegedly sympathetic towards Indian people. Especially because of Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose’s free India movement. But it was the British and its Allied powers they were primarily opposed to in World War 2. Since India was under British rule, and England was one of the allies that included the United States, France, Soviet Union, and so on.
The axis powers that included Germany, Italy, Japan, etc, were determined to attack British interests in India. That included cities one of them being Calcutta. Which many Indians may not be aware now that in WW2 there was tremendous fear and panic amongst the public of an imminent Japanese attack over the city. Conclusively bombs were indeed dropped in certain parts of the city but fortunately, that did not do much damage. Although this incidence seems to have been totally forgotten in the country now. The photograph shows “Dalhousie Square” of 1942, now called “B.B.D Bagh”. Click on the photo for better view
Read more Battleground Calcutta. See my posts Calcutta Night Scene WW2 – Old Photo 1942., and Nazi Germany’s Map of Bombay With Eagle & Swastika 1940s.
Did you know- one of the bombs dropped by the Japanese is on display at the Police Museum, where the recently declassified Netaji files have been housed.
From the collection- Vintage Raja Ravi Varma “Laxmi” Oleograph., Vintage Postcard Madras From The Lighthouse., The British Fort In Bombay – Antique Plan 1755.
