Customer Image Gallery for The Fox in the Field: A Wwii Novel of India


"The Fox in the Field" is a WW II novel by retired USAF officer Maynard Allington. It deals with a German and Jap plot to use Indian nationalists to help the Japs conquer India during the very real 1944 attempt to do so.

In the book, four very different people encounter one another in attempts to advance the plot or halt it.

The scheme is called, "China Blue", and reluctant British agent Derek Carr must stop the invasion and sabotage, although he has fallen in love with an Anglo-Indian woman of great beauty, who is hiding the German agent.

This is well researched and wonderfully written. You can buy it for almost nothing on Amazon.com, although I paid a dollar for my copy at a used book store. It will probably prove to be the best book buy I'll ever make.

If you like British Colonial India books and WW II stories, you'll love this! Even the gun data is correct.

Another obscure but good WWII spy novel is "War of the Raven" dealing with Nazi infiltration and intrigue in Latin America during WWii and the Graf Spee episode.

Subhas Chandra Bose was transported via Uboat from exhile in Germany to Japanese controlled territory. He raised an erstwhile army of liberation from Indian PWs in Japanese custody, though some of them promptly fled to British lines at the first opportunity.

Today he's fairly well regarded in India and his army of liberation is generally thought of as somewhat misguided in its reliance on the Japanese, but not such a bad idea otherwise.

FWIW the Germans officially considered most Indians, Iraqis and Persians (aka Iranians) to be Aryans and thus equal in status to Germans (more or less). The Japanese meanwhile paid at least lip service to the idea of an Asian people's sphere of influence, though one led by Japan. Many in India - given their experience under British colonial rule - thought that either power might just be a better deal in the end than what they had.

To this day the Hitler government remains well regarded in some parts of the world - Taiwan, China, parts of the Middle East, Africa and of course among the right wing in Japan. The Japanese wartime, eh, not so much. The primary reason seems to be that the Germans were at war with the British and French who were none too well liked by local nationalists. It seems that to a certain extent the Germans were also promising autonomy - of a sort - to local nationalists. This was the case in Croatia, in Wallonia, and seems to have been the offer made to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. (Who it seems, oddly, was Yasser Arafat's uncle.)

The Grand Mufti spent much of the war in Berlin trying to get the world's Muslim's involved in a war against Britain.

Gator...not trying to call you out, just very interested in this subject. I knew of the Grand Mufti's dealings with the Nazis...thanks to History Channel, but was unaware of the Aryan connection. For what it is worth my undergrad is in History and while I am concentrating on the Civil War for my grad work...yeah I know another Civil War history teacher...I found the Nazi/Muslim connection to be interesting...could you point me in the right direction for some books on the subject? Thanks in advance.

Gator-

Thanks!

I didn't know some of that stuff, especially about Arafat's relative. And I was very surprised that the Nazis would consider Indians and the like to be almost on par with them, racially.

I'm pretty sure that Japan would have been more of a colonial power in India, had they won, just replacing British rule with a harsher one.

Fortunately, their 1944 attack to seize India failed, and Sir William Slim's 14th Army eventually drove them from Burma, too. John Masters, D.S.O., O.B.E. described that campaign well in, "The Road Past Mandalay". He was a senior Ghurkha officer during the effort, retiring from the Indian Army to become a noted author.

"FWIW the Germans officially considered most Indians, Iraqis and Persians (aka Iranians) to be Aryans and thus equal in status to Germans (more or less)."

Well who else would answer the Gestapo customer service lines?

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Fidelis Ad Mortem

The Waffen SS formation (nominally a division) Handschar was probably the most well known Muslim unit of the German forces. They served in the Balkans, every member got a Koran with a Swastika on it and also a fez - of all things - to wear. DML/Drago did a 1/6th scale figure of an example trooper as part of their line of historical miniatures.

I know that a couple of books on foreign volunteers in the Waffen SS exist, though I'm not sure to what degree they go into detail about the more obscure formations.

A unit of Indian soldiers was also formed for service in Europe, though apparently it had Sikhs and Hindus as well as Muslims.

The Germans sent teams to Tibet and the Middle East before the war to measure skulls, take pictures and other wise poke about looking for interesting information to confirm certain theories that they had regarding the ancient Aryans.

India's caste system meant that higher caste Indians were considered more or less racially pure, though there were likely issues with the untrouchables and lower classes.

Subhas Chandra Bose actually married his Austrian secretary and had a daughter by her while he was in Berlin (at the time, you had to show Aryan heritage to officially marry). Last I read a reference to it, she was still alive (born in 42) and was a professor in Augsburg. Her mother died in the 1990s (96?).

The Arafat/mufti connection is a bit controversial as it seems that while Arafat himself made the claim, that the two men might not have been blood relatives but rather that Arafat was sort of an adopted nephew and something got lost in the translation.

Going as far back as Frederick the Great, the more or less official German policy was "peace and friendship with Islam". The Ottoman Empire was officially allied with Germany in WW1 and the Kaiser was so well thought of that some Turks apparently believed that he was a convert.

A relative of Saddams - I forget the details - was involved in the pro-Axis coup in Iraq during the war. The British weren't very popular in that part of the world.

The Turks were neutral in WW2, but generally had good relations with Germany at the time.

After the war some German advisors were to found in the armies of Syria and other Arab states. Nasser in Egypt was another former rebel made good who seemed to have a good opinion of the Germans. (Former Corporal Idi Amin, who became despot of Uganda, was another admirer of Nazi policies, though he curiously hated Indians and called them the "Jews of East Africa".)

Indian Volunteers in the German Wehrmacht in WWII is a good page with some basic information on one formation of Indian volunteers. It lists a number of references that are worth a look as a starting point.

Gator: thanks! pretty interesting info...one has to wonder how much of this was known by Rossevelt????

That was his uncle who raised him, Khayrallah Tulfah who was a member of the pro-Nazi coup in 41'. Thanks again Gator, great info!

Just finished "Operation Mincemeat". Interestingly enough, it was the Brit's subterfuge against the Nazi's to convince them that the Allies would not spearhead their invasion of the Continent in Sicily. It worked.

Ian Flemming, Bond author, was a member of the intelligence group that pulled this (Allied) life saving feat off. He developed the character "Q" from a colleague within this service as well and used him in Bond novels.

A good read.

Very little probably. FDR wasn't good with geography. At one point he didn't know that Australia was an independent country and not still a territory of Great Britain. (When the topic of the Australian P.M. keeping troops from N. Africa to defend the homeland came up, it caused some confusion on FDR's part.)

FDR's foreign policy against colonialism was also partially the foundation for the OSS arming and training the precursor to the Viet Minh - which later spawned the Viet Cong - and the nationalist movement in Vietnam. In the very, very early days of fighting against some French at the end of the war, some groups were apparently led in action by their American OSS advisors. Meanwhile the Brits - who arrived first in the South to accept the surrender of the Japanese - promptly used armed Japanese troops to fight the pro independence nationalists.

These obscure conflicts - as well as stuff like the brief war between Vichy Indochina and Siam - often turn up as articles in a couple publications. Most reliable for off beat WW2 stuff is "Military Illustrated" from the UK. Some Barnes and Nobles will have it with the military mags, though it is expensive here in the U.S. Also look for "World at War" a WW2 themed spin off of Strategy and Tactics magazine which devotes some space to the oddball stuff in each issue. For add'l cost you can order the version that comes with a wargame every issue. Strategy and Tactics is also good in this regard at times.

Also look for - for the policy and decisions of the war years - Military History Quarterly aka MHQ. Though it does tend to be written along a level that assumes the reader has an MA in military history or political science at times.

There's an interesting controversy about Churchill and India and famine in WW II.

The Bengali Famine

Gator...can't thank you enough!!!! I periodically read some of those in my never ending search for resource material...but again I have blinders on searching for Civil War related stuff, if you are ever around Fairfax hit me up and I'll buy a cup of coffee. Thanks again.

V/r
Dave