25 DECEMBER

11 MALAYAN COMMUNISTS SHOT DEAD “WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE” 7 November 1948 –  During a counter insurgency “sweep” of the “communist infested” Muar Lenga district of Johor in southern Malaya, British troops shot dead eleven insurgents. They claimed they had been trying to escape.  Another nine men were shot dead, allegedly for the same reason,…

[ 10 February 1846 ] On 10 February 1846, British troops slaughtered thousands of Sikhs attempting to flee the Battle of Sobraon in the Punjab. After a fierce two hour engagement, Redcoat infantry and cavalry, under the command of Major-General Sir Hugh Gough, concentrated their attack on the surviving soldiers, who were hemmed into a…

MAN DIES OF HEART ATTACK AFTER BRITISH SOLDIERS SUBJECT HIM TO A MOCK EXECUTION. [ 11 August 1971 ] On this day in 1971, three civilians in West Belfast were killed by soldiers of the first battalion of the British Parachute Regiment, during a round up of men under emergency powers of detainment which were…

CHANCELLOR ECSTATIC AS ‘INDIA’S HORDES’ FORCED TO SELL GOLD [ 20 February 1932 ] Today in 1932, Neville Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a letter to his sister, happily acknowledged that ‘the astonishing gold mine we have discovered in India’s hordes has put us in clover.’ Please feel welcome to post comments below. …

BRITISH BLOW UP THE GREAT BAZAR OF KABUL – “AN INEXCUSABLE ACT OF VANDALISM” [ 10 October 1842 ] On this day in 1842 British troops under the command of Major-General Sir George Pollock, following the instructions of India’s Governor General, Lord Ellenborough, to leave “some lasting mark of the just retribution of an outraged…

THE FIRST RAF FIRE BOMBING RAID ON HAMBURG KILLS THOUSANDS [ 25 July 1943 ] At about 00.57 on 25 July 1943,  RAF bombers unleashed hundreds of bright red and yellow marker bombs, followed by thousands of incendiary bombs, on the densely populated German city of Hamburg. It was the first of four RAF fire…