Comrades in arms... why it wasn’t just white men who went to war for Britain

Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry is used to his name being associated with firsts.

He is the first person awarded the Victoria Cross since 1982 and the first non-posthumous member of the British armed forces to receive the award since the 1960s.

As a black British soldier, he is, however, anything but the first. He is one in a long line and a proud tradition of soldiers serving in the British Army who come from an ethnic minority background.

Lance Corporal Beharry, one of the most high profile soldiers in the UK, is the perfect role model for those who may initially consider a career in the Army far down their list of desirable jobs.

“I am a soldier first and foremost. I didn’t grow up thinking about joining the military, I am not from a military background – my family are working class, they work on a farm,” says Lance Corporal Beharry, who grew up in Grenada before moving to the UK as a teenager in 1999.

“I don’t think of myself as a black soldier or an ethnic minority soldier, I’m just a soldier. But if people find out about this long history of people from around the world fighting for the British Army and laying down their lives and I can help be a part of that, then it is a positive thing.”

The contribution he made to the Army is well documented.

In 2004, he was serving in Iraq when his armoured vehicle came under attack. Under fire, he drove the vehicle and his injured comrades to safety. The only way he was able to see where he was driving was by putting his head out of the vehicle’s turret while still under enemy fire.

As he did so, he was hit by a bullet which lodged in his helmet – but he carried on driving regardless and in so doing saved the lives of his fellow soldiers.

Later the same year while still on active service, another vehicle he was driving came under attack. A grenade was thrown at the vehicle, causing him a serious head injury. Yet despite this, he continued driving and both he and his colleagues were safely evacuated.

They are both extraordinary stories and the Victoria Cross he was awarded was hard earned – but the lance corporal’s tale of heroism is not the only such story involving ethnic minority soldiers in the Army. Last weekend saw the launch of a new exhibition, We Were There, which records these stories of heroism and bravery.

Organised by the Ministry of Defence, the exhibition has been organised by curator Sam Harrison and once it leaves Leeds’s Royal Armouries, where it is on show until Monday, it will travel to Bradford, Sheffield and Middlesbrough, taking with it a little told story of the British military.

At the launch of the exhibition, three Army veterans gathered to share their own stories.

Mr Piara Singh Nijjar, 85, of Leeds, Khan Mohammad Choudhray, 86, and Gulam Butt, 93, both of Bradford, were all born in the South East Asian subcontinent, where they first signed up to join the British Army.

Having seen action several times during the Second World War, all wore the Burma Star medals they were awarded. Mr Nijjar, recruited into the Army from the Punjab when he was 14-years-old says: “The young people should remember what we have done. This exhibition is good to remind people.”

Mr Butt, who settled in England after the Second World War, fought with the King’s Africa Rifles and was “tailor master for the battalion”.

He says: “I joined when the British Army was asking for volunteers. I was happy to volunteer.”

Mr Choudhray, who worked in a number of different jobs in England following his active service fighting on the Burma Front for the British Army, adds: “We were all the same when we were fighting in the Army together.”

The idea behind the exhibition was, according to its curator Sam Harrison, to educate and explain that the First and Second World Wards were not just fought by “a bunch of white men from England”.

“The contribution made from countries across the Commonwealth in terms of servicemen who fought is absolutely huge,” he says. “But this isn’t just about the soldiers, it’s also about how people came from the Commonwealth to work in England and help with the war effort, in factories to soup kitchens.”

The reason behind the need for an exhibition is because of an issue that the Army personnel involved in the exhibition don’t shy away from – the perception that the Armed Forces are not a welcoming environment to people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Dave Sado, community liaison officer for the North, says with just three per cent of the British Force’s personnel from ethnic minorities, it is important to work with communities to challenge perceptions and tell them that there is a place in the Army for them.

“It’s an image we want to get out there, to tell people that the British military has a long history with people from all backgrounds,” he says.

Mr Harrison, who brought together the exhibition from thousands of potential tales, says it’s not just about recruitment.

“One of the main reasons we wanted to have this exhibition was simply to tell stories that exist in our military history,” he says. “But it is also a chance for people of ethnic minority backgrounds to learn about and understand the stories that are part of their heritage.”

The Armed Forces is aware of the perception many people have of it and recognise that its image, particularly among the Asian community of Britain, has not been helped by recent invasion of Muslim countries Afghanistan and Iraq.

Launching the exhibition, military historian Jahan Mahmood said these recent invasions have skewed the perception held by young British Muslims.

Dr Mahmood says that despite a long and proud history of soldiers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – and in particular Muslim soldiers – young Muslim men are unaware of the contribution their fathers and forefathers have made to the armed forces.

“They tell me ‘the Army is nothing to do with me, I’m the wrong race, religion, I’m not British’. What the young men who say this don’t realise is that there is a narrative that stretches a long way back connecting them to their nation,” says Dr Mahmood.

“I was talking to one young person who I mentor, a young Muslim teenager, who said this to me. I told him about some of the wars his forefathers had been in, explained what happened in Burma and in the Second World War. He went home, told his father, who sent him to see his grandfather – who went out of the room and came back in with his Burma Star.

“That young man didn’t know about his own history, his own heritage, the sort of young man vulnerable to ideas from groups like al-Qaida. Having realised the part the British armed forces plays in his personal history he is absolutely proud to be a part of British society.”

It is, the military is saying with its exhibition, a history we all share and of which all Briton’s can be proud.

We Were There, Royal Armouries, Leeds, to January 23. Kala Sangam, Bradford, January 24 to 27; Cutlers Hall, Sheffield, January 30 to February 3.

Bravery that earned a VC

Naik Gian Singh, Victoria Cross, (1915-1996): Born in the Punjab, he launched a single-handed attack against the Japanese in Burma in 1945.

Sergeant William Gordon, Victoria Cross: Enlisted in the West India Regiment in 1885. Won the VC when he threw himself into the line of fire to protect an officer.

Khudad Khan, joined the Army as a private. He was the first Pakistani-born soldier to receive the VC for bravery in preventing the German army reaching vital ports.