Walking around the Taiping War Memorial Cemetery was both a very enlightening and somber experience. So many young men – from late teens to early 20’s - died on the battlefield during World War 2 fighting for the Allied forces in the British Colony known as Malaya (present day Malaysia) against the invading Japanese Forces .

On one side of the cemetery, most of the grave sites are for Christian soldiers who died in battle (mostly British and Australian). On the opposite side of the cemetery, most of the grave sites are for the Muslim, Gurkha and Hindi casualties of war. Most of these soldiers came from India and Nepal - at that time, British colonies - deployed by the British to fight against the Japanese.

Looking at the various headstones, I discovered that the British used various Indian regiments in the war effort – including the many Punjab regiments, the Indian Army medical corps and the 13th Frontier Force Rifles. The designs on the headstones for the different regiments were very exotic, especially the ship with a serpent head used for the headstones of the 2nd Punjab regiment.

I can imagine that there are a number of Malaysians today of Indian extraction who can trace their roots to these heroic soldiers who died on the battlefield in World War 2.

Sometime after the war, the British pulled out of Malaya and the independent nations of Malaysia and Singapore were eventually formed.