Hindustan Field Force

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The Hindustan Field Force was the first operational regiment of the Indian National Army that was formed in September 1942 under the first INA. Under the command of J.K. Bhonsle, the unit was formed at Singapore and comprised three battalions derived from troops of the 17th Dogra Regiment, Garhwal Rifles and the 14th Punjab Regiment (now part of the Pakistan Army) and had a strength of nearly 2000 troops.

The Indian National Army was an armed force formed by Indian nationalist Rash Behari Bose in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. Its aim was to secure Indian independence from British rule. It formed an alliance with the Empire of Japan in the latter's campaign in the Southeast Asian theatre of WWII. The army was first formed in 1942 under Rash Behari Bose, Mohan Singh, by Indian PoWs of the British-Indian Army captured by Japan in the Malayan campaign and at Singapore. This first INA collapsed and was disbanded in December that year after differences between the INA leadership and the Japanese military over its role in Japan's war in Asia. Rash Behari Bose handed over INA to Subhas Chandra Bose It was revived under the leadership of Subhash Chandra Bose after his arrival in Southeast Asia in 1943. The army was declared to be the army of Bose's Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind. Under Bose's leadership, the INA drew ex-prisoners and thousands of civilian volunteers from the Indian expatriate population in Malaya and Burma. This second INA fought along with the Imperial Japanese Army against the British and Commonwealth forces in the campaigns in Burma, in Imphal and at Kohima, and later against the successful Burma Campaign of the Allies.

Singapore Republic in Southeast Asia

Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, with Indonesia's Riau Islands to the south and Peninsular Malaysia to the north. Singapore's territory consists of one main island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its total size by 23%. The country is known for its transition from a developing to a developed one in a single generation under the leadership of its founder Lee Kuan Yew.

The 17th Dogra Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army. It was formed in 1922, after the Indian government decided to reform the army moving away from single battalion regiments to multi battalion regiments. After the partition of India in 1947, it was allocated to the new Indian Army and renamed the Dogra Regiment.

The unit was dissolved after the collapse of the first INA. After the revival under Subhas Chandra Bose, the troops of the Hindustan Field Force formed the nucleus of the INA's 2nd division as the 1st Infantry regiment and ceded men to the 5th Guerilla regiment to form the 2nd Infantry regiment which later fought in the Battle of Irrawaddy and Battle of Meiktila under Prem Kumar Sahgal.

Subhas Chandra Bose Indian nationalist leader and politician

Subhas Chandra Bose was an Indian nationalist whose defiant patriotism made him a hero in India, but whose attempt during World War II to rid India of British rule with the help of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan left a troubled legacy. The honorific Netaji, first applied in early 1942 to Bose in Germany by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin, was later used throughout India.

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