Gravesend: Squadron Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji
One of the reasons I'm proud to live in Gravesend...
Squadron Leader Pujji qualified as a pilot in India in 1937 and volunteered for service with the RAF, following its appeal for Indian pilots in 1940. He flew mainly Hawker Hurricanes, in Europe, North Africa and Burma.
His career, in detail, is extraordinary. He was one of over 2 million Indians who fought with the Allies in WW2.
He retired to Gravesend in 1998 after a long and varied working life and died in 2010, aged 92. I met him, once, very briefly: he was a quiet spoken and beautifully mannered man. He didn't tell me who he was, another person, also a Sikh, told me afterward.
He is shown wearing the dastar, which he wore even while flying.
The statue is by Douglas Jennings. I believe its cost was raised, in remarkably short time, by the Sikh community in Gravesend.
[DSC_2718a]
Gravesend: Squadron Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji
One of the reasons I'm proud to live in Gravesend...
Squadron Leader Pujji qualified as a pilot in India in 1937 and volunteered for service with the RAF, following its appeal for Indian pilots in 1940. He flew mainly Hawker Hurricanes, in Europe, North Africa and Burma.
His career, in detail, is extraordinary. He was one of over 2 million Indians who fought with the Allies in WW2.
He retired to Gravesend in 1998 after a long and varied working life and died in 2010, aged 92. I met him, once, very briefly: he was a quiet spoken and beautifully mannered man. He didn't tell me who he was, another person, also a Sikh, told me afterward.
He is shown wearing the dastar, which he wore even while flying.
The statue is by Douglas Jennings. I believe its cost was raised, in remarkably short time, by the Sikh community in Gravesend.
[DSC_2718a]