15th (Ludhiana) Regiment of Sikh Infantry

15th Ludhiana Sikhs

Known as 15th Ludhiana Sikhs or 15th Loodiana Sikhs or 15th Sikhs

Chronology

• 1846 formed as Regiment of Ludhiana
• 1861 became 15th Bengal Native Infantry
• 1864 became 15th (Ludhiana) Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
• 1885 became 15th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry (Ludhiana Sikhs)
• 1901 became 15th (Ludhiana) Sikh Infantry
• 1903 became 15th Ludhiana Sikhs
• 1922 became 2nd Bn/11th Sikh Regiment
• 1947 allocated to India on Partition

War Diaries, First World War

• A transcribed war diary (of an original handwritten diary, where the handwriting has been deciphered for you!) is available for 15th Ludhiana Sikhs 1914-15 on the Western Front. See Western Front - War Diaries for more details.

External Links

• 15th Ludhiana Sikhs British Empire website
  
• 15th Ludhiana Sikhs Wikipedia
• 1st Battalion King George V’s Own, Ferozepore Sikhs, and Loodiana Sikhs, 11th Sikh Regiment sikhsinthearmy.co.uk
• Watercolour by Charles James Lyall: 1900. 15th Loodiana Sikhs. Bengal. Bugler Brown Digital Repository, Brown University Library
• A Guide To WW1 Indian War Diaries: Researching Indian Soldiers Using War Diaries. Scroll down to excerpts from the war diary of the 15th Sikhs between August and October 1914 (WO95/3929/5), from mobilization in India for overseas deployment, to the trenches on the Western Front. empirefaithwar.com
• Manta Singh and the Battle of Neuve Chapell, France, March 1915. Regiment: 15th Ludhiana Sikhs. cwgc.org, now an archived webpage.
  • "An Indian Soldier in the Great War" Subedar Manta Singh. Text from Ian Hislop’s Not Forgotten documentaries about the WW1, shown c 2009 on Channel 4.
• The 15th Ludhiana Sikhs and the Senussi. The Egyptian Western Desert, November 1915 to February 1916 from Harry Fecitt’s Harry’s Africa kaiserscross.com
• Audio: 1980 Interview Lt Col R. Banks, with transcript Indian Army life and career 1914-c 1937 Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge. He transferred to the Indian Army in 1917, initially he was with the 15th Sikhs, then joined the Judge Advocate General’s Department, part of the Indian Army dealing with court martial work, military law and any uprisings, and subsequently officiated as Judge Advocate General in India, until he was medically retired in 1937 (rabies related).

Historical books online

• The Sikhs of the Punjab by R E Parry late Indian Army Reserve of Officers; sometime Acting Captain and Adjutant 2/15th Ludhiana Sikhs. Sometime attached 35th Sikhs. [1921] Archive.org. Includes Chapter VI Recruiting Methods page 104.
• Handbook for the Indian Army: Sikhs by A E Barstow 2/11th Sikh Regiment (late 15th Ludhiana Sikhs) 1928. 1940 reprint of the 1928 edition is available to read online on the Panjab Digital Library.
• A romantic novel: The nurse's story : in which reality meets romance by Adele Bleneau 1915 Archive.org. The hero of this romantic novel set on the Western Front during the First World War is a Captain in the Ludhiana Sikhs (page 97). There are suggestions that when it was published the book was considered to be fictionalized memoirs, perhaps not written under the author’s actual name. A film based on the book was made in 1919. It is from the collection of the US National Library of Medicine, so perhaps is considered to have a realistic nursing background. For a review of this novel scroll if necessary to page 7, 5th column of the Pittsburgh Press (newspaper) dated August 7, 1917.