Our strength is fellowship. Our success is participation.

The high point of each monthly meeting is listening to a guest speaker.

All members are encouraged to suggest speakers that they believe their fellow members would enjoy.

SPEAKER FOR OUR NOVEMBER 21ST MEETING

CAROLYN PRELLWITZ, PRESIDENT, Cowichan Historical Society
The Naga Peoples and ‘The Forgotten Army’

Every November there are many newspaper articles and TV documentaries on the European battles of both World War I and World War II and the armies involved in those events.

Rarely is there media coverage on the events that happened in the Southeast Asia theatre of the Second World War fought between Commonwealth nations and Japan. Even at the time the events were occurring between 1941 and 1945, the Allied Burma Campaign was overlooked by both press and public interest, so much so that the multi-racial soldiers involved in that struggle and fighting under the British flag called themselves ‘The Forgotten Army’.

And yet, the Burma Campaign – the only Allied land operation in Southeast Asia – resulted in the greatest defeat of a Japanese field army to date.

Carolyn’s talk and slide show arose out of an off-the-beaten-track reconnaissance tour she took to the provinces of Assam and Nagaland, India in February 2017. The presentation will include some of her personal photos from that tour, information on the Naga peoples living in the area as well as two Cowichan Valley connections to 1942 and 1944 Nagaland events.