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I`m not enough of a specialist on this topic to know the answer, but I DO know that the Guardian would print literally anything as long as it shows anything about British history to be awful and bad.This article made me think of how Britain could have helped its Indian subjects in the Bengal famine of 1943.
John Pennycuick: The British-era colonel revered in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu state remembers John Pennycuick for the dam he built and is giving the UK a bust in his honour.www.bbc.com
Apparently Australia and Canada were offering to send their wheat surpluses to help, but Britain refused.
Churchill's policies contributed to 1943 Bengal famine – study
Study is first time weather data has been used argue wartime policies exacerbated faminewww.theguardian.com
From what I understand by 1943 the Australians were offering to send food to Bengal. General Wavell was desperately asking Churchill to release food shipments to India, but Churchill instead demanded that Australian and Canadian wheat be shipped to bolster already plentiful stores in Britain. By 1943-44 when the Bengal famine was at its worst, both Germany and Japan were clearly on the ropes offensively, Italy had surrendered. Where was the downside in diverting food aid to India?It seems that, in order to prevent the famine, Britain would have to foresee the loss of Malaya, Singapore, and Burma, and then divert shipping and food from other locations via some mechanism that remains TBD.
From what I understand by 1943 the Australians were offering to send food to Bengal. General Wavell was desperately asking Churchill to release food shipments to India, but Churchill instead demanded that Australian and Canadian wheat be shipped to bolster already plentiful stores in Britain. By 1943-44 when the Bengal famine was at its worst, both Germany and Japan were clearly on the ropes offensively, Italy had surrendered. Where was the downside in diverting food aid to India?
Had Britain saved millions in India the independence movement might have been slowed. Perhaps not, but scorching India's fields and then allowing millions to die can't have helped enamor Britain's subjects in India to the Crown.
It's a fair point, and a perhaps fairer, albeit Churchillian-friendly perspective is found at:Well, it's easy to make a hard divide of 1943-44 but, in reality, the situation was a spiralling crisis that started in mid-1942.
Excellent points. So, your position is that nothing more could have been done?...the British war cabinet and Churchill did all they could to fix the problem as quickly as possible.
Your theory on logistics is interesting.The Bengal famine could have been prevented if all the shipping used to supply the Soviet Union through Murmansk and Iran had been diverted to carry grain to India. The Pacific route to Siberia would have been sufficient to prevent the the Soviet Union from collapsing before Stalin could cut a deal with Hitler for a separate peace. Not only would millions of lives have been saved in India but WWII would have ended sooner. Nazi domination of Europe may have been a bit unpleasant but saving lives in India should have been the top priority.
The routing of Lend Lease supplies to the USSR via the Pacific is little discussed and the ALSIB air route was only part of the equation. Here is a map showing the amounts of Lend Lease provided to the USSR by the various routes. Note almost 50% was shipped via the Pacific.Your theory on logistics is interesting.
First of all, Hitler was bent on crushing the Soviet Union and eliminating the Slavic race (untermensch).
Secondly, the Pacific route was by air only - and only to the Soviet Union. The Japanese was a force to be reconed with the closer to Asia and the Indian Ocean one ventured.
This is one of the reasons releif wasn't an option from Australia - the Indian Ocean had Italian, German and Japanese naval elements patrolling, it was a dangerous place for shipping.