A soldier of skill and talent (1894-1985)
AHardit Singh was born on 23 November 1894 in a prosperous Sikh family in Rawalpindi. He studied at home only till the age of 14 years and was then sent to East Bourne Public School in UK. He joined Balliol College, Oxford, and graduated with honours in 1915. He was a keen sportsman and got blues in golf and cricket. Most of the students in the college had joined the armed forces and Hardit Singh also applied for a commission in the British Army.
He was rejected on the grounds that the British soldiers would not like to be subordinate to an Indian officer. One of the tutors at Oxford suggested that France needed ambulance drivers and he took a crash course in driving. He went to France and served as an ambulance driver before being accepted in the French Air Force. His old tutor was enraged that a loyal British subject had to fly for France and not for UK. He was accepted in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). He went to Aldershot in 1917 for training and surprised his instructors by flying solo after two and half hours instruction. He was posted to No. 28 Squadron equipped with Camel fighters, the most advanced fighter aircraft at that time. A special helmet was given to him for wearing over the turban. Due to the oversized helmet, the ground crew affectionately called him the “Flying Hobogoblin”. The formation soon flew out to St. Omer in France and then to an airfield in Flanders near the village of Droglandt. He was lucky to have ace pilot William Baker VC as his commanding officer, who initiated Hardit into the techniques of aerial war.
Hardit took part in dogfights, including one against the legendary Red Baron. He scored two aerial victories before he was wounded. On 26 October 1917, two planes including one of Hardit were surrounded by four German fighters. His plane was riddled with bullets and two of them pierced his legs. He recuperated in hospitals in UK for a few months and then joined No. 141 Squadron. He proudly carried the remnants of two bullets firmly embedded in his leg.
On return to India in 1919, he married Prakash Kaur and went back to UK. He qualified for the Indian Civil Service and returned to India in 1922. In 1930, he was posted as Trade Commissioner in Germany and later in London. From 1937 to 1944, he served as Trade Commissioner in Canada and USA. His services were borrowed by Maharaja Yadavinder Singh of Patiala. He served as Prime Minister there for three years. It was at his initiative that a meeting was organised between the Sikh leader Master Tara Singh and Jinnah at the house of his brother Sir Teja Singh. The Maharaja of Patiala and Giani Kartar Singh were also present. Jinnah sought the support of Sikhs for Pakistan. The discussions did not yield any results. He served as Prime Minister of the state till 1947, when the State was merged into Punjab.
After Independence, he was appointed as our High Commissioner in Canada. During his tenure there, he succeeded in getting full citizenship rights for the Indians who had settled there. His next assignment was as Ambassador to France. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru asked him to first go and settle the merger issues of Pondicherry state, then a French colony, into India. This merger was solely due to his personal efforts with the French authorities. He received France’s highest award the French Legion of Honour from President Koty in 1952.
He retired in 1957 and settled down in his home in New Delhi, where he returned to his first love of golf. He played golf with the Duke of Windsor, King Leopold of Belgium, General Eisenhower, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. He was persuaded by his wife to write his autobiography, A Little Work, a Little Play. He died on 31 October 1985 after a long illness. He was the first Indian to get a commission in the UK armed forces, and the only Indian aviator to survive the First World War.