Chandra Bahadur Garbuja

It was 1940, and Chandra Bahadur Garbuja dreamed of serving valiantly under the British Crown against the Japanese. He left the village of Sikha in Myagdi District in central Nepal to recruit with the Brigade of Gurkhas in Dehra Dun. After a few months of training, his battalion of 7,000 was transported by train to Madras, thence to Singapore by ship. Within four months, the Japanese had overrun Singapore and all 7,000 men, Britishers, Indians, Nepalis and some Chinese, were taken prisoner.

While his fellow POWs mourned their fate and pined for home, Chandra Bahadur quickly set about learning to read and write Japanese. His captors liked him enough to include him in a team that was headed for Burma with a load of documents for the rebel army of Indian nationalist Subash Chandra Bose. It was during this long march that Chandra Bahadur learnt the mechanical skills of building bridges and cutting trails that would prove so useful back in the Nepali hills.