Description
British War Medal, Bronze Issue for non-combatant labourers, 1309 Porter Lashkar, 6th Porter Corps, Indian Labour Corps.
Officially impressed: “1309 Porter Lashkar, 6 Ptr Cps”
During the First World War, the Indian Labour Corps was formed, recruiting a large number of civilians from around India to be sent around the globe to work as non combatants with the Army. It was initially voluntary, but after a lack of volunteers, further measure were put in place, such as recruiting prisoners locked up serving their sentence, in exchange for freedom after the war was over, and putting quotas on regions to supply men with harsh measures if they missed them which led to various uprisings.
Lashkar was recruited as part of the Porter Corps, a sub section of the larger Indian Labour Corps, who true to their name were involved in back breaking manual labour doing “Porterage” duties.
The 6th Porter Corps had one of the tougher deployments as they were mobilised and sent to “Mesopotamia”, modern day Iraq, serving as part of the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Corps.
In 1916 they were stationed at Basra, with the Line of Communications Troops where the Base Headquarters were, as the logistical hub there would be much work for the Porters loading and unloading ships from the Port.
