Talk:Ursula Graham Bower

A fact from Ursula Graham Bower appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 August 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that anthropologist Ursula Graham Bower fought for the British Army as a guerrilla with the Naga people during World War II?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/August.

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British Army[edit]

If she served in the Women's Auxiliary Corps (India), she was in the Indian Army not the British Army. She was also awarded a civil not a military MBE which questions her status as a army officer.--Jim Sweeney (talk) 04:30, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough - I will change the article and the DYK Jack1956 (talk) 08:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alison Betts[edit]

Not sure if this is relevant: her daughter Alison Venetia Graham Betts told me that when the authorities were cracking down on the Naga and trying to stamp out their cultural practices, Urusla dressed Alison up in traditional Naga garb and took some photos which she sent out to her Naga contacts there. The next time she visited, she found a shrine set up and the photos of Alison being worshipped. Alison inherited her mother's taste for adventure: she worked on archaeological excavations in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Syria, Jordan and Uzbekistan, often in very remote and inhospitable places. She's now a Professor in archaeology at Sydney University.86.147.162.131 (talk) 08:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Was Ursula in the British or Indian Army?[edit]

I am a relative of Ursula's and I understand that she was with V-Force, which was a guerilla unit operating with the 14th Army under General Slim. Fourteenth Army contained units from both the Indian and British Armies and I am not sure which category V-Force fell into. Ursula received her rank as Captain while actually serving in the field and she commanded a platoon of Assam Rifles. This kind of practice was apparently quite common in V-Force. Indeed the Wikipedia entry on V-Force explains that "civilians" with local expertise were entitled to command regular officers". 122.177.76.227 (talk) 10:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]