And a Sikh community group hopes the display will trigger interest in a project to trace Warwick and Leamington people's links with those who fought for the empire.

More than 83,000 Sikhs were killed and 100,000 served in fields of conflict from the trenches of the Western Front to the jungles of Burma in the Second World War. The soldiers received many medals for gallantry, including several Victoria Crosses.

Their story will be told on From Jawans to Generals - Loyal Allies, Proud Britons, which runs from August 22 to September 14.

The Sikh Heritage Association of Warwick and Leamington is hosting the event with the museum. Its chairman Bal Singh Rai said: "The images are unbelievable. Quite a few Sikhs will never have seen some of the pictures before.

"It opened my eyes to a number of things. I didn't know that 12,000 Sikh soldiers passed through Brighton hospitals in the two world wars."

Mr Rai said Sikh soldiers have had strong links with Warwickshire for more than 150 years, starting with those who fought against the Third Light Dragoons in the Anglo-Sikh wars, and moving on to Warwickshire men fighting side by side with Indian troops in the two world wars.

He said the association is now hoping to set up its own project to tell the story of Warwickshire people who had fought against and alongside the Sikh and Punjabi regiments.

He added: "This is uncovering the history and telling the story of the huge contribution.

"This will give people a better understanding of our background and the unique Anglo-Sikh relationship.

"The story needs to be told. A true multi-cultural society is one that understands that relationship and the sacrifices that have been made.

"We have only started to uncover what is out there."

Admission to the exhibition is free. There will be a lecture to accompany the exhibition at Warwickshire College's Trident Park building in Posiedon Way on September 13 at 6pm.

Admission to this lecture is also free of charge and everyone is welcome.Call 412500 for more information.

The history

The exhibition starts with the Sikh forces who fought both against and the British in the Anglo-Sikh wars in the 1840s, in which the Third Light Dragoons, whose museum is at the Lord Leycester Hospital nearby, were involved.

A decade later, Sikh soldiers fought alongside British soldiers in the first Indian war of independence and after this, Sikh regiments were prized for their bravery and loyalty.

Jawan is a term meaning youth, but it came to mean 'young soldier in its military context. Although they made up only two per cent of the Indian population, Sikhs accounted for 40 per cent of the British army in India.

In the Indian Mutiny, Sikh troops patrolled the north western border. They fought on the Western Front, in Italy and in Iraq in the First World War, and in Europe, India and Burma in the Second World War.