In pictures: We Were There

The Ministry of Defence is staging a photographic exhibition that highlights the contribution of ethnic minorities in the Armed Forces over the last 200 years.

BBC News Online previews some of the photographs that document the vital yet little known contribution made to the British military by people from all corners of the Commonwealth.

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Sergeant and officers on parade, at Salerno in Italy, 1944

Squadron Leader Karun Khrishna Majumdar was the first Indian Air Force Officer to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross

Punjabi seaman with the Royal Indian Navy in the Mediterranean, November 1943

Men of the Royal Indian Navy, at training camp in Portsmouth, July 1942

A pilot serving with a RAF fighter squadron comprised of Polish personnel stands with his Supermarine Spitfire IX

Burmese aircrew under training

Nurse Monica Munroe from Granada, taking a patient's temperature in Fulham hospital, London, March 1945

Seamen from the Royal Indian Navy learning their 'Bends' and 'Hitches' while training at Bombay

Gold Coast Signallers of the West African Corps of Signals on exercise in the Brigade HQ Signals truck, May 1943

The exhibition opens runs from 27-29 July at the Excel Exhibition Centre in Docklands and later in the year tours Glasgow and Newcastle.

Photographs courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.