The events of mid-1942 tell of Subhas Bose's unflinching loyalty to his motherland. This is a story not many would know.

There he was in Germany -- Subhas, 45, having successfully effected one of the greatest escapes in Indian history. He was living a very comfortable life by his standards. He had a good villa to himself, a car and a special entertainment allowance. His personal allowance amounted to about eight hundred pounds a month.

Most importantly, for the first time since his secret marriage in 1938, he was one with his wife Emilie, at that time pregnant with their child.

But then, in Far East a perfect backdrop was emerging for Netaji to take the British bull by its horns.

In a decision fraught with unforeseen dangers, Netaji decided to go to Japan. After 13 months of delay on part of Germany, on February 8, 1943, he entered a U-2 submarine to take a three-month long under water journey.

In that three months the submarine covered thousands of miles in the Atlantic, the Middle East, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean. Battles were being fought over land, in the air and mines were strewn in seas.

Inside the submarine, the conditions were bad. Netaji could all but lie in his bunk or sit at a table. There was just not enough room for him to stand upright. Worst was the reckless adventure of the German boat crew that decided to swerve far from the charted route to prey on allies' ships they could sink.

Unmindful of the unnecessary risks they thus subjected on the political leader, the submarine moved far away almost to the coasts of Brazil only to surface and torpedo a British oil tanker. Two days later, the U-boat had a narrow escape in a collision with a cargo boat.

The second part of his journey was capped by a 400 miles rubber dingy ride over rough seas to a Japanese submarine that took him to Tokyo.

This ride was perhaps the most perilous journey undertaken in World War II. Before taking the journey Subhas had managed to see for the first and last time his two-month-old daughter Anita in December 1942. In January 1943 Emilie came alone to Berlin to bid him goodbye.

Bose had premonition that this would be their last meeting. He handed over a letter in Bengali to Emilie, to be passed to his brother Sarat Bose.

In the letter he asked his elder brother to ensure the well being of his wife and child if he did not survive in the new phase.