by Mukul Deva
He paused again, shook himself slightly, as though trying to get rid of some troubling memories. Then the soldier’s stoicism, and that strange sense of humour, which keeps them alive and ticking, kicked in, almost on cue, knowing it was required to lighten the burden ... and the moment.
‘You know a very funny thing had happened earlier that evening. I was the Support (SP) Company Commander at that time, and just before we started, Himmeth told me that I should be ready to take over from whichever rifle company commander fell first. He told me that in front of all four of the rifle company commanders. I still remember Paunchy telling me not to dare to even dream of coming to take over Alpha Company, which he was commanding, even though I had been commissioned in it. Immediately, Major Kharbanda, who was commanding Bravo Company, also told me that he would not let me come to Bravo either. Tuffy, who was commanding Charlie Company, told me that my aspirations of commanding his company would never materialize. That is when Major Vijay Uppal, who was commanding Delta Company, gave me a pat and told me that since I did not seem to have much choice left, I should feel free to come to his company whenever I wanted to,’ Granthi elaborated.
He was no longer smiling now. No one in the room was. ‘It was strange since it was Uppal who fell first. He took a splinter, from an artillery air burst, in his upper leg, in the groin area. It was a really bad one and he went down immediately. Barely an hour after we were launched, Himmeth ordered me to move forward and replace him as Delta Company Commander.’
The silence was absolute. The sound of a jeep engine revving somewhere outside intruded. Then even that died away. The war had entered the room now. Real. Stark. First blood had been drawn.
Lieutenant Raj Mohan was moving with Himmeth and the battalion ‘O’ group. They were coming up to Devagram village when they encountered a huge front of sharpened panjee (sharpened bamboo stakes); very much like those that had once guarded the moats of medieval forts. Or the implacable wall of spears of a Roman phalanx.
Bravo Company, commanded by Major Kharbanda, was leading the advance for 4 Guards. They halted and began to scout a way around the panjee. That is when the first salvo of artillery shells found them. They were airbursts, lighting up the night sky sporadically, like giant firecrackers. Obviously, the guardsmen had blundered down one of the defensive fire tasks selected by the Pakistani defenders of Akhaura.
‘The guardsmen were all carrying picks and shovels. They went into the digging mode immediately,’ Mohan gave a rueful grin. ‘We (tank-men) had none so we just hugged the ground.’
The second salvo was much closer; almost directly overhead, as though the Pakistani Artillery OP (Observation Post) had corrected the range.
‘I heard Major Uppal cry out. He was just a yard or so to my right. He was screaming and seemed to be in tremendous pain,’ Mohan added.
Vijay Uppal felt a sharp blow smash into his lower body. Initially, there was no pain because the high velocity impact of the splinter numbed the flesh. Then pain surged through him like a never-ending wave. Moments later, he felt someone kneel over him. Despite hot lead churning all around them, the medics went to work, trying to staunch the bleeding and stabilize him. Gentle hands began to seek and dress the wound.
‘When I reached Uppal, he was screaming in pain,’ said Paunchy. ‘Vijay Uppal joined 4 Guards when we were at NEFA (North East Frontier Agency) in the early part of 1971. He was an EME (Electrical and Mechanical Engineering) officer on attachment to our unit.’
I noticed the last bit came out a bit condescendingly and was unable to stop my smile; some things never change.
For the uninitiated, a word about the caste system that afflicts armies the world over is important. Fighting arms (like the infantry and armour) look down on the supporting services (like the EME, ASC and AOC). Although, being a good old infantryman myself, I must add that I have always wondered why they include armour in the fighting arms. They do little by way of fighting, so I guess it must be because of all the sound and fury they generate when they move… or should that be if they move.
The artillery firing grew heavier and more accurate as Pakistani gunners corrected the range. Raj Mohan struggled to hug the ground closer. It was a while before the firing eased a bit. The guardsmen seized the moment and began to move again. The medics loaded Uppal on a stretcher and began to cart him away, back towards the Advanced Dressing Station (ADS). When Raj Mohan got up, he realized that the stitching on the rear of his pants had ripped open: ‘I was feeling terrible! I borrowed a piece of my tank driver’s pagri (turban), and wrapped it around my waist.’
Feeling a little better with his modesty now partially restored, Raj Mohan resumed his march forward with Himmeth’s group. But it was with a delicate, slighty twisted walk that he went forward to Akhaura, and the battle for it, which was now to commence in all seriousness.
Despite their best efforts, 10 Bihar was unable to locate a suitable gap in the Pakistani defences for 4 Guards to infiltrate through at Lonesar. Time was running short. As per the plan, if 4 Guards had not started infiltration by midnight, then the unit would not move ahead to encircle Akhaura from the west.
The operational window was closing fast when Brigadier R.N. Mishra, Commander, 311 Mountain Brigade, arrived on the scene.
In the midst of gunsmoke and confusion, no one noticed the curtains fall on the first day of December, and a new day began. With it came a deep, rolling fog, settling down on the warring men like a cold shroud.
‘The fog was heaven sent. It prevented the enemy from really getting a fix on us, especially our numbers,’ Granthi explained. ‘And, of course, when daylight came, it was the fog that kept us alive.’
DAY TWO
02 DECEMBER 1971
A t the stroke of midnight began the assault on Akhaura. Signaling the start was a barrage of covering fire by the Indian artillery.
‘I don’t think I will ever forget that sight—of about fifty artillery guns of our division firing simultaneously on Akhaura. We were about two or three kilometres away, but even at that distance we could feel the earth shake, and the sky was torn apart by sheets of lightening,’ Paunchy’s tone was tinged with awe. ‘It was one long roll of thunder. I am not sure how long it lasted, perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, but it seemed to go on forever.’
‘True,’ concurred Tuffy Marwah. ‘I had no idea what damage it caused to the Pakistani defences at Akhaura, but it was one huge shot in the arm for our morale.’
The Pakistanis were not sitting quietly either. By now, their artillery was blasting the attacking forces with everything in their arsenal. There was a blanket of gunpowder and smoke over the area. Adding to the disorientation of the men was the nerve-shattering thunder of exploding airbursts.
‘By now all our senses seemed to have gone numb,’ Granthi mused. ‘One could see everything, hear everything, smell everything, but as though from far away. Yet, it was all horribly real.’
Brigadier Mishra walked into this hellfire, accompanied by his IO (Intelligence Officer), radio operator and the usual protection detail, not that they could have done anything to protect him from the death that was raining down from the skies.
‘The Old Man always said that we were damn lucky we had gone to war with a commander like Mishra,’ Tuffy reminisced. ‘A simple, god fearing man, Mishra was from a renowned family; his father had served on Lord Mountbatten’s staff. The commander was polite to a fault, except when he had to lay down the law, or when one failed to live up to his expectations. His most endearing quality was that he was extraordinarily humane.’ Tuffy leaned forward, to emphasize his point. ‘Right from the word go, the commander was with us, literally. We were waiting for 10 Bihar to find a gap for us when he landed up.’
Along with the rest of the unit, Himmeth had also gone to ground and was waiting for the go ahead from 10 Bihar. Seeing the brigade commander sauntering around as though he was out for a morning walk, Himmeth went up to him and advised him that it would be safer for him to take
shelter behind the embankment in the rice field.
‘Later, the Old Man told me what Brigadier Mishra’s reply was: “Himmeth, Pakistanis have yet to make the bullet that will kill me. I am going to retire peacefully and die only when my time comes… from natural causes”,’ Paunchy had a faraway look in his eyes as he narrated this. ‘And how right he was… Brigadier Mishra is still around, happily retired and living a peaceful life.’ Then, returning to the moment, he looked at me. ‘Brigadier Mishra was present with us at every decisive moment, at every crucial point in our headlong dash for Dacca. So much so that after the war, when we were going through a de-briefing in the brigade headquarters, and there was some acrimony between the battalion commanders regarding the battle for Ashuganj, Mishra intervened and took the blame. He had said “Perhaps I got too involved with the 4 Guards heliborne operations across the Meghna. I should have been with the bulk of my brigade, fighting the battle at Ashuganj.”,’ said Paunchy. ‘Such honesty and sense of responsibility is rare. It takes a big man to stand up and take blame.’
Declining to take shelter, Mishra heard out Himmeth’s briefing patiently and realized that there was an acute danger of the brigade’s operation getting stalled.
Unwilling to allow that to happen, Mishra immediately went ahead with his Intelligence Officer and one of the 10 Bihar company commanders.
Perhaps fortune does favour the brave. Perhaps the presence of so senior an officer in their midst spurred 10 Bihar to try harder. Either way, a gap had soon been found.
However, by now it was 0200 hours, almost two hours after the designated time by which they had to begin infiltration. Any later than that and the guardsmen would face a major problem; since the sun comes up rather early in Bangladesh, and the distance to be covered by 4 Guards was such that the battalion would most certainly be hit by day light before they could reach their destination behind Akhaura and dig in.
Mishra, a veteran of every battle the Indian Army had been involved in since Independence, knew what that meant. He had commanded a battalion at Thanga during the 1962 War, and then another one in J&K during the 1965 operations, where he had won a Vir Chakra. Caught out in the open, almost four kilometres deep inside enemy terrirtory, the guardsmen would be sitting ducks for Pakistani guns, artillery and aircraft. But Mishra also knew that the Rubicon had been crossed, and pulling back would not have been a very palatable option. Having been commissioned in 1 Rajput himself, Mishra knew what the unit was capable of. However, he was also clear that he would leave the choice to Himmeth. ‘You now have two hours less to reach your objective. Still want to go ahead, Himmeth?’
The Brigadier may as well not have bothered to ask. Himmeth accepted without hesitation. Regardless of the hot lead flying all around, 4 Guards got up and began to cross through the gap in enemy defences.
By now there was no hiding from the Pakistani garrison the fact that the enemy was afoot. Though the Pakistanis could not have yet known the size or intention of the Indian troops moving past, they obviously knew that something was coming at Akhaura and they must have sensed something big was going down. Almost on cue, the firing intensified. And if the air was thick with artillery shrapnel, the ground below was doing the Indians no favours either.
Literally wading through waist deep slush, the guardsmen slogged ahead. The ground was treacherously soft and soggy. It offered no purchase, and sometimes the slush and water was neck-deep.
‘Even worse, the slush sucked in our feet and clung to us with the tenacity of a leech. From Lonesar onwards, there were places where the damn marsh was neck deep,’ Midha winced, the memory now fresh again. ‘Every step forward was a real battle.’
Perhaps the going was even tougher than usual, since none of them had any illusions about what lay ahead. First light was barely three hours away by now. With it, the enemy fire would not only intensify, it would even become more accurate. With first light would also come the Pakistani Air Force and tanks. Both would be able to take on the Indian troops more effectively.
The enemy Air Force was a battle beyond Himmeth and he left it to the Indian Air Force to take care of it. However, the Pakistani tanks were a major cause of worry. Himmeth knew that without their RCLs, his men would be hard pressed to keep the tanks at bay. Each rifle company had one 3.7-inch Rocket Launcher; they provided some solace. However, they were of World War II vintage, and their accuracy and efficacy to beat back enemy armour was questionable.
The RCL guns were not faring well at all. The 106 RCL is normally carried mounted on a jeep; however there was no way a jeep could navigate this terrain. Realising the difficulty of trying to man-pack or bicycle-carry them through the slush and marsh, Himmeth had ordered two RCL guns (with their ammunition) to be carried on top of the squadron of PT 76 tanks, which were accompanying 4 Guards. However, things had gone horribly wrong right from the start.
The troop leader Lieutenant Mohan was one of the officers who had carried out the ground recce with Kharbanda, and confirmed that the PT76 tanks would be able to navigate the route they had selected. Either he had allowed hope to override reason, or had been too troubled to realise that amphibious tanks can swim across water, not mud. The soft, soggy and sticky slush was way beyond the capability of the tanks to navigate across.
‘It was so scary. Every time the tanks went up an incline or came down a slope, we were falling all over the place. The guns and ammunition had been lashed on to the tanks, but we were simply clutching on for dear life,’ Havildar Mukund Singh Hira, who, along with Havildar Shiv Taj, had been tasked to get the guns up to the forward companies, said grimly. ‘None of us had ridden on top of tanks before.’
It was easy to sense that the night had not gone well for him. The tall, dark and gaunt Sikh from Ludhiana sitting in front of me seemed the kind who took life as jovially as possible, but right now he was in a sombre mood.
Honorary Captain Mukund Singh Hira
‘The paltan (battalion) had left at around five or six pm, but we left Litchi Bagan much later. In fact, it was around midnight when we finally crossed the border. It is impossible to tell you how much slush there was. We were surprised that the paltan had managed to get through all this. It was terrible. The tanks were barely moving. We were struggling to inch forward, one of them getting stuck literally every few metres. And there was so much of fog we could hardly see anything,’ he added.
Mukund Singh’s brow was knitted in concentration, and his voice had acquired the slow, yet steady, cadence of a man who was watching a film unfold in his mind’s eye. ‘Now I cannot imagine how we kept going. And then, just when we thought things could get no worse, enemy artillery started up and kept getting more intense and accurate with every passing hour. Then came daylight, and with it came the Pakistani Air Force. They would have had no trouble spotting the stranded tanks because they attacked immediately.’
Naib Subedar Shiv Taj, one of the other Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) with the RCL team, ordered them to get off the tanks and dig in. Every guardsman was carrying small shovels and picks, and began to dig in.
By now the fog had lifted and it was broad daylight. The Pakistanis were attacking the Indians with all their might: mortars, artillery and every now and then their aircrafts would attack. Barely able to move in the slush, the tanks were sitting ducks, but luckily they all made it through. Either the Pakistani pilots were not too good, or they were afraid to come lower and attack. But it was still horrible sitting through all that.
‘We were huddled together in the mud when we got orders to take Major Uppal back. He had been hit by splinters from the artillery airbursts and was in bad shape,’ Mukund looked a trifle dazed.
‘Was he conscious?’ I could not help asking.
‘Oh yes, he was,’ Mukund replied grimly, ‘and he must have been in tremendous pain. He kept yelling at us to move carefully, but the ground was so slippery and there was so much firing that we had to keep putting him down every now and then. And every time we did that, with every je
rk he would yell and curse. Somehow, we got him back and handed him over to the administrative party behind us and then returned to the tanks and tried to move ahead again.’
By now the rest of the battalion was well over two kilometres ahead of the tanks. They had barely managed to get moving when they hit a nallah. It was not very wide, but the banks were so slippery that the tanks simply could not move. The tracks were not getting any purchase on the ground and they started slipping and sliding.
Up ahead, the rifles companies of 4 Guards were not faring any better either, with the Pakistanis laying down a deadly curtain of fire on them.
With the skies raining death and the ground sucking them down, every step was excruciatingly slow and painful. Despite all this, the Gods of War seemed to have been watching over the guardsmen that day.
When the first streaks of dawn stained that death-laden night, it brought with it a thick blanket of fog. Visibility was barely a few yards, at times so terrible that it was hard to see the man in front. Probably that is why, despite having started out two hours later than planned, the battalion managed to get into position unseen by the enemy. Not that the Pakistanis stopped firing. But there is no doubt that their fire would have claimed many more casualties had the guardsmen been visible in daylight.
By 0700 hours, on 2 December 1971, the unit had reached Barisal. The battalion headquarters deployed there along with C Company. And the other three rifle companies took off for their objectives. A Company was to secure and deploy at Kodda, B Company at Shyam Nagar, and D Company was to take Chandi.
