THE GARUD STRIKES

by Mukul Deva

  The two were conferring when they heard the rumbling of tanks, a sound dreaded by every infantryman, especially those whose anti-tank weapons have yet to fetch up. Delta Company frantically began to dig in.

  Alpha Company had barely gone fifty metres from the place where Paunchy had shot the Razakar when they stumbled into the schoolyard at Kodda. Mustering there were a group of Pakistani Razakars, perhaps for the morning report.

  ‘My olive green uniform had by now turned khaki with all the mud, so they must have mistaken me for one of their officers, because one of them, perhaps an NCO, marched up to give me the report. My men had also come up to the schoolyard and we surrounded them. We immediately disarmed the whole lot, but then not knowing what to do with them, since we had no resources to take them prisoners, I told them to run away. They did, pretty eagerly,’ Paunchy grinned.

  By now the fog had started to lift, and the leading elements of Alpha Company had made contact with the main Pakistani position at Kodda. There were some enemy soldiers defending the small bridge on the Akhaura-Brahmanbaria railway track and some more on the bigger bridge.

  Paunchy knew how important the bridges were. Crucial, since the railway line formed the vital link between Akhaura and Brahmanbaria. The Pakistanis were also using the railway embankment as a road; it was elevated, level and firm enough for their vehicles.

  The Titas river flowing alongside was yet another critical communication artery for the movement of troops and supplies. So getting control of these bridges would not only enable the Indian forces to dominate all three of the communication channels and cut off the defenders, but also allow the Indian Army to move their administrative echelons forward far more easily. That was imperative for any sustainable operation in the heartland.

  The Pakistanis, as yet, seemed unaware that the Indians had closed in so much, and in such strength. Perhaps that is why their response had so far been largely restricted to defensive artillery fire. Alpha Company immediately went to ground.

  ‘Intelligence had told us that there were about twenty to twenty-three Razakars guarding the small bridge, and a section of Pakistani regulars supported by some more Razakars securing the bigger bridge,’ said Paunchy. ‘However, there were many more. In fact, eventually we took close to two hundred Razakars as prisoners at Kodda that day.’

  Tasking Number Three platoon, commanded by Naib Subedar Desraj, to clear and secure the smaller bridge, Paunchy headed for the bigger bridge, about seven hundred metres to the east, with the rest of the Company.

  Naik Ram Khilawan Singh, an ex-mortar man, and now the Commander of Number One Section, was one of the first men to reach the bridge. With the element of surprise on their side, the guardsmen soon had the bridge under their control. The handful of Razakars who did not fall to the guns of the guardsmen fled after a cursory resistance.

  Desraj rapidly deployed two sections of his platoon on the eastern side of the embankment, towards Kodda, and his third section on the western side of the embankment, so that it could dominate the river.

  ‘I was in the process of preparing Defensive Fire (DF) task tables when I suddenly saw a train with three bogies pulling out from Akhaura railway station. It was heading for Brahmanbaria,’ Captain Mahipal Singh, who was the artillery OP with Desraj’s platoon, said.

  Comfortably attired in a white cotton shirt, the now retired Major General Mahipal Singh was looking cool and relaxed in his Chandigarh home. ‘My first impression was that the Pakistanis at Akhaura were still not aware of our presence, or the fact that we had taken over the smaller bridge already.’

  That illusion was soon shattered as the train came to a halt right in the middle of Desraj’s platoon, neatly separating the two elements of the platoon. Now they began to rain down automatic fire from all three bogies on the guardsmen caught on either side of the embankment.

  Caught out in the open, the platoon began to take casualties. In the very first few minutes, Iqbal, the radio operator with Mahipal Singh, lost his life. Enemy fire also took out both the radio sets with Singh.

  ‘Even otherwise, I could not have engaged the train with artillery, since our men were on either side of it. We were too close together,’ Singh looked grim. ‘Desraj extricated the section on the western side through a culvert in the embankment, and that made things a little better. But the loss of both my radio sets was a big blow and seriously handicapped my ability to provide fire support.’

  Paunchy, with the rest of the Company, was about half a kilometre away when he heard the firing. Seeing his platoon in trouble, he stopped immediately and began to provide whatever fire support he could.

  ‘But there wasn’t much we could do; the enemy and my boys were so closely intermingled that it would have been impossible not to hit some of my own guys,’ said Paunchy, with a regretful tone. ‘But we did manage to fire the RL (Rocket Launcher) at the railway wagons.’

  That convinced the Pakistanis in the train to pull back into the railway station. With that crisis momentarily resolved, Paunchy resumed advance on the bigger bridge.

  ‘That’s when we realized that the Intelligence guys had messed up, since the bigger bridge was actually held by a Company of Pakistani regulars.’ Paunchy gave an exasperated headshake. ‘We had been told it was only a handful of Razakars.’

  Aware that it was beyond their capability to take this bridge on their own, Paunchy decided to pull back and build up on Desraj’s platoon, which by now had deployed on the smaller bridge and was consolidating its position. They were still some distance away when Pakistani artillery began blasting Desraj’s platoon. The Company halted again, unable to proceed till the artillery fire had abated a bit. However, there was to be no respite. Following hard in the wake of an intense bombardment, the Pakistanis counter attacked the third platoon with an infantry company and a troop of PT 76 tanks.

  Unwilling to give the Indians time to consolidate their position on the bridge, the General Staff Officer Grade 1 (GSO-1) of the 14th Pakistani Infantry Division, an armoured corps officer, had quickly marshalled a mixed bag of troops and led the attack on Desraj’s platoon.

  ‘We were unaware that the Pakistanis were holding these PT 76 tanks. We learnt later that five of them had been given to Pakistan by Indonesia,’ Paunchy explained. ‘Initially, when we saw the tanks approaching, I thought they were ours, since the armoured squadron supporting us was also using the PT 76. It is only when they started firing that we realized they were enemy tanks.’

  With the Indian armour supporting 4 Guards and the RCL guns still stuck in the slush and marsh enroute, Desraj’s platoon had little to blunt the Pakistani counter attack with.

  ‘To make matters worse, the artillery OP deployed with that platoon, Captain Mahipal Singh, had lost his operator and radio sets in enemy shelling. They could not even call for artillery support to break up the Pakistani assault,’ Paunchy’s anguish was obvious. ‘By now we had also lost the 3.7 inch RL man, so Desraj’s platoon was completely at the mercy of the Pakistani armour.’

  Now totally unsupported, with its back to the wall, the platoon fought back tooth and nail, trying to hold out till the rest of the company fetched up. But the pressure was immense, men were falling like ninepins now, and the platoon was inexorably driven back by the Pakistani tanks.

  Lance Naik Lakhpat Singh saw the shattered remains of his section trying to extricate as the nearest enemy tank closed in on them. He must have known his Light Machine Gun (LMG) would not have any effect on the tank, yet hoping to provide his comrades with a window of opportunity that would allow them to escape, he kept firing. The last sight Lakhpat saw was a Pakistani tank bearing down on him.

  Naik Ram Khilawan Singh saw Lakhpat ground to dust as the tank’s tracks churned over him. Having been in battle myself, it was easy to understand that by now blood lust would have swamped all vestiges of reason. Racing forward, he went for the tank with nothing but a grenade and will power.

  ‘I saw Ram Khilawan jump on top of the tank and actu
ally punch one of the Pakistani soldiers. Himmeth had come up to my location and was with me at that time. Even he saw the whole incident.’ There was awe in Paunchy’s tone. ‘What Ram Khilawan did was absolutely amazing. He must have known he would not survive that attack.’

  Ram Khilawan did not. Neither did the Pakistani tank.

  Paunchy, still struggling to fight his way through to his beleaguered platoon, also saw Lance Naik Pirabhu Singh go down.

  The loss of every man is a knife in the heart of every commander. In the case of Pirabhu, it was more so, perhaps because Pirabhu, a loyal and caring Jat from Hissar had been by Paunchy’s side for many years. As Paunchy’s batman, Pirabhu had literally been his shadow. The two had been so close that when, earlier that year, Pirabhu had passed the promotion cadre and been promoted to Lance Naik, Paunchy had gifted him with an HMT watch, an expensive and treasured item in those days, even for an officer.

  Paunchy was boiling with rage as he saw his platoon being shredded into pieces, but he knew he was still too far away. He could see his men fighting back valiantly. And he could see them falling like chaff before a threshing machine as enemy tanks thundered over the trenches. Here and there, he could see his men being hauled out of trenches by Pakistani soldiers, and being clubbed and shot down in cold blood.

  ‘I could not stop myself.’ Paunchy was shaking with anger. ‘The brutal manner in which the Pakistanis were gunning down even wounded men was too much. I ordered my Medium Machine Gun (MMG) to open fire, even though the Pakistanis and the men from my own platoon were too closely intermingled. I knew that some of my own men would also get hit, but by now it was clear that the enemy would not let them live in any case.’

  The MMG fire accounted for several Pakistani soldiers. However, I did not see any satisfaction on Paunchy’s face as he narrated that. Whatever satisfaction it may have given him had been drowned by the sorrow of seeing his men also mowed down.

  Despite such raw courage, Desraj’s platoon was fighting a losing battle and trying hard to extricate from that impossible position. Superior numbers and the Pakistani tanks soon overran the platoon.

  By the time Number Three Platoon finally managed to extricate itself, it had been decimated by almost half its numbers. Despite their best efforts to get their dead and wounded back, the bodies of seven of the men lay where they fell. Fallen, but not forgotten.

  Captain Mahipal Singh, the artillery OP, managed to crawl back to safety with the shattered remanants of Desraj’s platoon. He was doing so when an enemy artillery shell landed almost beside him.

  ‘Himmeth was with me at that time. We both saw the shell land almost on top of Mahipal and the handful of men crawling back towards us. We were pretty sure they were all gone, but when the dust and smoke cleared,’ there was disbelief all over Paunchy’s face, ‘we saw that they were still coming towards us.’

  Luckily, the ground was soft and the shell buried itself in, sufficiently deep for it to leave Mahipal, and the others around him, unscathed. Not one of them so much as got a scratch.

  Like every other man in the company, Paunchy knew he would not leave the bodies of his men behind. But in that moment, he was desperate to stabilize the situation. He was also clearly aware that his options were limited, and falling back was not one of them. There was no back to fall upon. After all, when you infiltrate behind enemy lines and cut off the enemy, you also get automatically cut off from your base. Alpha Company knew they had to stand and fight. They began to dig in.

  ‘There were four engineer men, six anti-tank mines and about as many American manufactured M14 jumping mines with us. I ordered these to be planted on the main approach that led to where I had deployed the rest of my company. There was a clear path leading up to our position. It lay between two water tanks,’ Paunchy drew a rough sketch to help me get a clearer picture. ‘The water tanks were about twenty feet by twenty feet in size, and offered some kind of an anti-tank obstacle. I hoped they would funnel the Pakistani tanks into the open patch between them.’

  However, the Pakistani tanks now decided to attack the guardsmen through Kodda village. Alpha Company saw the tanks come rumbling through the villages, knocking down the huts. There was nothing that could stop them overrunning the infantrymen caught out in the open.

  ‘That was the first time I felt real fear,’ and it was still audible in Paunchy’s hushed tone. ‘Seeing those monstrous things coming at us, and knowing that we had nothing in our arsenal to stop them. I’m not afraid to admit it: I was petrified.’ He gave a slow headshake. ‘But I also knew that I was the Company Commander, and every man would be looking up to me to lead by example.’ He halted. ‘It was a matter of honour … regimental izzat … you know how it is… officers are not allowed to show fear. Well, somehow, neither did I.’ There was a much longer pause. ‘We held our ground.’

  The five Pakistani tanks closed in slowly but surely. The menacing roar of tank engines escalated as they closed in, till they were about seventy-five metres short of the first foxholes of Alpha Company.

  ‘They now halted and kept revving their engines, as though to scare us off. However, for some reason, they did not fire their main guns at us. Nor did they complete their attack on our position. Perhaps if they had realized how tenuous our position was, they might have moved in and finished us off.’ Paunchy’s relief was evident.

  Witnessing the ongoing battle from close quarters, Himmeth knew he had to reinforce Alpha Company or risk losing most of it. Getting on to his radio set, he ordered Delta Company, deployed just behind Alpha, to move forward and build up on Kodda.

  Meanwhile, the sounds of the Pakistanis coming up again were increasing and Paunchy sensed they would be under attack again soon. He somehow managed to re-group and deploy the remaining two platoons rapidly.

  ‘Desraj's platoon took seventeen casualties… almost half its strength,’ Paunchy tried to stay matter of fact, but his anger was palpable. ‘We were not sure but we had a feeling that a couple of boys had been taken captive.’

  In all the confusion and scramble, they had no time to worry about the dead or send out search parties to look for those missing.

  Amongst those captured by the Pakistanis at Kodda was Guardsman Jameel Mohammed of Alpha Company. No Indian soldier captured by the Pakistanis had it easy. The wounded received no medical aid. Many were mutilated and brutalized before they were killed. And if the bodies of the soldiers of 10 Bihar found later by Paunchy at Brahmanbaria were any indication, the dead received no burial or cremation. However, for Guardsman Jameel Mohammed, life proved exceptionally hard when he fell into the enemy hands.

  When the Pakistanis found out that he was a Muslim, they tortured him brutally for supporting the kafir (infidel) Indians against them.

  Of the seven guardsmen of Alpha Company captured at Kodda, Jameel was selected for special treatment and beaten up really badly.

  ‘The one inadvertent fallout of his capture was that whilst interrogating him, the Pakistanis learnt that 4 Guards (1 Rajput) was part of the Indian attacking forces,’ Glucose interjected. ‘General Niazi, the Pakistani Eastern Army Commander, had earlier served in the ranks in 1 Rajput. When he learnt about our unit, he asked for all captured guardsmen to be taken to Dacca for interrogation. That perhaps was the only reason that some of our men did not meet the usual fate of any Indian soldier taken prisoner by the Pakistanis—a bullet in the head.’

  By now, the condition of several of the casualties was deteriorating fast and the unit medics were constantly in action, more often than not treating the wounded under artillery fire. The RMO, Captain (Dr.) H.P. Sutradhar, who incidentally had graduated from the Dacca Medical College, was a harried man.

  ‘We had barely travelled a couple of miles when Sutra told me that he had lost his carbine,’ Glucose gave a grim laugh. ‘The poor guy had been so busy rushing from one casualty to the other that he had no idea where or when he dropped it. Not that I could imagine him firing a shot even in anger.’

 
Sutra tasked Lance Naik Bhanwar Singh as an escort to the stretcher parties being used to ferry the wounded. Returning alone from one such excursion, Bhanwar Singh was midway between Kodda and Barisal when three Pakistani Razakars jumped at him; the trio had an LMG and three rifles.

  Bhanwar knew he did not have too many options. He would either die right there, or it would be a slow lingering death as a Pakistani prisoner. With a ferocious cry, he boldly charged the enemy. So taken aback were the trio that they surrendered. Bhanwar Singh returned triumphantly to the battalion HQ with his three prisoners.

  Tension remained high in Alpha Company in anticipation of a second strike. However, luckily the Pakistanis failed to press home their advantage.

  Perhaps they too were caught up in the fog of battle and their commanders did not read the situation properly. Or perhaps they noted the arrival of reinforcements as Delta Company rushed in and co-deployed with Alpha. However, they certainly kept up the pressure on the guardsmen with small arms, artillery and tank fire.

  The Akhaura strongpoint was heavily fortified and well stocked. Well enough to enable the Pakistanis to wage war for weeks. And the Indians did not have much time. Everyone was aware that it would not be long before the community of nations intervened and forced the guns to go silent. The Americans and the Chinese had already started raising the issue in several forums. It was possibly Russia’s stand that held them at bay. But it was evident that it would not last for too long.

  Charlie Company commanded by Tuffy Marwah, moving with the battalion HQ, found its way to the designated objective, Barisal, with relative ease. That is to say if one discounts the tedious, night-long trek through mud and slush, and, of course, the enemy guns that kept them engaged and amused through the night.