Chapter
6
THE INDO-PAK WAR – 1971
(EASTERN THEATRE)
Preview.
EVENTS LEADING TO THE INVASION OF EAST PAKISTAN
: Pak
Operation ‘Searchlight’– Planning and Preparations in India Dacca DACCA
Preview
After
the partition of India Pakistan East Pakistan ,
were separated by fifteen hundred kilometres, with India East Pakistan . These political, social and
economic disparities caused resentment and political unrest among the people of
East Bengal , giving birth to the Awami League
led by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. In the elections held in December 1970 the Awami
League won a majority of the seats in the Pakistan National Assembly, much to
the chagrin of the People’s Party led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Not willing to
concede power to Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, President Yahya Khan postponed the
session of the National Assembly indefinitely and imposed martial law. This led
to violent demonstrations which were crushed ruthlessly. On 25 March 1971 Mujib was
arrested and Operation ‘Searchlight’ was launched by the Pakistani Army, in
which thousands of innocent people were killed in cold blood.
To
escape the repression unleashed by the Pakistani Army, hordes of refugees began
to cross the border into the Indian states of Bengal , Assam India India
The
operations conducted by the Indian Army in East Pakistan ,
code named Operation ‘Cactus Lily’, were planned to be conducted in December
1971. However, several preliminary operations were carried out in November in
order to secure suitable areas which would serve as launch pads for the
formations earmarked for the offensive. On 3 December 1971 the Pakistani Air Force bombed
several Indian airfields in the Western Sector. The same evening, orders were
issued by Army HQ for the invasion of East Pakistan ,
which commenced at day break on 4
December 1971 . The task
given to Eastern Command was to destroy enemy forces and occupy the major
portion of East Pakistan .
Though
Dacca Dacca Dacca Dacca
Signals
played an important role in Operation ‘Cactus Lily’. Unlike most other
operations, this was a rare occasion when Signals had almost six months to
prepare and they made good use of the time, ensuring that nothing was left to
chance. The SO-in-C, Lieutenant General E.G Pettengell and his deputy, Major
General K.S. Garewal began working on the Signals plan as early as April 1971.
The detailed planning and execution of the Signals plan was the responsibility
of Brigadier K.K. Tewari, CSO Eastern Command. However, the provision of
resources and synchronization with other agencies had to be done at Delhi
In 1971, the military communication network in
the Eastern Theatre was under developed.
There was an acute shortage of resources, in terms of manpower,
equipment and vehicles. These had to be made up by new raisings and by
‘milking’ existing units. An additional commitment was the training and
equipping of some para military forces.
Signals played an important role in the deciding the locations of the
headquarters of the formations taking part in the operations, which had to be
built up as communication hubs, using own resources as well as those of the
P&T Department. Several hundred kilometers of PL routes were constructed by
signal units in the likely concentration areas of the formations that were to
take part in the offensive.
The
account of the campaign has been divided broadly in two parts. The preparatory
phase has been covered under the heading ‘Events Leading to The Invasion of
East Pakistan’. This is followed by the description of actual operations under
the heading Operation ‘Cactus Lily’. The
role of Signals has been described in both parts, after an account of the
operations. Some units such as N Communication Zone Signal Regiment that played
a major role in the preparatory phase have been covered in the first part. The units affiliated to field formations that
came into the picture mostly after commencement of the actual operations have
been covered in the second part. For obvious reasons, Eastern Command Signals
has been dealt with in both parts.
EVENTS
LEADING TO THE INVASION OF EAST PAKISTAN
Pak
Operation ‘Searchlight’
Rattled by the victory of the Awami League in
the National Assembly elections held in December 1970, Yahya Khan dissolved the
cabinet and imposed martial law in Pakistan 21 February 1971 . On 1 March he
announced indefinite postponement of the session of the National Assembly. This
led to violent demonstrations and clashes all over East
Pakistan and the Army was called out to suppress the mobs,
resulting in the death of many Bengalis. Mujib, who had tried to keep the
agitation non-violent, demanded that the troops be withdrawn, or else he would
intensify the agitation. In a ploy to gain time Yahya announced that the
National Assembly would meet at Dacca 25 March 1971 .
The Governor of East Pakistan, Lieutenant General Sahibzada Yakub Khan was
replaced by Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, who was given the task of
suppressing the revolt, code named Operation ‘Searchlight’.
After arresting Mujib on 25 March,
Tikka Khan embarked on a campaign of mass slaughter, rape and destruction that
horrified the World. Beginning with the intellectuals of Dacca University Dacca India India West Bengal
and Tripura.
Within two weeks of the crackdown,
Tikka Khan had suppressed the revolt, punishing most of the rebellious troops
and non-cooperators. After carrying out his task, he handed over military
control to Lieutenant General A.A.K. Niazi, who took over as GOC-in-C, Pakistan
Eastern Command, Tikka Khan reverting to his role as Governor and Martial Law
Administrator. By the end of May, except for a few pockets of resistance in
inaccessible remote areas, the uprising appeared to have been smothered.
Planning
and Preparations in India
As
the numbers of refugees India India India Pakistan 27 April 1971 , to which General S.H.F.J. Manekshaw was invited as the Chairman of the
Chiefs of Staff Committee, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him if the Army
was ready to go into East Pakistan . General Manekshaw
asked for more time, as the area was unsuitable for large scale operations
during the monsoons. Time was also needed to make up shortages in warlike
material that the Army was facing. He advised postponement of the operations to
the winter months, when the Himalayan passes would be blocked, ruling out any
threat from China Pakistan India East Pakistan .
The Prime Minister decided to go by the advice of the Army Chief, assuring him
of a free hand in carrying out his task.
In return, General Manekshaw promised her a victory.
Once the decision to undertake operations was
taken by the Government, the Army Chief set about it in earnest. The Government
also decided to extend support to the freedom movement in East
Pakistan , led by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. The Government of
Bangladesh, as the new nation was intended to be named once it became
independent, had started functioning in Calcutta
Though
the Prime Minister had given him a virtual carte
blanche in planning the operations, General Manekshaw realised that major
questions of defence policy could not be dealt by the military alone; and would
have to be coordinated with foreign, economic and internal policies of the
nation. He pressed for the involvement of the government in evolving a broad
strategy and laying down clear cut objectives for the armed forces. Thanks to
his rapport with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he was able to carry out several
changes in the organs responsible for planning and execution at the highest
level. For the first time a political representative, in the person of D.P.
Dhar, designated Chairman of the Planning Committee of the Ministry of External
Affairs, was inducted into war councils. A Joint Intelligence Committee was
formed under the Vice Chief of Army Staff, with members from the Research and
Analysis Wing (RAW), Intelligence Bureau and the three services. The Joint
Planning Committee was reactivated and began functioning as the Combined
Services Operational Headquarters.
On
the civil side, a Secretaries’ Committee comprising the Secretaries of Defence,
Home, Finance and Foreign Affairs was set up to take executive decisions
dealing with preparations for war. The Director General of Civil Defence and
heads of the para military forces were also brought in at appropriate stages of
planning. However, the control, coordination and supervision at the top level
remained with Manekshaw and Dhar, the Prime Minister being kept informed of the
latest developments and the Political Affairs Committee being briefed whenever
required. The Army Chief was always on the ball, giving direction and dealing
with glitches, in the headquarters as well as in the field. He had promised the
Prime Minister a victory, and he was resolved to get one.1
On the diplomatic front, the Government went
all out to convince the World of the righteousness of India Soviet Union ,
none of the major powers supported India USA China Pakistan China USA Moscow Soviet
Union . The Russians responded favourably and the Indo-Soviet
Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation was signed on 9 August 1971 . This was a major
achievement and effectively neutralised the threat from USA China India
The
success of Operation ‘Searchlight’, the lack of military response from India West Pakistan made
the Pakistani troops in East Pakistan more
audacious and reckless. They began to make forays across the border, resulting
in clashes with Indian para military forces manning border outposts. As these clashes
multiplied, the border posts were reinforced by the Army. This brought Pakistan
By
the end of October 1971, the border clashes had escalated to proper attacks and
were often accompanied by artillery and mortar fire. On 21 November 1971 Pak troops launched
an attack on a base very close to the Indian village of Boyra Indian territory
were captured after their Sabre jets were brought by the Indian Air Force.
After the Boyra incident, the government decided to permit Indian troops to
cross the border in self defence and carry out counter attacks against Pak
forces aggression against Indian posts.2
Pak
and Indian Strategies
When
Operation ‘‘Searchlight’ was launched on 25 March 1971 , the strength of Pak troops in East Pakistan was four infantry brigades. This was
quickly built up to four infantry divisions, approximately 25,000 irregulars,
and two regiments less a squadron of tanks. The Pak Air Force in East Pakistan comprised 20 to 25 Sabre jets and a few
helicopters. The Pak Navy had a substantial number of gunboats operating in the
coastal and inland waters. India India Pakistan India Pakistan
The
task assigned to General Niazi was to defend East Pakistan
against external aggression. With the troops available to him, he could not
defend the entire length of the border.
He decided that a fortress concept of defence was the best, under the
circumstances. This envisaged towns and communication centres ahead of the
major rivers being held in strength, which the Indians would have to reduce
before advancing to the interior. Accordingly, the important communication
centres of Jessore, Jhenida, Bogra, Rangpur, Jamalpur, Mymensingh, Sylhet,
Bhairab Bazar, Comilla and Chittagong Dacca Dacca
The
Indian strategy conceived of offensive defence in the west, defence in the
north, and a swift offensive in the east. Since East
Pakistan was surrounded by India East Pakistan , the
whole of it would have to be captured. However, initial planning was done only
up to the river line, with Dacca East Pakistan . In the event, these plans
were later modified, and orders issued to liberate the whole of East Pakistan.3
The responsibility for detailed planning of
the operations rested on the Director of Military Operations, Major General
K.K. Singh (later Major General I.S. Gill), who enjoyed the trust and
confidence of the Army Chief. The plans were subjected to close scrutiny by General
Manekshaw, who went over every detail before giving his assent, after several
sittings. Though India
HQ
XXXIII Corps, located at Siliguri, was made responsible for operations in the
northwestern sector, which would be executed by 20 Mountain Division.. For the southwestern
sector, the formations earmarked were 9 Infantry Division and 4 Mountain
Division, which would be controlled by a new corps headquarters - HQ II Corps. In the eastern sector the requirement was
three divisions, one for the thrust towards Sylhet, another for Ashuganj and
the third for Chandpur-Daudkandi. The formations earmarked for this sector were
57, 23 and 8 Mountain Divisions, with control being exercised by HQ IV Corps at
Tezpur, which was moved to Agartala for the operations. The northern sector, which did not appear to
be heavily defended, was allotted to HQ 101 Communication Zone Area.
The
plan was ready by early July, when Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora,
GOC-in-C Eastern Command was brought into the picture. In addition to the
existing commitments against the Chinese, he was given the task of destroying
Pakistani forces and occupying the major portion of East
Bengal , including the ports of Chittagaong, Chalna and Khulna
SIGNALS
PLANNING AND PREPARATIONS
Signals
Directorate
Though
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wanted to undertake military operations in East Pakistan as early as April 1971, the Chief of Army
Staff prevailed on her to postpone them by at least six months, so that the
Army was fully prepared. This proved to be a boon, especially for Signals. This
was the first occasion after Independence
The
SO-in-C, Lieutenant General E.G Pettengell; his deputy, Major General K.S.
Garewal; and the Deputy Director Telecommunications (DD Tels), Brigadier M.S.
Sodhi, began working on the Signals plan in April 1971. Though the tactical
plan underwent several changes before it crystallized, they were able to
anticipate the communication requirements and went ahead with the
preparations. The detailed planning and
execution of the Signals plan was the responsibility of CSO, Eastern Command.
However, the provision of resources and coordination with other departments had
to be done at Delhi
Since
construction and maintenance of PL routes, carrier stations and static
exchanges was the responsibility and prerogative of the P&T Department,
coordination and liaison with them had to be done at the highest level. The
Deputy SO-in-C carried out a survey of the assistance required and personally
visited each area accompanied by Brigadier Sodhi and Mr. Shenoy, a member of
the P&T Board. Wherever the P&T infrastructure was non-existent or
could not be provided in time, it was decided to provide these from Army
resources. A large number of new PL routes had to be constructed, for which
sanction of the Government was obtained.
In areas where PL could not be laid in time, the feasibility of
alternate means of communications such as microwave or radio relay was examined
and adopted.
To
make up the deficiency of equipment, all possible avenues were explored. The
Central Ordnance Depot at Agra
The
Signals plan had to cater not only for the requirements of the Army formations
but also those of para military forces which would be operating under Army
control. There were several other organisations such as the Border Roads Task
Force and Special Intelligence Bureau whose communications had to be
coordinated with those of the Army.
Major H.C. Malhotra, who was posted
as GSO 2 (Staff Duties) in Signals 1 Section of the Signals Directorate, recalls
that some where towards the end of March 1971 when things started building
up in East Pakistan , a number of Bengali
speaking officers were moved out from the Directorate to Eastern Command. Among
them were Major S.G. Mookerjee and Major P.K. Ghosh. A large number of new
signal units were raised to meet operational requirements. In order to ensure
that the various requirements of the new raisings were met on top priority and
things did not get held up on account of procedural delays, a daily meeting of
all concerned was held in the office of Joint Secretary (G) in the Ministry of
Defence, Mr. Lulla. Every problem, however inconsequential, was raised at this
meeting and resolved. One such problem was the of non availability of cooking
utensils in ‘Bravo’ Signal Regiment that was under raising at Tezpur.
Among Malhotra’s jobs was to draw up the proposed War Establishments (WE)
of new raisings, get them approved by the Deputy SO-in-C, SO-in-C and the
General Staff and then hold discussions with the concerned officers in the
Ministry of Defence and Defence (Finance) for issue of the government letter.
There was a refreshing change in the attitude of the bureaucracy. Instead of
delaying and being ‘difficult’ while sanctioning new units, they approved cases
without too much fuss.5
1 Army HQ Signal Regiment
Army
HQ Signals comprised 1 and 2 Army HQ Signal Regiments, both located at Delhi
Like
other units and formations in the Indian Army, 1 Army HQ Signal Regiment began
to make preparations for the impending operations from the middle of 1971
onwards. The Deputy SO-in-C personally
initiated and supervised major changes in the rooms housing the telephone
exchange in South Block, which were modified and expanded to take on the
additional trunk positions that would be required. Similar improvements were
carried out in the signal centre and the tape relay centre. The P&T
Department worked with remarkable speed, providing new speech and telegraph
circuits as soon as they were demanded. By the time the operations started,
there were 38 speech and 23 telegraph circuits emanating from Delhi
At
that time, Army HQ Signals was heavily dependent on the P&T Department for
the maintenance of speech circuits terminated at the South Block exchanges, the
telegraph circuits at the tape relay centre and the RTT circuits from the transmitters
and receivers to the Signals Enclave. Realising the importance of liaison with
P&T Department, an ad hoc defence liaison organization comprising one
officer and about 15 OR was created from within the resources of both
regiments. Overall responsibility for the functioning of this organization was
given to 2 Army HQ Signal Regiment. This proved its worth later during the
actual operations and was subsequently made a permanent feature.
During
the second half of 1971, there was large scale move of formations. Apart from
the increase in traffic, it created peculiar problems for Signals. According to
the procedure then in vogue, a copy of the move order was given by the Staff
Duties Directorate in Army HQ to the duty signal officer. However, there was
often considerable time lag between the actual move and the receipt of
information. Under normal circumstances this delay did not cause much trouble
but after June 1971 the number of units and formations moving became very
large, leading to problems in routing of messages. The problem was aggravated
when formations started moving without knowing their own final destinations. In a few cases the Indarmy signal centre came
to know of the destination of formations in advance and started routing signals
accordingly. However, the signal centres at the destination stations were
usually not aware of such moves. A number of telephones calls at different
levels had to be made before the signal centres started accepting such messages
for formations that were yet to arrive. In some cases, messages had to be kept
in the Indarmy signal centre for up to three days without clearance.6
Lieutenant General S.R.R. Aiyengar,
who had joined the unit at the fag end of the war, narrates an interesting
incident that occurred to him:-
I was on a night shift duty at the
Signal Exchange. The Exchange was functioning from the basement of South Block.
It was humming with activity with red lights blinking incessantly indicating
some VIP call is being progressed. I guess some tempers were flying around at
the delays and disruptions of calls. I suddenly saw the Exchange supervisor on
duty storming into my cabin looking very visibly harassed. He mentioned that
the then DMO was boiling with rage and wanted me to speak to him urgently. I
made a quick enquiry about what had happened and what possibly could be the
reason for his annoyance. Some important call of his to a formation commander
was disrupted and he was keen to find out why his call was disconnected by the
Exchange. Having got my facts from our end clear, I rang up the DMO. He
was still very angry and upset and he also was not very discrete in
the language he was using. I could appreciate his anger but couldn’t stand the
language he was using to convey his annoyance. He even went to extent of
accusing our operator for monitoring his call. After he had finished his
outpourings, I thought, I should also convey how I felt about it. I had told
him to be careful about the language he used and how unbecoming of an officer
especially of his rank and stature. I also said that if he thinks he is the
only one keeping the vigil, he better find out how others also are
engaged in their work round the clock, not too far from his office This was
perhaps like a red rag to a bull and as he slammed his telephone, he warned me
that I better keep my CO informed about what all had transpired. It was bit
late in the night to inform our CO. I decided to put it down in writing after
carrying out a detailed post-mortem about the call being alleged to have been
monitored and disconnected. I enclosed it an envelope and instructed the
Exchange Staff to hand it over the CO when he comes on his daily round of
the Exchange. I also briefed my next relief about what I had written. I did not
hear anything from my CO. Later I learnt that the DMO paid a surprise visit to
the Exchange and saw for himself how we were manning our exchange and seemed to
be very appreciative of our dedication and commitment. He had also
mentioned in the passing that he wanted me to meet him later when he is free.
The meeting never took place for I guess both of us were never free!
I also recollect my short stint as OIC Tape Relay
Centre (TRC) which was functioning from the Signals Enclave Complex those days.
Then Major D. Kumar (Dickey) was the permanent incumbent and I was asked to
officiate during his temporary absence. This I must say was a very big learning
experience especially when so much signal centre traffic was being routed
through the TRC. Timely clearance of SITREPS and compiling pending state of
traffic was indeed very demanding. The continuous chatter of the Teleprinters
was maddening and the deafening noise was still ringing in your ears when one
stepped out of the TRC. I very vividly remember the towering presence of one
Subedar Major Balan (he later became an Honorary Captain). His commitment and
dedication was something to be seen and admired. He was a great source of
inspiration to all of us at the TRC and his quiet and unassuming nature was
remarkable. I also like to add here that very often we would see our
Commandant, then Brigadier K.K.K. Seth walking into the TRC at night , probably
in his after dinner walks and enquiring as to how things are at the TRC. His
genuine and caring attitude was always very encouraging. I was a bachelor
then and I felt little more comfortable with a camp-cot in my cabin being
just adequate. With so much happening especially at night, sleep was a very
secondary affair. Also periodic service of hot tea during the night made it all
that waking hours more comfortable.7
Though 1 Army HQ Signal Regiment was
physically far from the actual scene of operations, all personnel of the unit
felt that they were actively engaged in fighting the war in their own way. This
was mainly the result of the dynamic leadership of the CO, Lieutenant Colonel
B.P. Murgai. Officers who formed part of his highly motivated team recall the
tremendous enthusiasm and encouragement which they got from their CO, which
‘was bursting from his chest’, was very infectious! The performance of the unit was recognised by
a rich haul of awards, perhaps the largest by any Signals unit. Colonel Murgai
was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal; while Major S.P Dewan and Major Shyam
Prasada were ‘Mentioned-in-Despatches’.
2 Army HQ Signal Regiment
The unit was under the command of
Lieutenant Colonel Shanker Ambady, while the second-in-command was Major R.S.
Lobo. Other officers holding important appointments were Majors L.K. Chopra (1
Company); G. Natarajan (2 Company); and Ranjit Singh (QM). The unit had three Technical
Officers Telecommunications (TOT). They were Major Gurdial Singh (OC
Transmitters); Captain G. Ponnu (OC Receivers) and Major Kartar Singh (OC ‘M’
Section). The receiver station was located at Ridge, New Delhi Meerut New Delhi Meerut
2
Company was located in the wireless village on the Upper Ridge Road Buddha Jayanti
Park New Delhi East
Pakistan radio and were the first to receive news about Niazi’s
surrender. They rang up the Army Chief directly and informed him at about 0630 hours.
An hour later official confirmation came based on signal intelligence reports.
The
maintenance of the wireless village was the responsibility of the Central
Public Works Department (CPWD). They operationalised dispersal huts in record
time. Similarly the Superintending Engineer of the Delhi Electric Supply
Undertaking personally attended meetings called by Natarajan and ensured
installation of a new generator, standby power arrangements and air
conditioning. All this was done without any paper work, sanctions or payment,
through mutual relationship and liaison. The Assistant Engineer, P&T, Mr.
Ramaswamy, kept a permanent team of linemen to take care of local lines and
remote control cables. Shortly before the operations one midnight he mentioned to an irritated
Natarajan, “Sir, lines may come in, lines
may go out; but man to man relation should not change.” According to
Natarajan, this incident was a turning point in his life.8
The communication links from the
signal centre in Delhi Meerut Moradabad Delhi Meerut
The HF links manned by the unit
were operational throughout the war in 1971 but were not used in any
significant way because all the trunk speech and telegraph circuits
provided by the P&T remained fully functional. The only occasion when
the links were used was after the end of the war, when communications had to be
established with Dacca Rawalpindi Pakistan Dacca Dacca Delhi Delhi 18
December 1971 . The SO-in-C, who was waiting for the call, also
spoke to Dacca
The technical control
organisation and the fault control liaison teams had a hectic time during this
period in maintaining line communication in liaison with the P&T
staff. The fault control liaison teams
operated in shifts round the clock at the P&T coaxial and VFT centres. An
officer was detailed on each shift in view of the importance of maintaining
line communications. Captain Harbans Singh was in charge of the liaison
team with the P&T in New
Delhi
After
the operations, the Deputy SO-in-C asked the Commandant and the two COs for citations. Colonel Ambady declined to write,
maintaining that communications were provided by the entire team and individual
citations will mar the importance of team effort. Instead of individual awards,
he preferred a trophy for Army HQ Signals. Since he declined to write citations
the Commandant asked CO 1 Army HQ Signal Regiment to write one for Major Kartar
Singh, who was physically located in their complex and was directly dealing
with the tape relay centre and exchange duty officers for termination and fault
rectification. Kartar was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal.
Eastern
Command Signals
The
Signals plan for Operation ‘Cactus Lily’ was prepared and executed by Brigadier
K.K. Tewari, CSO Eastern Command, based at Calcutta Sikkim Bhutan East Pakistan ,
such as Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Assam Calcutta
An important geographical factor
was that all communications – P&T, road and rail - into the North- East
region of India passed through the narrow ‘corridor’ between the northern parts
of East Pakistan and Sikkim, which was highly vulnerable and could be easily
cut off. The only reliable means of communications in 1971 was the microwave
link from Calcutta Darjeeling Darjeeling
Soon
after he assumed charge, Tewari was confronted with a major communications assignment.
In early 1971 the Army was asked to assist the civil authorities in the conduct
of elections in West Bengal . It was a most unusual task, where the Army
was deployed to guard the polling booths and supervise the conduct of the
elections in the whole of West Bengal . Almost
1000 radio detachments - 560 HF and 440 VHF – had to be pooled from all over India
After
Pakistan Dacca 25 March 1971 ,
refugees started streaming into India East Pakistan in Sylhet area, but
it was established. This move paid dividends later during actual operations,
when a VHF link had to be established from the microwave terminal at Shillong
to Teliamura in Tripura. The P&T Department wanted to locate the terminal in
Agartala but Tewari insisted on Teliamura, which was further away from the
border and outside the range of Pakistani artillery. In the event, this proved
providential and the link proved to be the life line on which the whole of IV
Corps depended for their communications for the three divisional thrust lines.
In the words of General Tewari: “We could
quote this as an example of workability, because P and T Department had refused
to consider our request for a VHF link saying that it was too long a distance and
VHF would not work. We proved it to them
that the RR was working perfectly well.
There was a particular gentleman of the P&T Department who had just
come back from America
In
July 1971 Eastern Command was warned by Army HQ to be prepared for Operation
‘Cactus Lily’, which involved advance by three corps along multiple thrust
lines. To cater for the formations that were to take part in the operation,
administrative installations were created at Dharmanagar, Teliamura, Raiganj
and Krishnagar. Communications for these
administrative installations were provided by DCSO 101 Communication Zone Area,
57 Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment, CSO XXXIII Corps and DCSO Bengal Area
respectively. To cater for the deployment of the field formations it was
decided to develop Krishnagar, Tura and Teliamura as communication
centres. Out of these, Tura and
Teliamura had no telecommunication facilities, where as Krishnagar was
adequately connected to Calcutta
Once
an outline plan of induction and the numbers of formations involved was finalised,
detailed studies were carried out to work out the requirement of resources, new
line construction and installation of systems. At that time, the following
units were on the order of battle of Eastern Command:-
·
IV and XXXIII Corps
Signal Regiments.
·
L, N, S and V
Communication Zone Signal Regiments.
·
2, 5, 8, 17, 20, 23, 27
and 57 Mountain Divisional Signal Regiments.
·
Eastern Command Signal
Regiment & Mobile Signal Company
·
2 Air Support Signal
Regiment.
·
Bengal Area Signal
Company
·
1 Radio Monitoring Company
·
312 (I) and 342 (I) Air
Defence Brigade Signal Companies.
·
107 TA (P & T)
Signal Company
Most
of the above units would be fully committed in case of a hot war. Whereas some
spare capacity was available with IV Corps Signal Regiment, L Communication Zone
Signal Regiment and 2 Air Support Signal Regiment, some other units like
Eastern Command Signal Regiment and Bengal Area Signal Company were not
adequately organized to meet their known tasks.
It was also known that the deployment against the Chinese had to remain
in a very high pitch of readiness, that the counter insurgency operations in
Nagaland and Mizoram would continue and that Signals would have to be prepared
to assist the P&T Department in the maintenance of essential services
during internal strikes and bandhs.
Keeping in mind the above, the requirement of additional resources was
worked out and discussed during various meetings between the CSO and the
SO-in-C. Signals Directorate indicated
that only the following additional resources are likely to be made available to
Eastern Command:-
·
One corps signal
regiment.
·
One or two independent
signal companies (mountain brigade)
·
Air support tentacles,
based on the actual number of formations deployed.
·
Some increments of
CSO’s branch in HQ Eastern Command.
An example of the problems being
faced with regard to the shortage of manpower, and how they were overcome, is
the manner in which Tewari managed to get some staff officers for the Signals
Branch. The staff available to him was
insufficient and he had been asking for a deputy (a full colonel) and two
majors. In spite of all his pleadings he
was not getting the additional staff. The SO-in-C tried his best but was not
able to get additional staff sanctioned. On 31 October General Pettengell asked
Brigadier Tewari to come to Delhi
Tewari got upset and said, “Mr. Joshi, I have come all the way from Calcutta
Joshi responded, “Well I don’t think there is any need to
present the case again. It has been
considered before”.
Tewari got worked up and said, “Mr. Joshi, in 1962 we, fought a war with China
After this outburst, Tewari
realised that he had probably said too much. But it did have the desired
effect. He did get some staff - a lieutenant colonel and one additional major.
The
following new raisings were ordered by Army HQ for Eastern Command, with the
place and date of raising shown against each:-
·
II Corps Signal
Regiment less 3 Company Krishnagar
4 October 1971
·
Bravo Signal Regt Tezpur
7 August 1971
·
1001 (I) Mountain
Brigade Signal Company Tezpur 7 August 1971
·
1002 (I) Mountain
Brigade Signal Company Tezpur
7 August 1971
·
Ad Hoc Company Eastern
Command Signal Regiment Calcutta 29 April 1971
·
1004 Ad Hoc Signal
Company Gauhati
18 December 1971
·
8 Mountain Artillery
Brigade Signal Company Panagarh Not
known
Since
the newly raised units were to be used in a likely war during the winter of
1971/72, there was little time even for the raising, let alone training and
marrying up the equipment with manpower.
In fact all these units except 1002 (I) Mountain Brigade Signal Company
were immediately committed to the provisioning of operational signal
communications, because though a formal
war broke out only on 3 December 1971, border skirmishes had started much
earlier. The raisings were delayed due to rail and road communications having
been disrupted as a result of the floods.
The urgency was not felt in the rear depots and areas and despatch of
stores was not prompt and coordinated, leading to additional work to correct
the mistakes. For instance, C 41/R222 sets used for radio relay were issued to
Bravo Signal Regiment with PE 75 generators but without the transformers to
step up the voltage to 230V AC as required by the equipment. It took considerable time in procuring these
locally and subsequently progressing their issue through the Signals
Directorate. Similarly, cable was issued
without the cable laying apparatus. Due
to lack of urgency on the part of dispatching depots, units were forced to send
escorts to expedite the dispatches. At
one time Bravo Signal Regiment had more than 30% its strength out on escort
duties only
Signals
played an important role in deciding the locations of the headquarters of the
formations taking part in the operations viz. IV Corps, II Corps and 101 Communication
Zone Area at Teliamura, Krishnanagar and
Tura respectively. Apart from the various other tactical and technical factors,
the two main factors that had a direct bearing on the above selection was the
potential for development for planned offensive operations and the flexibility
to switch axes. The requirement of a
tactical headquarters for XXXIII Corps was also considered and Raiganj was
considered a suitable location. No Army units, much less any signal
installation existed at any of the places hence communications infrastructure
had to be created from scratch. The respective formation signal units, except
in case of XXXIII Corps, were not available to be moved to these places. An early decision which proved very useful
was taken to move the regimental headquarters with some elements of N, V and S
Communication Zone Signal Regiments to Teliamura, Krishnanagar and Tura
respectively. This timely decision created a base at these places on which
communications could be developed. It also enabled close liaison with the
P&T Department and the construction of PL routes.
PL
routes under the BOPEL scheme had been projected in the early sixties and were
periodically reviewed. However, except in Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal
(NEFA), very little construction had been carried in Eastern Command in the
region bordering East Pakistan , as no major
offensive operations were visualised before 1971. The resources then available
were too meagre to complete these routes within the time available. Neither the
P&T Department nor the Army was geared up to undertake this construction.
All available efforts were, therefore, concentrated to develop the main
arteries viz. Teliamura-Amarpur-Udaipur; Teliamura-Agartala-Champansar;
Dharmanagar-Patharkandi-Karimganj and Balurghat-Raiganj.
The
availability of multi channel systems along the required arteries was
inadequate to cater for the planned requirements. A tentative requirement of
circuits that would be required was projected to the Army HQ and the P&T
authorities in Eastern Zone. A certain amount of security risk was involved in
this action but was accepted so that the desired systems could be installed in
time. Some P&T types of multi channel equipment was also made available by
the SO-in-C for use as mobile stations. The P&T Department also diverted
equipment from some existing systems in areas which were either not important
or where alternate and surplus capacity existed. The backup systems to the
microwave arteries were particularly handy in this respect. In spite of these
measures, the availability of Voice Frequency Telegraphy (VFT) equipment fell
far short of the requirement, which adversely affected the provisioning of
telegraph circuits. This was further aggravated by the fact that the 3-channel
stackable equipment with the P&T Department was not compatible with the
Army (S+DX ) 4A which was being gradually
introduced into service. The frequencies used in the (S+DX) 4A are outside the
channel bandwidth of the 3-channel stackable. The problem was solved by a simple
modification of disconnecting the audio limiting input filter of the 3-channel
stackable. The P&T Department was initially reluctant to allow such and
other ‘playing about’ with their systems. However, once things started moving
there was ample mutual cooperation and they allowed use of Army equipment over
their lines and systems without formal agreements. Some of the P&T systems
such as Agartala-Udaipur Ranaghat-Bongaon and Raiganj-Balurghat were in
unsatisfactory state of serviceability and were repaired with the help of the
Army. Similarly extensive Army assistance was provided for rehabilitation of
P&T lines and also in the form of transport to carry their equipment and
exchanges which were meant for the Army.
Since it was known that operations
would be conducted deep into enemy territory, it was important to obtain
information of communications infrastructure in East Pakistan ,
which could be used by the advancing troops. It was soon realised that among
the refugees who had crossed over into India East Bengal .
Members of the team visited the refugee camps located at various
locations and interrogated personnel who could give the required information.
The information collected by the team was compiled and a Telecom Intelligence
Report was issued by CSO Eastern Command to all Signals units before the
operations commenced. The 33 page report provided valuable information on the
communication infrastructure in East Pakistan ,
such as microwave links, VHF links, permanent lines, telephone exchanges etc.
It also gave details of the communication networks of the Army, Air Force,
Police and East Pakistan Rifles, along with the type and quantities of
equipment being used. Of special interest to Signals was the organisation and
functioning of Pakistan Army Signals, down to unit and sub-unit level.
To
augment the signal intelligence in Eastern Command, it was decided that that
the Central Monitoring Organisation (CMO) resources would be placed under the
Signal Intelligence organisation. The resources available to the para military
units were also to be utilised for this purpose. This was coordinated during
meetings held with Brigadier Ajit Singh, MBE, Director CMO; Brigadier J.S. Kalra, Director Signal Intelligence; Brigadier S.R.
Khurana, Wireless Adviser, Border Security Force and Brigadier Vinayak Mehta,
who was in charge of communications for the Central Reserve Police Force.
Another important decision was to place the Signal Intelligence resources
directly under HQ Eastern Command. This was agreed only after Major General
J.F.R Jacob, the Chief of Staff in Calcutta
N Communication Zone
Signal Regiment
The unit was originally raised as
Nagaland Signal Regiment with only two companies in 1963. It was subsequently
re-designated as ‘N’ Communication Zone Signal Regiment and moved Jorhat in Assam
As
soon the Signals plan for the operation had been finalised, the construction of
new PL routes was ordered. The projected location of HQ IV Corps was at
Teliamura. The unit was required to build the communication infrastructure at
Teliamura from scratch, since none existed until then. It was also assigned the
task of constructing the new PL route Teliamura-Amarpur-Udaipur-Kakraban in
Tripura. To facilitate this task and ensure better coordination with the
P&T Department, the regimental headquarters and some elements were moved to
Teliamura from Jorhat, where the unit continued to man the static communications.
The
target date given to the unit for completion of the PL route by the SO-in-C was
5 October 1971 .
The distance was 108 km and the task involved construction of two pairs of 242
lbs copper weld A4BC route, carrier transposed. The CO had some reservations
about being able to complete the task in time, but asked Major Jagmohan Khullar
and his boys to go all out and start the work. The line was constructed by 2
October, three days ahead of the target date. One pair of this route was later
extended to Sonamura, a distance of 26 km. This was duly conveyed by Brigadier
G.S. Sidhu, CSO IV Corps to Brigadier Tewari, who reported the completion of
the route to the SO-in-C, adding that the circuits were working satisfactorily.
On 6 October, General Pettengell replied:
“I am
very pleased to know that the PL route from TELLIAMURA to KAKARABAN via UDAIPUR
was completed by BHANDARI’s boys on 02 Oct 71 – 3 days before the target date
indicated by me. You will remember that in the course of conversation the CO
felt the time limit given was too short. Please congratulate them for the good
work. I would like to see all their future tasks completed with the same
enthusiasm and speed without having to be pressed unnecessarily. Where there’s
a will there’s always a way”. 12
The
unit continued to perform creditably after the commencement of the operations,
laying several PL and PVC routes and rehabilitating existing routes in Bangladesh Bangladesh Bangladesh East Pakistan . In all 501 km of PL
routes were rehabilitated.
After the operations were over,
elements of the unit were left behind till 10 May 1972 to man signal centres at Dharmanagar
and Masimpur, which they had been manning since July 1971. The good work done
by the unit was recognised by the award of the Vishisht Seva Medal to the CO,
Lieutenant Colonel B.K. Bhandari and a ‘Mention in Despatches’ to Major
Jagmohan Khullar.15
OPERATION
‘CACTUS LILY’
Preliminary
Operations
In
November 1971 Indian troops were permitted to go into East
Pakistan up to a depth of ten miles to silence enemy guns that had
started shelling Indian border posts. These instructions were used to advantage
by Indian troops to secure specific areas which helped in improving our
offensive posture. HQ Eastern Command gave its formations the following tasks,
which were expanded as the situation developed:-
·
II Corps - to invest
enemy defences in area Afra and capture Mohammedpur; secure the Khalispur Bridge
·
XXXIII Corps - to clear
Pachagarh and advance as far south as possible towards Thaurgaon; and capture
Hilli.
·
101 Communication Zone
Area – to capture Jaintiapur; capture Kamalpur and advance to Bakshiganj; and
threaten Mymensingh, Haluaghat, Phulpur, Shyamganj and Durgapur
·
IV Corps – to capture
Gangasagar and clear area up to Saidabad; establish a battalion block in area
Debigram; isolate Akhaura and Brahman Baria; eliminate Pakistani border posts
in Narayanpur area; capture Shamshernagar and Kalhaura; and isolate Feni.
Most
of the preliminary operations were completed before the commencement of
hostilities on 4 December
1971 . On the Chaugacha-Jessore axis, 9 Infantry Division had reached
Arpana, about half way from the border to Jessore. A bridge had been
constructed across the Bhairab river at Bayra, linking it with the road to
Chaugacha. Meanwhile, 4 Mountain Division had captured Jibanagar, Uthali and
Darsana and advanced towards Khalispur on the Jibanagar-Kotchadnpur axis and up
to Silind on the Darsana- Kotchadnpur axis.
In
the North-Western Sector, parts of Hilli defences like Naoara, Monapara and
Basudebpur had been occupied but Hilli itself could not be captured, due to
stiff resistance by the enemy. In the area of Dinajpur, Khanpur and Mukundpur
had been occupied. On the Samja-Phulbari axis, both banks of the Ichamati River Dharla River
In
the South-Eastern Sector, the salient east of the line Chargam-Karimganj had
been secured. In the area of Kalaura, Ghazipur had been captured, Kalaura
invested and the Shamsernagar airfield secured. In the Akhaura area, Gangasagar
had been captured and a block established to its west. Further south, the whole
of the Belonia bulge had been cleared.
In
these preliminary operations, whenever attacks were launched against well prepared
defences, the Pakistanis fought doggedly and did not give up easily. The
attacks on Hilli defences commenced on 23 November but the position was finally
captured only on 11 December, after the loss of 67 killed and 90 wounded. In
the North-Eastern Sector, the garrison at Kamalpur beat back two attacks by 95
Infantry Brigade, surrendering only after their supplies ran out. The
Teliakhalli post was captured at the cost of 23 killed and 35 wounded. In the
South-Eastern Sector the Khalai post, held initially by a Pakistani platoon that
was later built up to two companies, repulsed two consecutive attacks and was
finally cleared by a whole brigade.
It
had been planned to carry out an airdrop by a battalion at Tangail, where
‘Tiger’ Siddiqui was located with about 20,000 Freedom Fighters. A parachute battalion was to link up with the Freedom
Fighters and 95 Infantry Brigade advancing from the north, after which the
combined force was to move towards Dacca East Pakistan and contacted Siddiqui, to seek his help in
preparing the dropping zone for the air drop by the battalion. He also briefed
Siddiqui and asked for his assistance in the collection of stores that were to
be dropped as also in establishing a road block. Siddiqui was also told that in
the event of war his forces were to move with Indian troops to Dacca
Outbreak
of War
The
Indo Pak war of 1971 began at 1740 hours on 3 December 1971 , when the Pakistani Air Force
bombed several Indian airfields in West India .
At 1800 hours General Manekshaw telephoned Major General Jacob, and told him
that war had begun and he would be issuing confirmatory orders shortly. He also
asked Jacob to notify Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was then in Calcutta Delhi 4 December 1971 the Indian
invasion of East Bengal was underway.
Eastern
Command was given the task of destroying enemy forces and occupying the major
portion of East Pakistan . HQ Eastern Command
in turn tasked its formations as under:
·
In the South – Western
Sector, II Corps comprising 4
Mountain Division, 9 Mountain Division, 50 Parachute Brigade less a battalion,
a regiment of armour (PT-76) and a squadron of T-55 tanks was to capture
Jessore and Jhenida and subsequently secure Hardinge Bridge, Goalundo Ghat and
Faridpur ferries and Khulna.
·
In the North – Western
Sector, XXXIII Corps comprising 20
Mountain Division and 71 Mountain Brigade was to cut the line Hilli-Gaibanda
and to capture Bogra Rangpur.
·
In the Central Sector, 101 Communication Zone comprising 95
Mountain Brigade and FJ Sector was to capture Jamalpur and Mymensingh and
subsequently Tangail. A para drop by one battalion was to take place at
Tangail.
·
In the Eastern Sector, IV Corps comprising 8, 57 and 23
Mountain Divisions was to capture Maulvi Bazar, Sylhet, Daudkandi-Mynamati and
Lalmai Hills (South) – Laksham and subsequently Chandpur respectively. 311
Brigade with Kilo Force was to capture Chittagong
OPERATIONS ON THE II
CORPS FRONT
Lieutenant General T.N. Raina, MVC,
was the GOC II Corps. The divisional commanders under him were Major General Dalbir
Singh (9 Infantry Division) and Major General M.S. Barar (4 Mountain Division).
In addition, he had Major General P. Chowdry (Bengal Area) and Brigadier Mathew
Thomas (50 Parachute Brigade). Raina considered Jessore to be the key to the
defence of this Sector and planned his operations accordingly. The aim was to liberate territory west of the
river Padma. He planned to do this by containing Pakistani strongholds near the
border while fast-moving columns bypassed them and raced for the Madhumati river
to prevent the bulk of the enemy from withdrawing across the river and making
for the Meghna ferries to Dacca Khulna Barisal Khulna
9 Infantry Division
The task allotted to 9 Infantry Division
was to capture Jessore by D plus 7, followed by the capture of Khulna
In a swift night operation 42
Infantry Brigade secured Garibpur, as a preliminary operation. The enemy
launched a counter attack with infantry and armour but failed to dislodge 14 Punjab which had captured this position, supported by PT
76 tanks. In the process, the Pakistanis
lost a large number of tanks and personnel. Indian troops also suffered
substantial casualties, but lost only a couple of tanks. After the capture of Garibpur, the divisional
commander changed his original plan of advance to Jessore. He sent 42 and 350
Infantry Brigades on the central and northern approaches, but due to heavy
resistance these were held up at Arpara and Burinda. Though Burinda was captured by 350 Brigade on
5 December after heavy casualties, the GOC felt that the northern approach
would pay better dividends and would be less expensive in casualties.
Bringing 32 Infantry Brigade to the
north, the divisional commander ordered 42 Brigade to secure Durgabarkati and
32 Brigade to pass through and capture Jessore.
2 Sikh Light Infantry supported by a squadron of 63 Cavalry captured
Durgabarkati on the morning of 6 December. As planned, 32 Brigade passed
through and advanced towards Jessore, clearing Afra which was vacated by the
enemy on the night of 6/7 December. On 7
December Jessore was vacated by the enemy who pulled out without a fight.
Jessore was held by an infantry brigade group supported by tanks and artillery
and it had been estimated that its reduction would involve up to a week’s
bitter fighting. Instead, it fell in a single day.
After the fall of Jessore, 32
Infantry Brigade continued its advance to Khulna Khulna Khulna 15 December, 350 Brigade was launched
from the north and 1 Jammu & Kashmir Rifles secured Syamganj, after
suffering fairly heavy casualties. In
the next phase, 4 Sikh secured Eastern Siramani
by early morning of 16 December. Subsequently, the third battalion, 13 Dogra,
captured Western Siramani on the same day.
While the attack of 13 Dogra was in progress and 14 Punjab
was about to cross the River Bhairab, orders were received for a cease fire at
1500 hours on 16 December. In a brief ceremony held next day at Khulna
4 Mountain Division
The task given to 4 Mountain Division
was to capture Jhenida by D plus 8, followed by the securing of the ferry site
over Madhumati river by D plus 11. The
divisional commander, Major General M.S. Barar planned to advance with 41
Brigade on the Uthali-Kotchandpur axis
and with 62 Brigade on the Jibannagar-Kaliganj axis. After the capture of Kotchandpur, he planned
to employ 41 Brigade along the Kotchandpur-Sadhuhati axis and 62 Brigade along
the Kaliganj-Jhenida axis.
Uthali and Jibanagar were secured as
a preliminary operation. In order to
clear the axis of maintenance, 41 Brigade decided to capture Darsana. In the early hours of 4 December, 22 Rajput captured the railway embankment
followed by the capture of the railway station by 5/1 Gorkha Rifles. By mid day, Darsana town had been secured. On
the Kailganj axis, 62 Brigade encountered stiff resistance at Khalipur and was
ordered to advance along a minor track in the north towards Suadih, which was
found to be strongly held. After a determined
attack, 5 Maratha Light Infantry and 9 Dogra (ex-41 Brigade) captured Suadih by
early morning on 5 December. Subsequently, 9 Dogra captured Kotchandpur in the
afternoon.
The divisional commander decided to
isolate Chaudanga and attack Jhenida before the troops in the front could fall
back on this fortress. He sent 5 Guards (ex-41 Brigade) with an armoured
squadron to establish a block in Sadhuhati area, to deal with any enemy
withdrawing from Chaudanga. On 6
December, 5/1 Gorkha Rifles established a bridge head over the Chitra River
The next task was the capture of
Kushtia and Hardinge
Bridge Hardinge
Bridge 11
December 971 .
Information was received that an ad
hoc force of the enemy was holding the east bank of Madhumati River
OPERATIONS
ON THE XXXIII CORPS FRONT
Lieutenant General M.L. Thapan was
the GOC XXXIII Corps. He had under his command 20 Mountain Division (Major
General Lachhman Singh, VrC) and 71 Mountain Brigade (Brigadier PN Kathpalia).
At a later stage, 6 Mountain Division (Major General P.C. Reddy) was made
responsible for the operations of 71 Mountain Brigade. The corps was also
allotted 63 Cavalry less a squadron (T 55); 69 Armoured Regiment (PT 76) and
471 Engineer Brigade for the operation. The task given to XXXIII Corps was to
cut the line Hill-Gaibanda and subsequently to capture Bogra or Rangpur,
depending on the situation. Thapan
planned to employ 20 Mountain Division for securing Hill-Gaibanda and thereafter
for the capture of Bogra. 71 Mountain
Brigade was to be utilized for the advance to Dinajpur and for the subsequent
capture of Rangpur.
71 Mountain Brigade
71 Mountain Brigade was ordered to
advance along the Pachagarh-Thakurgaon-Dinajpur axis and capture Dinajpur. In a preliminary operation, the brigade
captured Pachagarh using 7 Maratha Light Infantry, after isolating it from the
rest of the Sector by employing 21 Rajput.
The enemy had in fact withdrawn from the position, when he found that he
was cut off. Subsequently, 21 Rajput captured
Thakurgaon, which had also been vacated after being cut off by a company of the
Marathas. Continuing their advance, the brigade captured Birganj on 5 December
and contacted the Kantanagar bridge on the Dhepa river on 6 December. The Pakistanis had blown up the bridge and
were holding the area between the Dhepa and Atrai rivers in strength. The
brigade tried to cross the river but suffered heavy casualties. On the night of
9/10 December, a battalion block was established south of the enemy position towards
Dinajpur but this proved ineffective since the lines of maintenance were from
the east.
After failing to make headway
towards Dinajpur, it was decided to change the thrust line of the brigade to
the east, towards Nilphamari.
Accordingly, it crossed the Dhepa river and advanced on the
Birganj-Khansama-Darwani-Saidpur axis until it reached Khansama, where it was
help up by the enemy. After establishing a block behind the position, 21 Rajput
attacked and captured Khansama on 13 December.
The enemy tried to counter attack on 14 December, but was frustrated by
air attacks and artillery fire.
Continuing its advance, the brigade captured Darwani on 15 December. By
the morning of 16 December,
71 Brigade had reached about 8 km south-west of Nilphamari. As a
result of the relentless pressure by the brigade, the Pakistanis did not, until
the end, risk thinning out their strongholds at Saidpur, Rangpur, Parvatipur
and Dinajpur to reinforce the threatened areas further south.15
20 Mountain Division
Major General Lachhman Singh, GOC 20
Mountain Division initially planned to secure the Hilli-Gaibanda line,
employing two brigades in the advance, keeping one brigade to hold the firm
base and the fourth brigade as a reserve. He tasked 202 Mountain Brigade to capture
Hilli and then Palasbari; 66 Mountain Brigade to advance along the axis
Samjia-Phulbari-Charkai and capture Charkai, followed by Pirganj and Gaibanda;
165 Mountain Brigade to defend the area Balurghat-Malda; and 340 Mountain
Brigade to be in the reserve.
As a preliminary operation, the area
Nopara-Morapara, on the northern flank of Hilli was secured by 8 Guards (202
Mountain Brigade) while Garhwal Rifles secured Basudeopur. However, the advance of 202 Mountain Brigade
could not proceed beyond Hilli, which had been developed into a very strong
position. Meanwhile, 20 Maratha Light Infantry of 66 Brigade captured Phulbari
while Charkai was captured by 69 Armoured Regiment on 4 December by a surprise
move. In view of the strong resistance put up by the Pakistanis at Hilli, the
divisional commander decided to move 202 Brigade back through Indian
territory in the Balurghat bulge to the Charkai area and utilize
it for an advance to Ghoraghat via Bhaduria.
66 Brigade was to advance to Pirganj as originally planned via
Nawabganj.
Advancing on the track towards
Pirganj, 66 Brigade captured Nawabganj and Hathangi ferry on 5 December and
Kanchanda ferry on 6 December. However, due to the strong presence of the enemy
in the Hilli area, 202 Brigade could not be moved and was thus left behind. To
keep up the momentum of the advance, it was now decided that 66 Brigade would
hold the area Charkai-Nawabganj-Bridgehead while 340 Brigade would advance to
Pirganj. Commencing its advance early on 7 December from the Nawabganj area,
340 Brigade captured Pirganj the same evening.
The divisional commander now planned
his advance to Bogra. He decided to
utilize 340 Brigade to advance on the Pirganj-Gobindganj axis and to capture
Gobindganj followed by Bogra. Simultaneously, 66 Brigade was to advance on the
Nawabganj-Bhaduria-Goraghat axis and capture Goraghat. 202 Brigade was to capture Hilli and then
link up with 66 Brigade in the Goraghat area.
Subsequently, it was to advance on the Goraghat-Khetlal-Bogra axis.
Advancing rapidly, 340 Brigade
captured Palashbari on 9 December and Gaibanda and Phulchari ferry on 10
December, securing the ‘waistline’ and isolating Pakistani forces in the
Dinajpur-Rangpur belt. Pressing on further south, the brigade captured
Gobindganj on 11 December with a brilliant enveloping move. Meanwhile 66
Brigade captured Bhaduria with the support of tanks on 11 December. 202 Brigade
encountered stiff resistance at Hilli, but after capture of Maheshpur area in
the rear of Hilli on 10 December, the enemy started showing signs of weakness.
Three battalions – 22 Maratha Light Infantry, 4 Rajput and 8 Guards - closed in
on the Hilli position, while a fourth battalion - 4 Madras
Resuming its advance from Gobindgarh
towards Bogra, 340 Brigade captured a bridge over the Karatoya River
On 13 December, 20 Mountain Division
was ordered to capture Rangpur at the earliest.
66 Brigade advanced towards Rangpur via Mithapukur on 15 December, while
202 Brigade advanced on the western flank on 16 December. As the advance progressed, Pakistani resistance
ceased and the war ended on 16 December 1971.16
101
COMMUNICATION ZONE AREA
Major General Gurbax Singh Gill was
the GOC 101 Communication Zone Area. The formation commanders under him were
Brigadier H.S. Kler (95 Mountain Brigade) and Brigadier Sant Singh (FJ
Sector). Apart from Brigadier Kler, the
brigade majors of both formations were also signal officers - Major G.L. Rajpal (95 Mountain Brigade) and
Major (later Lieutenant General and SO-in-C) S.G. Mookerjee (FJ Sector). At a
subsequent stage, 167 Mountain Brigade (Brigadier Irani) was also allotted to
101 Communication Zone Area. The task assigned to the General Gill was to
capture Jamalpur-Mymensingh, followed by Tangail and thereafter establish
contact with Dacca Brahmaputra River
95 Mountain Brigade
As a preliminary operation, 13
Guards captured Kamalpur on 4
December 1971 . Concurrently
a force of two infantry battalions carried out a wide outflanking move and
captured Bakshiganj on 5 December, the enemy having pulled out during the
previous night. Resuming its advance on 6 December, the brigade reached the
north bank of the Brahmaputra on the evening
of 7 December, after overcoming enemy resistance along the route. During this period, Gill was injured in a
mine accident and had to be evacuated.
Major General G.C. Nagra, GOC 2 Mountain Division assumed command of 101
Communication Zone Area.
As the enemy was holding Jamalpur in
strength, it was decided that while one battalion would advance from the front
on the main axis, two battalions would carry out an outflanking move, cross the
river west of Jamalpur and establish blocks behind the enemy. Accordingly, 1 Maratha Light Infantry and 13
Guards crossed the river Shyampur after a long march on man pack basis on 6
December. Due to the delay in the arrival of their heavy weapons which were
being carried on bullock carts, the road blocks were set up only in early hours
of 9 December. At this stage Kler sent a messenger to the Pakistani garrison in
Jamalpur, asking them to surrender. Colonel Sultan, Commander Kamalpur
Fortress, sent back a sarcastic note, accompanied by a bullet, turning down the
offer, and advising Kler to fight instead of talking. He ended the note with
the words: “Hoping to find you with a
sten in your hand next time, instead of the pen you seem to have so much
mastery over”.
As the Jamalpur garrison continued
to hold out, Nagra decided to send one more battalion to the area south of
Jamalpur, with a view to clearing the position from the rear. On 8 December 167 Brigade under
Brigadier Irani was allotted to him by Eastern Command. Nagra ordered Irani to
report to him with one battalion at the earliest. Irani reported to Nagra on 9
December, but 6 Sikh Light Infantry joined the force only on 10 December and
was placed under Kler who now controlled operations from the area South of
Jamalpur. The Indians increased pressure
on the enemy at Jamalpur by air attacks and artillery. The Pakistanis tried to break out but could
not overcome the block held by the Marathas. In the process, they suffered many
casualties. Finally, early in the morning on 11 December the garrison
surrendered, though Colonel Sultan and a number of his men managed to slip out
at night.17
On the Mymensingh axis, 6 Bihar of FJ Sector attacked and captured Haluaght on 7
December, the enemy having withdrawn the previous night. Resuming the advance, they secured Sarchapur
on 9 December, after an earlier attempt to capture it on the night of 5/6
December failed. On 10 December the enemy vacated Mymensingh, which occupied on
the following day. Sant Singh occupied Madhupur on 12 December without a fight.
With the operations in Jamalpur and
Mymensingh going on favourably, it was decided to carry out the para drop as
planned. On the evening of 11 December, 2 Parachute Battalion (Lieutenant
Colonel K.S. Pannu) was dropped in the Poongli area with a view to capturing
the bridge over the Lohajang
River
The Advance Towards Dacca
It was reported that the enemy had
split into smaller groups and withdrawn to Kaliakar and Tungi. Resuming its
advance from Tangail on 13 December, 6 Sikh Light Infantry of 95 Brigade captured
Kaliakar the same night and reached the Gurag River
Nagra decided to change his plans on
14 December. He ordered Kler to move down along the Turag River Bihar and some artillery, advanced from
Kaliakar to Dharmrai area via Safipur on 14 December. After securing the
Dhamraj ferry area in the early morning of 15 December, 13 Guards, the leading
battalion, continued on to Sabhar and captured it by the evening. As 95 Brigade was held up in the Chandna
area, 167 Brigade was given the task of crossing the Turag River Meghna
River Dacca
Brigadier H.S. Kler was awarded the
MVC for this operation. His photograph and citation are given below:-
|
During the Indo-Pak War 1971, Brig
Kler commanded a mountain brigade on the Eastern front. His braigade was asked to lead the Indian
advance in Kamalpur-Turag river axis.
It involved clearing of strong enemy opposition at Kamalpur,
Bakshiganj, Jamalpur, Tangail, Mirzapur and river Turag and many minor
obstacles in between.
During the advance Brig Kler
always moved with then leading
troops, directing the operations
in
|
 |
|
complete disregard of his safety. His handling of the troops during the
battle of Jamalpur showed great professional skill. He provided great inspiration to his
troops, who had laid siege behind the enemy positions south of Jamalpur, by
his presence in the thick of the battle.
He directed the operations so skilfully and courageously that all aqttempts
by the enemy at breakthrough were foiled.
Enemy suffered heavy casualties and lost 379 men as prisoners of
war. He also lost a large quantity of
weapons and ammunition to the Indians.
Brig Kler was awarded Mahavir
Chakra for displaying outstanding courage and leadership.
|
|
OPERATIONS
ON THE IV CORPS FRONT
Lieutenant General Sagat Singh was
the GOC IV Corps, with his headquarters at Teliamura in Tripura. The formations
under his command were 8 Mountain Division (Major General K.V. Krishna Rao), 57
Mountain Division (Major General B.F Gonsalves), 23 Mountain Division (Major
General R.D. Hira, MVC) and Kilo Sector (Brigadier Anand Swarup). The corps was
given the task of securing the area up to the line of Meghna River Dacca Dacca
·
8 Mountain Division was
to capture Maulvi Bazar and thereafter the Sherpur-Sadipur ferries. Depending on the situation, the division was
to capture Sylhet and secure Brahmanbaria.
Subsequently, the division was to be prepared to participate in the
operations for the capture of Dacca
·
57 Mountain Division
was to capture Akhaura, followed by Daudkandi.
Later, it was also to capture Chittagong
·
23 Mountain Division
was to capture the southern portion of Lalmai Hills-Laksham. Thereafter it was to capture Chandpur.
Subsequently the division was also to clear the enemy from the Lalmai Hills.
·
Kilo Sector was to
capture Feni and subsequently Chittagong
8 Mountain Division
The divisional commander decided to
launch his main thrusts from the south and south-east, i.e.,
Dharmanagar-Fenchuganj-Sylhet and Kailashahar-Maulvi-Bazar-Sherpur-Sylhet. Advancing
on the Dharmanagar axis, 59 Mountain Brigade encountered stiff opposition at
Ghazipur. 6 Rajput launched an attack
but was able to capture only part of the objective, as the enemy reinforced
it. 4/5 Gorkha Rifles captured the
position on 5 December after some determined hand to hand fighting throughout
the night. Concurrently, 9 Guards
captured Kapnapahar, after some tough fighting.
The enemy counter attacked but was beaten back. Kulaura was secured without a fight on 6
December, followed by Brahman Bazar. On
7 December the advance was continued towards Fenchuganj, led by 6 Rajput.
On the Kailashahar axis, 81 Mountain
Brigade launched its attack on Shamshernagar.
After some bitter fighting 10 Mahar secured Chatlapur, while 3 Punjab captured Bagichara. In the next phase, 4 Kumaon after overcoming
stiff resistance captured Shamshernagar.
Subsequently, the battalion captured the Shamshernagar airfield.
Although damaged from air attacks, the airfield was quickly made serviceable by
the Border Roads Organization on 4 December.
Resuming the advance, 3 Punjab captured
Munshi Bazar by the evening of 6 December.
From here, 10 Mahar took over the lead and contacted the outer defences
of Maulvi Bazar the next day.
At this stage, it was learned that
the Pakistani divisional commander had instructed Pak 311 Brigade to withdraw
towards Ashuganj, but the brigade commander declined to comply with these
orders, due to a road block established by 81 Mountain Brigade on the Maulvi
Bazar-Ashuganj road. Another report indicated
that Pak 202 Brigade was trying to concentrate in Sylhet and pull out of the
sector with a view to moving to the Ashuganj area.
The corps commander now saw an
opportunity to seize Sylhet, and decided to do so by a heli-borne operation.
4/5 Gorkha Rifles was selected for the purpose and the operation was launched
in the afternoon of 7 December. As only
nine MI-4 helicopters were available, essential elements of the battalion along
with two mountain guns were landed in phases.
This was the first time an 'air bridge' had been employed by the Indian
Army. Being a paratrooper, Sagat knew
the potential of a heli-borne force and could appreciate the immense advantages
that accrued from its employment at the opportune moment. The enemy was
demoralised, and made no efforts to attack 4/5 Gorkha Rifles. As he had visualised, the noise of the
helicopters misled the Pakistanis – it was later learned that they thought that
an Indian brigade had landed.
Maulvi Bazar was held by Pak 313
Brigade, which was occupying a strong defended position on a prominent high
ground. From the very beginning, Hunter aircraft operating from Kumbhigram
airfield had been tasked to constantly bomb Maulvi Bazar with napalm. The
heli-borne operation near Sylhet so unnerved the Pakistani Command that the
Maulvi Bazar brigade group was moved away to Sylhet, which already had a
brigade group of four battalions. This was reported by the Indian Air Force,
which flew a tactical reconnaissance mission over Maulvi Bazar next day. On the
night of 8 December, 81
Brigade launched its attack and captured Maulvi Bazar, the enemy having fled in
panic. In a Pakistani officers’ mess, they found lunch laid on the table,
uneaten.
In the north, Echo Sector captured
Jaintiapur, but was held up at Sarighat on 7 December, as the bridge was blown
and formation had no engineer support. A company of Engineers was sent on a
roundabout route, and on 10 December, Echo Sector advanced up to Hemu, where
again a bridge was demolished. However,
the Hemu position was captured the same night. The advance was held up again at
Chandighat, which was captured on 12 December. Finally, after overcoming a
number of delaying positions Echo Sector attacked and captured the Khadim Nagar
position north of Sylhet on 16 December. From the East Bengal Brigade, 1 East
Bengal Rifles under Colonel Zia-ur-Rehman (later to become President of
Bangladesh) carried out an outflanking move and secured Chicknagul area on the
night of 11/12 December.
59 Mountain Brigade commenced its advance and contacted Fenchuganj position
on 11 December. The far bank was strongly held and the railway bridge, though
intact, was swept by fire. However, a
company of 6 Rajput rushed across the bridge in a bold move and secured a small
bridge head. This action, together with
intense fire from the south bank, unnerved the Pakistanis who withdrew in
disorder. 6 Rajput continued their
advance and captured Magla Bazar early on 13 December. As the Pakistanis were on the run, the
brigade commander decided to continue the advance with the Rajputs in the lead,
but sent 9 Guards on an outflanking move behind the enemy. This resulted in utter confusion and breakup
of the withdrawing enemy.
On 13 December, Sagat ordered the
move of 81 Brigade less 3 Punjab to Agartala,
for operations in the Dacca Dacca Punjab
on the Sherpur-Sylhet axis was placed under command of 59 Mountain
Brigade. This battalion continued its
advance from Sadipur ferry and captured Daadpur position, just short of Sylhet
on 13 December. On 14 December, it made
contact with the Sylhet position along the line of the Surma River
57 Mountain Division
57 Mountain was tasked to capture
Akhaura area and then build up in Maynamati by D plus 5. The enemy kept
shelling Agartala from the Akhaura area, which was also used to carry out
sabotage and subversion operations. The
divisional commander decided to mount a preliminary operation for the capture
of Akhaura. He tasked 73 Mountain Brigade to contain Gangasagar and prevent any
enemy interference from the Kasba area.
Subsequently, it was to capture Gangasagar and link up with 311 Mountain
Brigade in the north. At the same time,
311 Mountain Brigade was to capture Noapara and Lonasar. Subsequently, it was to capture Akhaura along
with 73 Mountain Brigade.
Moving cross country 14 Guards of 73
Mountain Brigade established itself just south of Gangasagar, where it was
joined by 19 Punjab after the capture of
Karnel Bazar. Meanwhile, 12 Kumaon also captured its objective, a
broken bridge. Subsequently, 14 Guards
attacked Gangasagar which was strongly held by the enemy and captured it after
overcoming stiff resistance and suffering heavy casualties. In this attack, the
only Param Vir Chakra of the 1971 War in the Eastern Sector was awarded to
Sepoy Albert Ekka posthumously for displaying valour and dedication to duty of
the highest order. The enemy tried to
counter attack with armour and infantry supported by his Air Force, but was repulsed. After the capture of Gangasagar, 73 Brigade
linked up with 311 Brigade in the north and established a road block on the
Kasba-Brahmanbaria road, with a view to isolating Kasba.
10
Bihar of 311 Brigade captured Noapara and
Lonasar, after a cross country advance. The battalion then captured Simrail in
the early hours of 5 December, after heavy fighting. Meanwhile, 4 Guards
established a block across Titas
River Bihar and 18 Rajput. After some tough fighting, these battalions
captured Akhaura and the railway bridge over the Titas on the morning of 5
December.
At
this stage, information was received that the railway embankment between
Akhaura and Brahmanbaria was being used as a road, by lifting one of the rail
tracks. This track ultimately led to Ashuganj, where a railway bridge existed.
Though not decked, this was the nearest route to Dacca Dacca
On
7 December, 73
Brigade advanced and secured the eastern bank of the river west of Brahmanbaria
while 311 Brigade advanced from Akhaura after ferrying across the Titas River Bihar , also
moved forward and positioned itself to pose a threat to Brahmanbaria from
Sarail. On the night of 7/8 December the enemy vacated Brahmanbaria and
withdrew towards Ashuganj. On 8 December, 4 Guards captured the road railway
junction to the west of Brahmanbaria. Moving cross country, 18 Rajput reached
Ashuganj, where they were subjected to heavy fire by the enemy, who even
launched a counter attack. However,
Sierra Force also approached Ashuganj from the north and other elements of 311
Brigade kept moving forward. Unnerved
by the buildup, the enemy blew up the Ashuganj bridge on 9 December, leaving the Pakistani brigade commander
and a large number of troops on the eastern bank of the Meghna river! The
troops from Ashuganj withdrew in confusion across the ferry and the town was
captured on 10 December.
At this stage, the corps
commander reviewed the situation. He flew over Daudkandi, Chandpur and Ashuganj
in a helicopter on 9 December, and discussed the situation with the local
commanders. He then decided to heli-lift his troops across the Meghna, and make
for Dacca Dacca
The air lift began on the afternoon of 9
December and continued for the next 36 hours. A total of 110 sorties were flown
from the Brahmanbaria stadium and crossed the Meghna, which was 4000 yards
wide, to land at helipads which had been marked by torches, with their
reflectors removed. During day the troops were landed in paddy fields, with
helicopters hovering low above the ground. The first battalion of 311 Mountain
Brigade, 4 Guards, was landed in Raipura, while 9 Punjab
crossed the river using country boats. Next day, the troops were landed
directly at Narsingdi. Meanwhile, 73 Brigade had started to cross using boats,
which had been rounded up. By 11 December, both 311 and 73 Mountain Brigades
had crossed the Meghna and were ordered to advance to Dacca Dacca 15 December, 311 Mountain
Brigade was poised to enter Dacca Dacca
General Sagat's decision to cross
the Meghna proved to be crucial to the entire operation. This was also the
first instance in military history of an 'air bridge' being used for crossing a
major water obstacle, by a brigade group. According to Major General Lachhman
Singh, “It was here that Sagat Singh exhibited the genius and initiative of a
field commander. It was this decision which finally and decisively tilted the
scale in our favour and led to the early surrender of the Pakistani forces at Dacca
After the war, B.B. Lal, who was
the Defence Secretary, told Sagat an interesting story regarding the crossing
of the Meghna. On 10 December a meeting was being held in South Block, chaired
by Sardar Swaran Singh, the Minister of External Affairs. Attending the meeting
were the Defence, Home and Foreign Secretaries, the Director of the IB, and the
Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. The meeting had just commenced when
the message arrived that Sagat had crossed the Meghna. The Defence Minister, Babu
Jagjiwan Ram, rushed in soon afterwards, while the Prime Minister's Principal
Private Secretary ran to her office to inform her. According to Lal, very soon
afterwards, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was seen running down the corridor,
her hair and saree flying. They were all surprised to see the Prime Minister
bubbling with joy, and for him, this was the most unforgettable moment of the
1971 war.20
23 Mountain Division
The
divisional commander, Major General R.D. Hira, MVC, planned to secure the southern
part of the Lalmai Hills and thereafter capture Chandpur. However, after
preliminary operations the original plan was changed and it was decided to
infiltrate between Lalmai Hills and Laksham instead of launching direct attacks
on the two positions which were strongly held. Accordingly, 301 Mountain
Brigade was tasked to infiltrate along the axis
Himmatpur-Kashinagar-Bhushchi-Bhora; 181 Mountain Brigade was to follow on the
same axis and isolate Laksham from the north and west; 83 Mountain Brigade was
to advance along the Chauddagram-Laksham axis and isolate Laksham from the
south; subsequently, 181 and 83 Brigades were to capture Laksham. Finally, 301 Brigade was to advance and
capture Chandpur.
301 Brigade advanced across country
with 14 Jat heading for Mian Bazar and 1/11 Gorkha Rifles heading for
Kashinagar, with tanks following. Tanks were employed in the assault on Mian
Bazar position on 4 December and the enemy broke up. As the enemy tried to
occupy the Kashinagar defences, 1/11 Gorkha Rifles who had already sneaked into
these positions opened up, surprising the Pakistanis and capturing a number of
prisoners. Shortly afterwards, 301 Brigade moved up to Bhushchi,
where 181 Brigade took the lead and advanced to Laksham on 5 December. Moving
swiftly, 301 Brigade advanced
to Mudafarganj on the night of 5 December and secured it by next morning.
In
the south, 83 Brigade advanced towards Laksham. It established a block in the
area of Parikot and captured Chauddagram on the morning of 5 December, the
Pakistanis withdrawing from both positions in confusion. The brigade followed
up and established blocks south and south east of Laksham by the morning of 7
December. To meet the new threat, 53 Pak
Brigade moved by rail from Feni and concentrated at Laksham by the morning of 6
December. Concurrently, the enemy started concentrating his troops for the
defence of the Maynamati area and vacated the Lalmai Hills southern position.
In order to strengthen the Maynamati defences, the Pakistanis pulled out of Comilla
town also. As a result of these moves of the enemy, 181 Brigade occupied the
southern part of the Lalmai Hills; and 14 Jat of 301 Brigade occupied Comilla
town and airfield.
After the loss of Mudafarganj, the enemy
divisional commander ordered Pak 53 Brigade to recapture the town, leaving some troops for the defence of Laksham. The
enemy attacked Mudafarganj repeatedly on the night of 7/8 December but failed
to capture the town. Pak 53 Brigade then sent a column to secure Hajiganj
further to the rear and deny it to the Indian troops. In the meantime, troops
of 301 Brigade (3 Kumaon) had already reached Hajiganj. The Pakistanis tried to
launch an attack but it was broken up. 301 Brigade continued its advance and
captured Chandpur on 9 December. When Pakistani troops started thinning out
from Laksham for attacks on Hajiganj, 181 and 83 Brigades exerted pressure on
Laksham supported by artillery and air attacks. After holding out for a while,
the enemy started withdrawing in small groups and Laksham was captured on 9
December. In the Maynamati area, 61 Brigade had captured Chandina on 7 December
and secured Elliotganj on 8 December. Continuing the advance, the brigade
captured Daudkandi by the evening of 9 December.
After
Chandpur, Daudkandi and Laksham were secured, it was decided to send 301
Brigade across the Meghna to secure
Baidya Bazar, while 181 and 61 Brigades were to go across and capture
Maynamati. By 14 December,
301 Brigade concentrated at Daudkandi. In the early hours of the
morning, 14 Jat crossed the river in some commandeered river craft and secured
Baidya Bazar without opposition. By the evening of 14 December, the better part
of 301 Brigade was concentrated in the Baidya Bazar area across the Meghna River
THE FALL OF DACCA
From
the beginning of the war on 3 December 1971, when Pakistan launched a surprise
attack on Indian airfields in the west and India retaliated by commencing land
operations across the borders in the east, the situation in East Pakistan grew
from bad to worse. From 7 December
onwards, the situation really got out of control and Pakistan Brahmaputra River Dacca
As the operations progressed, Pakistani
resistance broke down. The Indians bypassed all strongly held positions and the
isolated Pakistani troops, taken by surprise, began to withdraw or surrender.
American proposals to get the United Nations to effect a cease fire were
frustrated by the Soviets, who vetoed the resolutions. A major factor in fall
of Dacca was the three broadcasts made by General Manekshaw, calling on
Pakistani troops to surrender and assuring them of honourable treatment. The
first message was broadcast on All India Radio and leaflets dropped after the
fall of Jessore on 9 December. Addressed to the 'officers and jawans of the
Pakistan Army', it exhorted them to lay down their arms, before it was too
late. It went on to say:
"Indian forces have surrounded you. Your
Air Force is destroyed. You have no hope of any help from them. Chittagong
Two other messages, on the same lines,
were broadcast on 11 and 15 December, in reply to messages from Major General
Rao Farman Ali and Lieutenant General A.K. Niazi. These messages were a severe
blow to the morale of the Pakistani troops and convinced them of the futility
of further resistance. Accounts of Pakistani officers and men captured
subsequently revealed that these messages had played a significant part in breaking
Pakistani resolve to fight and it is estimated that they had shortened the war
by at least two weeks.
In
the early hours of 11 December, Lieutenant Iftikhar of the Pakistan Army came
up on the wireless net indicating his willingness to surrender. He came out
with a white flag near the Mirpur bridge and surrendered to Indian troops. The
same day, Farman Ali sent a message to the United Nations asking for a cease
fire. The Security Council was about to begin discussing the message when another
message was received from President
Yayha Khan countermanding Farman Ali's message, which it described as
'unauthorised'.
As early as 9 December, the Governor of
East Pakistan, Dr. A.M. Malik, had sent a message to Yahya Khan advocating a cease
fire. Yahya had replied that he was leaving the decision to Malik and had
instructed Niazi accordingly. Malik could not make up his mind and continued to
wait for instructions from Rawalpindi Dacca
The decision to surrender was actually taken
by Niazi, who addressed a message to General Manekshaw on 15 December and
requested the United States Consul General in Dacca India Washington India 16 December 1971 . He gave the radio frequencies on which
Niazi could contact Aurora Dacca midnight on 15 December, Niazi sent a message to all his
formation commanders to contact their Indian counter parts and negotiate a
cease fire.
Indian
troops entered Dacca Bihar , 4 Guards and 5 (Indep) Armoured Squadron were in
the city. Early in the afternoon, General Jacob reached Dacca
The
formal surrender ceremony took place at Dacca Bangladesh
SIGNALS IN OPERATION ‘CACTUS LILY’
Eastern Command Signals
The
CSO, Brigadier K.K. Tewari distinctly remembers the first briefing by the Army
Commander early in the morning on 4 December 1971 after the pre-emptive Pakistani strike in
the West on the previous evening. After
everyone had assembled in the conference room, the Army Commander, Lieutenant
General J. S. Aurora entered and announced: “The
war is on. Jackpot is no longer Top Secret. Hereafter, there will be no office
hours. Everybody will wear uniform at all times”. This was the briefest
conference attended by Brigadier Tewari. It was quite a unique moment, which he
still remembers.
The
radio diagram of Eastern Command at the commencement of the operations is given
below/shown opposite:-
RADIO
DIAGRAM – EASTERN COMMAND 1971
Tewari
and his staff had some anxious moments during the operations. One was at the
time of the drop by 2 Para of 50 Parachute Brigade on 11 December 1971 . The drop took place
at about 1600 hours and all through the night there was no communications with
this force. According to Tewari, this
was one the worst periods of anxiety and negative part of Eastern Command
Signals history. They came up on the air without any explanation early morning
the next day and all was well thereafter.
On 12 December, 50
Parachute Brigade less 2 Para left for the Western Sector
Tewari
was in the habit of recording the day’s events in a diary, which gives an
insight into the conditions prevailing at that time. It will be recalled that
his diary during the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict also proved to be a valuable
historical document. Some entries during the war are given below (some abbreviations
used by him have been expanded, for clarity): 21
12
December
·
Conference
with Army Commander and Deputy SO-in-C. Question of taking resources for
Western Command - 2 Corps. We said no Corps Signal Regiment. Army Commander
said he will be in Dacca
·
IAC
flights cancelled. All IAC flights to fly Para
Brigade and two AD Brigades.
·
Chief
of Staff being worried by someone at night. PM’s broadcast – beautiful – told USA
·
Disturbing
news from intercepts of Chinese and US movements.
·
Message
from Mother about Victory. (This refers to the
Mother of Aurobindo Ashram, in Pondicherry
13 December
·
Tac
HQ 101 moved off from TURA – no communications. RR vehicles held up at ferry.
·
News from CSO IV Corps at 10.30 pm -
his HQ moving to Comilla next morning.
·
Preparing
for threat from North. Spoke to Surjit (CSO
IV Corps) that too much sent with 2 MDSR (2
Mountain Division was deployed in NEFA, facing the Chinese. The GOC, Major
General Nagra had taken over 101 Communication Zone Area after Major General
Gill was injured. Nagra moved a considerable portion of his headquarters and
signal resources to assist him in his
new appointment)
·
Finalized
plans for communications in Dacca
14 December – Most
hectic day
·
Main
HQ IV Corps moving to Comilla – main body at night, Tac HQ in morning. Too many
restrictions. Coordination of circuits with civil requirements, CA.
Arrangements with VCK difficult (Brigadier V.C.
Khanna – he was later to become a lieutenant general and the SO-in-C - was
doing the course at the National
Defence College
·
Flap
on communications to leading elements of 101 CZA (Communication
Zone Area). COS wanted direct
communications to Calcutta Lt Col
·
Communications
to be established between IV Corps and 101 CZA. 101 Air support to be under IV
Corps.
·
Discussed
shifting of P&T Carrier station from Teliamura to Comilla – then decided on
Dacca
·
Communications
established with Comilla – spoke to CSO.
·
Gill
sent to 101 CZA to sort out muddle by Don’s hasty actions. Missing for 2 days
in Mymensingh. (This
refers to Colonel ‘Don’ Lahiri, DCSO 101 Communication Zone Area, who had been
born in Mymensingh in undivided India
On
15 December at about 1530 hours the CSO was asked to establish communications
with Dacca Delhi Calcutta Dacca Pakistan Dacca Dacca
Tewari’s
problems with the communication link to Dacca Dacca Calcutta
The
entries on the last few days of the war recorded in Brigadier Tewari’s diary
provide an authentic record of the events that occurred in Calcutta Dacca
15 December
·
Signal
Instructions for Dacca
·
Air
Force asking for circuits to Jessore from us – responsibility.
·
Message
for Delhi Dacca
·
Move
forward of 4 Division to Magura – proposed HQ II Corps to move forward too.
·
Given
message from COAS, reply to Niazi. Kept calling PAK all evening/night.
16 December
·
7.15 am communications
established with Dacca COS on set.
·
9.30
– clear that surrender accepted.
·
11.10
– COS , Col Dacca
·
Army
Commander decided to leave at 2 pm
- take surrender at 4 pm.
Paper for surrender, pens, writing decided in Delhi 2 pm .
·
Pressure
on Signals – no communications. First news from intercept.
·
1815
heptrs returned to Agartala. Army Commander spoke.
·
Army
Commander returned at 9 pm. Gathered in Mess.
17 December
·
Communications
with Dacca
·
Chat
with Army Commander along with Gen Sircar. Spoke of also 16 December, lack of
communications.
18 December
·
To
Dacca
Eastern Command Signal
Regiment
Eastern
Command Signal Regiment was raised on 1 March 1963 in Calcutta Ranchi Lucknow 1 May 1963 . The
unit functioned on a brick system of establishment up to 1965, with companies
and sections authorized on as required basis, depending on the communication
commitments. In April 1965 a new peace
establishment was issued and the unit brought on to a ‘tailored’ system.
An interesting incident that
occurred during Operation ‘Cactus Lily was related by Brigadier A. Verma, who
was commanding the unit at that time, in the following words:-
On
15 December at about 2000 hrs CSO Eastern Command Brigadier K. K.
Tewari asked me to come to his office immediately. On arrival he
handed over a typed sheet of paper to me and said that this was a message from
our COAS and it had to be sent to the Bangladesh
I returned to my office and rang
up the SI detachment and Radio Monitoring Section to find out if
they had the frequencies used by the Army in Bangladesh Dacca Fort William
At about 10 PM when the transmitters were
ready we started sending the message from General Manekshaw to
General Niazi asking him to surrender, continuously on CW, RTT and voice. This
continued the whole night. At about 0725 hrs on the 16th I
picked up a signal "Dacca Calcutta Dacca Calcutta Calcutta Dacca Pakistan Dacca Dacca Dacca
I was later told that the original
message was lost after being handed over to General Aurora by Brigadier K.
K. Tewari and copies had to be made from log sheets maintained in
the Receiver Station.24
The radio link established between Calcutta Dacca 16
December 1971 . A number of messages were passed on the link,
including the request by General Niazi for extension of time for surrender.
Other messages pertained to the composition of the team that would proceed to Dacca Dacca Calcutta
II
Corps Signals
HQ II Corps was raised at Krishnanagar in West Bengal shortly before the commencement of Operation
‘Cactus Lily’. The head of the Signals Branch was Colonel B.S. Paintal, whose
designation was Deputy Chief Signal Officer (DCSO). This was later upgraded to
Chief Signal Officer (CSO). At the time of raising HQ II Corps did not have an
integral signal unit and its communication needs were met by V Communication
Zone Signal Regiment which was moved from Tezpur for this purpose. The raising
of II Corps Signal Regiment commenced at the same time and both units shared
the communication commitments at Krishnanagar during this period.
II Corps Signal Regiment was
raised on 8 October 1971
at Krishnanagar, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel S.C. Chaudhuri. However, 3 Company of the unit was raised
separately at Delhi 1 Dec 1971 . The
company joined the unit only in 1972 under the command of Major R.B. Mistry. By
this time the unit had moved to Kotkapura in Western theatre. The other officers in the company were
Captain V.I.P. Mago and Lieutenant S.K. Basu.
Orders
for raising of a truncated HQ II Corps were issued on 4 October 1971 . Elements of the corps headquarters and corps
troops including its signal regiment started arriving at Krishnanagar with
effect from 8 November. The proposed organization of II Corps Signal Regiment
(less 3 Company, which was being raised at Delhi to function as Army Headquarters
reserve), together with elements of V Communication Zone Signal Regiment and
other signal bricks made available ex Eastern Command, totalled about 50
percent of the manpower resources normally available to a corps. Equipment wise, the position was even
worse. Only 50 percent of the authorized
equipment was planned to be made available.
Telecommunication
facilities in the Eastern Theatre were generally under developed. PL routes were restricted to a few major
highways. Multi-cored railway electrification
cable and some PL routes were also available along main railway lines. Due to advance planning by CSO Eastern
Command, some communication assets at Krishnanagar had been developed. These
included three switchboards 50 line CBNM and two T-43 trunk boards, under
installation by the P&T authorities; one radio relay detachment linking
Krishnanagar with Calcutta
Planning
for the deployment of the two divisions up to concentration phase had been
carried out and demand for provision of these circuits by P&T authorities
had been placed by CSO Eastern Command.
In addition to these circuits, the P&T Department had been asked to
construct permanent line routes Bangaon
– Heiencha – Bagda – Bayra and Heiencha – Dattapulia (two pairs each) and
Krishnanagar –Krishnaganj (one pair).
Except
for officers, JCOs and a handful of NCOs, all other postings to II Corps Signal
Regiment were on the basis of figure postings.
As a result, the dispatching units unloaded a lot of their inefficient
and undesirable tradesmen. The unit did
not get an opportunity to organize itself or even to brush up some of the very
basic detachment drills. Being fully
committed on operational duties, personnel had to be put on the job straight
away and subsequently rotated from job to job to fit them in, in accordance
with their competence. V Communication
Zone Signal Regiment was in no better condition as a large percentage of
manpower held by them had also been recently collected in bits and pieces, from
all over Eastern Command.
As
with the manpower, the entire signal equipment received was also on an inter
unit transfer basis. In spite of the
most active progressing action by HQ Eastern Command, dispatching units held up
collection parties for long periods and transferred equipment that was usually
defective or incomplete. The new unit
had to put right a major portion of the equipment on their own, as the 816
Corps Troops Workshop (also under raising) had neither the tools nor the spares
to undertake this major task of equipment rehabilitation.
The
signal plan for the preparatory phase, visualized the use of lines as the
primary means of communications supplemented by radio relay and very high
frequency net radio. Radio silence on
high frequency net radio could be lifted for training or when in contact with
enemy on orders from the divisional commanders. The permission to lift silence
on high frequency radio for training was especially given, on account of a warning
of likely Pakistani preemptive strike on night 14/15 October 1971. When this warning was received on 12 October,
no radio or radio relay equipment was available at the corps headquarters. Radio and radio relay equipment had to be
withdrawn from the two divisions to provide essential backup to the line
communication between the corps and its divisions. Forward of the divisions, radio silence on
high frequency radio was observed till start of the offensive phase.
During
the offensive phase, it was visualized that the rapid speed of advance would
preclude laying of lines. Radio relay
therefore was to be used as the primary means of communications, supplemented
by net radio. Lines were to be laid
where situation stabilized. The detailed signal plan was covered in a signal
instruction issued on 26
November 1971 and modified as the operations developed by issuing
brief signal engineering instructions.
During
and up to the concentration phase, it was intended that total reliance for line
communications would be on P&T lines/circuits. In addition P&T hired local and trunk
exchanges were installed at Krishnanagar. The performance of the P&T
circuits between the corps headquarters and the divisions was poor, especially
to 9 Infantry Division. The 3-channel
carrier system between Ranaghat and Bangaon which carried these circuits was
old and unreliable. In spite of
sustained efforts by DCSO II Corps and CSO Eastern Command, no improvements on
these circuits could be brought about by the P&T Department. As a result, even during the preparatory
phase II Corps had to rely on radio relay.
A
number of permanent line routes were constructed during the preparatory
phase. The following routes were laid by
the P&T during November 1971:-
·
Bangaon – Helencha –
Bagda and Dattapulia – Heiencha (two pairs each). Because of enemy air activity over Bayra on
19 November, the P&T had left the Bagda – Bayra portion incomplete. To bridge this gap, carrier quad was laid
between Heiencha – Bagda – Bayra and between Aranghata – Dattapulia to create
alternate routing.
·
Krishnanagar – Majdia
(one pair). This route proved to be
unreliable and a carrier quad between these places also had to be laid.
Once
the operations started both 4 and 9 Divisions advanced rapidly, carrying out frequent
moves. By the time the operations ended on 16 December, 9 Infantry Division had
carried out an advance of over 110 km, while 4 Mountain Division had advanced
about 160 km. During the advance, both
the divisional headquarters kept well forward so as to remain within
communication range of their brigades.
These frequent moves helped in maintaining effective forward
communications, but strained the resources of divisional signal regiments and
made communications between the corps headquarters and the divisions more
difficult. In order to avoid moving the
main divisional headquarters too often, 9 Infantry Division adopted the
practice of establishing an enlarged tactical headquarters which functioned
well ahead of their main divisional headquarters. On the other hand, 4 Mountain
Division preferred moving its main divisional headquarters, rather than setting
up a tactical headquarters.
The
mainstay of signal communications during the operations was radio relay, which
proved to be most flexible and reliable.
However, lines, because of their inherent security, were frequently
demanded by the commanders and their staff.
During the operations, line communications to the divisions could only
be extended up to Khalispur (over carrier quad) in case of 4 Mountain Division,
and up to Chaugacha (over PL/carrier quad) in case of 9 Infantry Division. Beyond these points the formations were out
of carrier quad range. Line
communication was restored to 4 Mountain Division at Jhenida when PL route
Majdia – Darsana – Kotchandpur – Kaliganj – Jhenida was rehabilitated on 11
December. The line communication to 9
Infantry Division was only restored when Bangaon – Jhingergacha – Jessore axis
was cleared and PL route along this axis restored on 14 December. Unlike the divisions, the corps headquarters
was unable to move forward due to lack of equipment and transport resources to
make the headquarters mobile.
Radio
was used extensively during the operations for communications forward of the
infantry brigades and by artillery formations/units. Between brigades and the divisions radio was
used mostly while the brigades were on move and till the setting up of radio
relay. At corps level limited radio nets
were set up. No separate rear corps
headquarters was set up and the corps maintenance area (CMA) was co-located
with the corps headquarters at Krishnanagar.
No separate radio nets were provided for the Commander Corps Artillery,
Chief Engineer, Provost or flanking formations. Even in this truncated radio layout, radio
telephony communications were not used by the staff.
The
line and radio diagrams of II Corps during the operations are given below:-
II
Corps Signals faced a number of problems during the operations. It did not get
sufficient time to complete raising, training and welding of the corps
headquarters and its signal elements into one responsive and cohesive team. It
had to rely totally on the P&T Department for trunk circuits within Indian territory . It also faced a severe shortage of
equipment, especially radio relay, and lack of a system for replenishment of
field cable and carrier quad cable in the field. In spite of these handicaps,
II Corps Signals performed creditably during Operation “Cactus Lily’.
9
Infantry Divisional Signal Regiment
9
Infantry Divisional Signal Regiment moved from Ranchi Bihar
to West Bengal in early 1971, along with its
brigade signal companies. While the
regimental headquarters was at Bhadreswar, the brigade signal companies of 42
and 350 Brigades were located at Chinsura and Burdwan respectively. In April
the unit moved to Barrackpore and 42 Brigade Signal Company to
Krishnanagar. In June 350 Infantry
Brigade moved from Burdwan to Ranaghat and then to Bagdaha. By October the unit
had moved to Bangaon and 350 Brigade to Bayra. The unit was then under the
command of Lieutenant Colonel K. Dhawan
with Major J. Bagchi as the second-in-command. The other field officers in the
unit were Major M.S. Bajaj (1 Company) and Major P.K. Sengupta (2 Company).
On 20 November 1971 certain
preliminary operations had been planned in the Bayra area. To control the
battle the divisional tactical headquarters moved to Bagdaha, while HQ 350
Brigade moved Bayra. The attack for the capture of Garibpur was launched by a
battalion of 42 Infantry Brigade, followed by a fierce counter attack which
resulted in heavy casualties to both sides. Next day the divisional tactical
headquarters moved to Bayra, while those of 42 and 350 Brigades moved forward
to Azmatpur and Chotibharni respectively. Communications to the three tactical
headquarters was provided by laying WD -1 cable to the brigades ahead of
Bagdaha, which was then patched to the carrier quad that had already been laid
from Bayra to Bagdaha. In addition to
line, radio links were provided between the divisional tactical headquarters
and both brigades. It was on this day that the unit had its first war casualty.
While laying the cable to 350 Brigade at Chotibharni, Naib Subedar Lal Manral
sustained facial injuries when his line vehicle went over an anti-tank mine and
he had to be evacuated to the field hospital. Two days later, another JCO, Naib
Subedar M.S. Athley sustained a collar bone injury when a radio relay antenna
mast fell over him.
On 24 November, 350 Brigade
cleared Chaugacha and its tactical headquarters moved back to Bayra with a view
to advance on the Jhingergacha axis. One
pair carrier quad cable was laid between Bayra and Chutipur, the location of 26
Madras
In
preparation of further operations 42 Brigade moved to Chaugacha on 1 December
and the fire control centre (FCC) of 9
Artillery Brigade was established at a place about one km beyond Azmatpur. One pair of WD-1 cable was laid between
Azmatpur and Chaugacha for use as a tie line and the Bayra-Azmatpur line was
extended and terminated on the FCC exchange. A
carrier quad pair was laid between Bayra and Chaugacha thus providing
two speech circuits between main divisional headquarters and 42 Infantry Brigade. In addition, a radio relay link was
also provided to the brigade. The next day 32 Brigade also moved to a location
approximately two km short of Chaugacha on Road Bayra-Chaugacha. To cater for this move, one pair of WD-1
cable was laid between Bayra and 42 Brigade. From the existing carrier quad
between Bayra and Chaugacha, one pair was dropped at the location of 32
Brigade. This gave them a direct line to the divisional headquarters and also a
tie line between 32 and 42 Brigades. At this time, Major G.K. Singh joined the
unit on temporary attachment from V Communication Zone Signal Regiment and was
appointed OC 2 Company.
The
advance towards Jessore commenced on 3 December 1971 along multiple axes. On 4 December the
divisional tactical headquarters moved to Chaugacha. The advance of 42 Brigade in the north was
held up at Arpara and Dungarbatti while 350 Brigade encountered stiff
opposition in the centre at Burinda. The divisional commander changed his plan
and decided to swing the weight of his advance to the north along Bayra axis.
He ordered 42 Brigade to clear a passage at Dungarbatti through which 32
Brigade would advance and capture Jessore. On 6 December the divisional
tactical headquarters shifted to Khurd-Singhajuli in the morning. One WD-1 pair
was laid between Chaugacha and Khurd-Singhajuli and the existing PL pair was
rehabilitated by patching with PVC cable under arrangements of V Communication
Zone Signal Regiment to provide two speech circuits between the two
locations. The same afternoon divisional
tactical headquarters and 42 Brigade moved to Jessore after its capture. A
radio relay link was immediately established from Bayra to Jessore, providing
connectivity to HQ II Corps. On 7 December the main and rear headquarters of 9 Infantry Division also moved to
Jessore. 350 Brigade moved from Uzripur
via Jhingergacha to a place four km short of Jessore on the Bangaon-Jessore
road. One speech circuit was arranged immediately on the existing PL.
Subsequently, one WD-1 pair was laid to 350 Brigade and the PL pair was
released to provide line communications between Jessore, Bangaon and
Krishanagar.
On
8 December 32 Brigade resumed its
advance on the Jessore-Khulna road and reached Rupdia where line communications
was provided. The FCC of 9 Artillery Brigade moved to Singla Railway station
and was given communications on line and radio relay from the main divisional
headquarters at Jessore. On 9
December, 32 Brigade and the FCC both moved to Nawapara. One speech circuit on PL was provided from
Jessore to Nawapara and one radio relay link established for HQ 32 Brigade. In
addition, two tie lines through the brigade exchange were provided to the FCC.
The
advance of 32 Brigade was held up near Phultala and it was decided to move up
the other two brigades. 42 and 350 Brigades resumed advance on
the axis Jessore-Khulna on 11 December.
The divisional tactical headquarters moved to Phultala. Two pairs of
WD-1 cable were laid for tactical headquarters of 350 and 32 Brigades at Km 9
and 10 on Road Jessore-Khulna. These
were terminated on the divisional tactical headquarters exchange at Phultala,
where 42 Brigade was also located. Being unsuccessful in securing the Siyaganj
ferry on the Bhairab
River
In
the absence of 42 Brigade, the divisional commander decided to continue the
operation with 350 Brigade, which attacked and captured Shyamganj on 15
December. The tactical headquarters of 350 Brigade moved to Shyamganj where it
was later joined by tactical headquarters of 32 Brigade which moved up from Km10.
Both were provided communications on line, with a radio relay being given to
350 Brigade. On 16 December it was learned that Pak troops had surrendered and
operations came to an end.
On
17 December all troops of the division moved to Khulna Khulna Khulna
4
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment
4
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment was in Allahabad 18 July 1971 .
The other field officers in the unit at that time were Major G.L. Chadha (1
Company) and Major R.M. Onkar (2 Company). The unit moved to Panagarh in two
special trains, which left Allahabad 29 August 1971 .
To conceal the identity of the formation, the divisional headquarters was
referred to as Rear HQ 9 Infantry Division. Except for creating confusion, this
did not achieve much. Soon after the arrival of the formation in Panagarh,
Pakistan Radio announced that ‘red eagles
are hiding under shadeless pine trees” (The emblem of 4 Division was a red
eagle, while that of 9 Division was a pine tree).
The
obsession with security was sometimes taken to extreme limits. As soon as
communications were established at Panagarh, Major Chadha took a test call to Delhi
After
a short stay at Panagarh, during which critical deficiencies of cable and radio
sets were made up, the unit moved to Paglachindi via Plassey on 15 October.
After a month, it moved again on 16 November to Krishnanagar, where the newly
raised HQ II Corps was located. On
interaction with II Corps Signals, the unit came to know of the impending task
and the communication plans. During the last week of November, preliminary
operations were conducted by the formation for the capture of Jibanagar, Uthali
and Darsana, to facilitate the subsequent advance on the Axis Jibanagar –
Kotchandpur – Kaliganj – Jhenida - Faridpur. For security reasons,
communications for the preliminary operations were based primarily on field
cable, with VHF radio as standby. On entering East
Pakistan , it was found that the communications infrastructure in
the border areas was under developed. There were a few PL routes but these were
partially damaged. Roads were in a state of disrepair and the area being
marshy, laying and maintaining cable was difficult and time consuming.
The
war actually started on 4
December 1971 . However, a reconnaissance cum advance party of the
divisional headquarters and the unit under OC 1 Company entered East Pakistan on 30 November. Finding no enemy presence
en route, the advance party moved to two different locations and established
radio and radio relay communications with the divisional tactical headquarters
which was still on own side of the border. The partially damaged PL routes were
repaired by the linemen under the supervision of Captain S.S. Dhillon, who was
performing the duties of adjutant as well as OC line section. By last light on
30 November the advance party was through with the divisional tactical and main
headquarters on line, radio and radio relay. To achieve longer ranges the radio
relay and VHF radio antennae were erected on 52 foot masts, microwave towers
and tall buildings.
On
4 December the CO was injured when his jeep went over a mine. Two other
officers and two OR who were accompanying him escaped with minor injuries, but
Colonel Sable had to be evacuated. On 5 December, Major Hardayal Singh, who was
the GSO 2 (Operations) in HQ 4 Mountain Division, was asked to take over the
unit. The story has been narrated by Major General Hardayal Singh in the
following words:-
In the afternoon
on 4 December, GOC’s party were going to see an objective captured by 41
Mountain Brigade when suddenly a jonga overtook the GOC’s vehicle driven by GSO
2 (Ops) from the right and got blown up on a mine just 20 yards ahead. There-upon General Barar asked me, “who is
this bloody fool?” Seeing the tactical number I told him, “Sir, your Commander
Signals.” Then he went to say,
“Hardayal, that was meant for us”. We
got out to look them up. Lieutenant
Colonel S. Sable had his collar bone fractured.
He was also bleeding from both his ears.
We arranged their evacuation and carried on. Then he asked me if I was approved for
promotion to which I replied in the affirmative. After reaching the objective he had a word
with Colonel General Staff and later spoke to General Raina, General Officer
Commanding II Corps. Thereafter, he
removed epaulettes from the shoulders of Lieutenant Colonel Bhopal Singh,
Officer Commanding 22 RAJPUT, and put these on mine and announced, “you are
hereby promoted while you will also continue to do your present job of GSO 2
(Ops)”. 26
By 1300
hours on 4 December, 41
Mountain Brigade had captured Darsana, which was surrounded by marshes. The
same evening, Suadih was also captured after some fierce fighting. 62 Mountain
Brigade, which had been ordered to secure Kotchandpur, found the town vacated
and occupied it on 5 December. On the same day, Kanyanagar and Khalispur were
also occupied, having been vacated by the enemy. Sahapur and Kaliganj, which
were located in marshy area, offered stiff resistance but were captured on 6 and
7 December respectively. During these operations, communications to both
brigades was mostly on VHF radio, due to the rapid rate of advance and frequent
moves of headquarters. However, lines were laid wherever possible, after the
area had been cleared of mines and enemy fire.
Jhenida
and Kaliganj were captured on 7 December and Mahura on 8 December without
resistance. For the capture of Kushtia and Hardinge Bridge Hardinge
Bridge
Even
as a war was being fought, other activities continued. An interesting episode
concerned the destruction of a document.
On 10 December the unit received instructions from CSO’s Branch HQ
Eastern Command for destruction of a cipher document which had been
‘compromised’. These instructions were
passed down to brigade signal companies.
In response, Major V.K. Chatterjee, OC 41 Mountain Brigade Signal
Company, while confirming this also reported destruction of another document
which had become obsolete in November but was not yet due for destruction. The CO discussed the matter with DCSO II
Corps who agreed that there had been no breach of security but was just a
procedural lapse. It was reported back to HQ Eastern Command accordingly. Soon
afterwards, orders were received to take disciplinary action against Major
Chatterjee. Fortunately, he got off with
a Displeasure’ from the GOC. Apparently it had no adverse effect on his career
– Varun Chatterjee took premature retirement as a Major General in 1997!
After
the capture of Kushtia and Hardinge
Bridge Calcutta Calcutta 31 December 1971 , en route
to its permanent location at Allahabad
Manpack radio set being used during the operations in Bangladesh, 1971.
XXXIII
Corps Signals
HQ
XXXIII Corps was located at Sukhna, near Siliguri in 1971. The CSO was
Brigadier Y.S. Desai. The other officers in the Signals Branch were Lieutenant
Colonel Surjit Singh and Major S.G. Rajopadhyaye. XXXIII Corps Signal Regiment
was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ranbir Mohan, with Major Sudarshan
Nayar as the second-in-command. The other field officers in the unit were Majors
S.K. Rawla, S.K.S. Kirpekar, S.K. Paranjape and B.D. Sangal.
In
the beginning of November several measures were taken by Signals in view of the
impending operations. The signal centre at Gangtok was taken over by L
Communication Zone Signal Regiment, which also sent a company to
Kalimpong. Army mechanics were
positioned at carrier and microwave stations at Siliguri, Katihar, Raiganj and
Balurghat to progress faults on army hired circuits and for security reasons to
prevent eavesdropping by P&T personnel. All India
A
number of additional circuits were hired for formations that had started concentrating
for the operations. To reduce the load on the crypto centre, situation reports
from the divisions began to be sent by SDS after 17 November. To cater for
communications to 20 Mountain Division, a new PL route of 60 miles length
between Raiganj and Balurghat was constructed by the P&T department using
copper weld wire which was released from defence stocks. Circuits for 20
Mountain Division were derived by installing a 3 channel system on the newly
constructed line. The Balurghat - Hilli
speech circuit was provided between HQ 20 Mountain Division and HQ 202 Mountain
Brigade.
Towards
the end of November a reconnaissance was carried out by Signals for the
tactical headquarters at Raiganj. The regimental headquarters and headquarters
company of L Communication Zone Signal Regiment was moved from Darjeeling 28 November 71 Mountain
Brigade moved to Pachagarh. A radio relay link was established and line
communications extended by rehabilitating the Pak PL
The
operations commenced on 4
December 1971 . The radio diagram of XXXIII Corps is given below/on
the opposite page.
Most
of the nets functioned well. However, at night disturbance due to atmospherics
and radio stations in the HF band affected the quality of speech. It was found that
RT was not used except on one day on 14/15 December when it was the only means
of communications between HQ XXXIII Corps and HQ 20 Mountain Division. One RTT
net was established with HQ 20 Mountain Division and RP Control Centre at
Raiganj. However, it was commercial only
for about 14 to 16 hours in a day. A number of radio nets worked on CW.
Pakistani signallers who surrendered appeared to be greatly impressed by the
strength of the signals from our C-11 sets, which swamped their nets working on
ANGRC-9.
The
radio relay diagram of XXXIII Corps is given below/on the opposite page showing
distances.
The
long ranges were feasible due to relay stations being placed at Katapahar, a
high feature in Darjeeling
To
achieve longer ranges, five element antennae were fabricated under unit
arrangements. However, these were cumbersome to erect and were also more
difficult to conceal. There was one
instance of the location of a headquarters being given away by radio relay
aerials which had not been properly camouflaged. The radio relay vehicle was attacked by own
aircraft but fortunately the rocket missed.
The
line communication diagram of XXXIII Corps is given below/on the opposite page.
This only shows the line communication to formations employed in East Pakistan and does not indicate line circuits to 17
and 27 Mountain which were not engaged in these operations, although they had
been moved to their operational locations to counter any Chinese reaction
through Sikkim India East Pakistan lines were extended by construction of
carrier quad/PVC routes and by patching up permanent line in East
Pakistan .
The
P & T circuits were not of a high quality with the result that it was not
possible to work S+DX equipment on the two
speech circuits (when HQ 20 Mountain Division was still at Patiram) without
losing the speech. At night, when the
trunk telephone circuits were not too busy, teleprinters using S+DX equipment were used on one line. Rear HQ 20 Mountain Division was initially
next to the main divisional headquarters
at Patiram and was served by the same
circuits. On move of the main
divisional headquarters to Gobindganj, the
rear headquarters remained at Patiram
for a few days and then moved forward. During this period, the rear headquarters could not be provided with any
telegraph circuits and had only a telephone line.
Division
of responsibility between XXXIII Corps Signal Regiment and L Communication Zone
Signal Regiment was done on a geographical basis for provisioning of
communications. XXXIII Corps Sig Regt
was made responsible for all communications at HQ XXXIII Corps and south of
Sukna, while L Communication Zone Signal Regiment was responsible for all
communications north of Sukna, including maintenance of lines and manning of
locality signal centres for operations
along northern borders. A 4-set medium
static radio section from L Communication Zone Signal Regiment was attached to
XXXIII Corps Signal Regiment and a line construction section allotted from
Eastern Command was given to L Communication Zone Signal Regiment to supplement
their resources.
An
ad-hoc intercept organisation was established at HQ XXXIII Corps under a major
from the corps signal regiment. He had 16 operators who worked one search
receiver and four other receivers (R210) for interception of Pakistani HF nets,
on three shift basis. Officers and JCOs
were provided by Artillery and Engineer units to be on duty with each
shift. The whole organisation functioned
under the GOC, who took a personal interest in the work, but under the
technical direction of CSO XXXIII Corps.
This ad hoc organisation maintained close liaison with the concerned
intercept unit of the Signal Intelligence which received instructions to divert
their main effort from China East Pakistan . Much valuable information, including identifications,
was obtained by the ad-hoc organisation.
An
ECL line circuit was provided between operations rooms at HQ XXXIII Corps and
HQ Eastern Command. This generally worked very satisfactorily. The staff did not use the ECL circuits for
key conversations but passed logs. A
hard local copy was prepared for every log transmitted to ensure there were no
typing errors. All copies were handed
over to the staff and nothing was retained by the operator. ECL was also tried on radio relay. Both ECL machines were at the corps signal
centre and a loop on the radio relay circuit (which involved one relay station)
was given at the distant HQ 20 Mountain Division terminal. The experiment proved that ECL can in
practice be used satisfactorily on good radio relay links.
20
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment
The unit was located at Binaguri in
1971 under the command of Lieutenant Colonel S.C. Sharma, with Major Y.S. Rao
as the second-in-command. The other field officers in the unit were Major
Nirbhay Singh, Major R.M. Shukla and Major Bhandari. In early 1971 the unit
moved to Calcutta for Operation ‘Hot Spot’, in connection with elections in
West Bengal.
During
the last week of November 1971, the formation conducted a number of preliminary
operations to occupy lightly held or unoccupied enemy posts near the border.
The attack on Hilli on 24 November failed and resulted in heavy casualties to
own troops, especially 8 Guards.
Signalman George Kutty and Signalman Tej Singh Bains, the rover
operators of Commander 202 Mountain Brigade were injured due to enemy shelling
and had to be hospitalized. The operations continued for several days but the
position was held strongly and could not be taken in spite of being heavily
shelled and use of armour. There were
several incidents of Razakars damaging lines being apprehended by line parties.
During
Operation ‘Cactus Lily, 20 Mountain Division was employed in the Bogra Sector
as part of XXXIII Corps. Apart from four mountain brigades – 66, 165, 202 and
340 – the division had two regiments of armour viz. 63 Cavalry (T 55) and 69
Armoured Regiment (PT 76). To control the armour operations, an ad hoc
organisation was created. This comprised a Brigadier Armour and a GSO2 Armour.
A separate radio net was provided for the Brigadier Armour to control the two
armoured regiments, which were also on the B1 nets of the respective brigades.
The
operations involved the advance of two brigades on widely separated axes. As
the operations progressed, there were frequent changes in the axes of advance
and tasks allotted to brigades. Communications were mostly on radio
supplemented by radio relay. However, due to shortage of terminals, radio relay
could be provided only to three brigades. Wherever possible, line communication
was provided by laying new lines or rehabilitating existing PL routes. A
carrier quad route was built up to 66 Brigade which was moving on the
divisional centre line. For 165 Brigade the existing PL was used. One VIR route
was also laid up to Balurghat to provide an additional speech circuit and for
local leads at Balurghat carrier station. For 202 Brigade, speech circuit on
line was provided on VIR up to Balurghat and on existing PL from there to
Hilli. Line communications could not be provided to 340 Brigade at its initial
location at Gajol. Later, when the brigade moved to Gangarampur, line
communications was extended on the existing PL.
The
communications were stable and functioned well except for a few disruptions.
Line communications with HQ XXXIII Corps was commercial throughout the
operations except for a day when the divisional headquarters moved from Patiram
to Gobindganj on 14 December. The relay
station was then shifted to Hilli and the link was restored on 15 December.
Radio relay and the radio links to HQ XXXIII Corps functioned well. Air support
communications functioned well but the nets were frequently overloaded from the
large number of queries raised due to the grid reference or target description
not being indicated clearly by the originator.
Armour
communications within the regiments and with the brigades functioned well. The
radio link of the Brigadier Armour performed well till 12 December when the
armoured regiments went out of range. Subsequently the Brigadier Armour and 63
Cavalry were moved out of the sector and 69 Armoured Regiment functioned on the
concerned brigade net only. Artillery communications within the division were
not satisfactory due to the multiplicity of radio sets being used. The units
having AN/PRC 25 had no problems, but those using RS 62 or HM 30 did not have
satisfactory communications due to the long distances involved.
After the cease fire the unit remained in Bangladesh
6
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment
6
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment was located in Bareilly 12 August 1971 , the new CO,
Lieutenant Colonel Yatindra Pratap arrived and assumed command. His
predecessor, Lieutenant Colonel P.L. Kohli had already left the unit before his
arrival. The second-in-command, Major
C.M. Sagne, was also not present, being
away on a course. The other field officers
in the unit were Major K.V.
Suri (1 Company) and Major S.K. Chatterji
(2 Company). The officers
commanding the brigade signal companies were Major R.S. Singh (9 Mountain
Brigade); Major A.V. Joglekar (69 Mountain Brigade) and Major H.L. Banerji (99 Mountain
Brigade)
The
unit received the warning order for move to Binaguri in connection with
‘Operation Cactus Lily’ on 10
August 1971 , two days before the arrival of the new CO. The advance party of the unit left Bareilly Pakistan West Bengal .
Even
before the move was completed, the CO went to Western
Bhutan with the divisional reconnaissance group and planned his
signal communications, in case the division was deployed there. Within a month, Lieutenant G.K. Syal, OC Radio
Relay Section had carried out trials for radio relay shoots Binaguri/Hashimara-
Cheemakoti- Thimpu/Paro- Dukhidzong. The
unit settled down in the new station, awaiting orders for move to the operational
area. However, instead of Bhutan East Pakistan . First to move was
9 Mountain Brigade with its two infantry battalions, to be placed under command
20 Mountain Division, which was deployed in Bhajanpur- Pachgarh. On 8 November, 9 Mountain Brigade with the
signal company moved from Jalpaiguri to Dinhata. Radio communications were established on D1
and D2 nets. In addition, a speech circuit was provided on line, for which a PL
was hired from the P&T Department from Cooch Bihar to Dinhata. Over the
next two days, 6 Mountain Artillery Brigade moved to Cooch Bihar and Tactical
HQ 9 Mountain Brigade moved to Sahibganj. One pair cable JWDI twisted was laid
between Dinhata and Sahibganj. On 13 November the divisional tactical
headquarters which was actually the GOC’s rover group moved to Dinhata.
On
move of 9 Mountain Brigade to Dinhata, the CO started pressing the divisional
commander to move his headquarters to Cooch Bihar. In view of the division’s primary task in Bhutan
In view of the dispersed locations of various
elements of the headquarters the speech circuits Binaguri-Cooch Behar and Cooch
Behar-Dinhata became the life line of communications. In order to patrol and
maintain these lines, detachments were positioned at various locations. Captain
G.K. Syal with three men and a vehicle was placed at Falfata. A similar
detachment under Captain Kanjilal was positioned at Cooch Bihar, with HQ ‘A’
Sector. Another detachment comprising two vehicles and one JCO and seven OR under
Second- Lieutenant A.K. Batta was placed at Dinhata. This unconventional and seemingly uneconomical
method was resorted to in view of the vital need of keeping this circuit
through at all costs.
To
improve the quality of the speech a Repeater Field Telephone 1A was installed
between Binaguri and Cooch Behar
On 24
November, 12 Garhwal Rifles was placed under command of the division. The unit
could not be given a speech circuit from Binaguri, since emergency had still
not been declared. One radio detachment with RS C11/R210 was positioned with
the battalion, which was controlled directly by the divisional headquarters, to
work as an out station on the D1 net. On 25 November the GOCs rover group returned
from Dinhata. A week later, HQ 9 Mountain Brigade moved to Jaimanirhat. Shortly
afterwards, 6 Mountain Artillery
Brigade also returned to Binaguri.
The
unit was gradually involved in Operation ‘Cactus Lily’ but no written order was
ever issued by the divisional headquarters.
The main divisional headquarters moved to Jalpaiguri on 1 December 1971 , along with
the artillery brigade headquarters. On 2 December, 71 Mountain Brigade was placed under command
and came up as an out station on D1. To
ensure quick passage of information, 71 Mountain Brigade was also in direct
communication with HQ XXXIII Corps on radio (D15), radio relay and line. To economise on equipment and man power, the
radio relay and line circuits to the brigade were routed through HQ XXXIII
Corps. However, as 71 Mountain Brigade
was functioning on D15 net, they could not come up on the D2 net, and all
traffic was cleared on D1 net.
As
71 Mountain Brigade was advancing, L Communication Zone Signal Regiment was
trailing behind them laying a pair of 70 lbs. cadmium copper PVC cable. However, they could never catch up with the
brigade. In a fast moving operation like
this the tactician’s and communicator’s interests are at variance. While the tactician wants to move as fast as
possible, the communicator does not want the troops to get out of range. However, this did not apply in the case of 71
Mountain Brigade. Colonel Pratap wanted
the brigade to move as fast as possible, so that they could reach Nilphamari
and he could connect them on the Saidpur- Jalpaiguri International Trunk
route. With this in mind, he sent Lieutenant
A.K. Batta with a line detachment to keep on edging forward on this route and
put it through, as soon as 71 Brigade came on this axis. Sure enough, Major S.K. Chatterji, OC 2
Company reached Saidpur before the brigade and was handed over the keys of that
town. Once the brigade came on this axis
there was no problem in keeping them through to the divisional headquarters.
Major
General Yati Pratap recalls some interesting incidents that occurred during the
operation. Once he had gone to Saidpur via Haldibari. Returning to Jalpaiguri late at night, he
took a perfect tarmac road presuming that it led to Haldibari. Soon the road turned into a track and kept
narrowing till a point was reached from where he could not move any further. He found there were at least ten motor
vehicles including some taxis following him. He got down and went back to
nearest taxi to find the way to Haldibari.
The taxi driver’s reply floored him completely: “Sahib we thought, you being fauji would know the way with your maps
etc. We are just following you.” Sheepishly, he sneaked into his vehicle,
turned around and retraced his way back to Haldibari.
During
the operation, forward communication to brigades was mostly on radio. One fine morning the D1 control operator
heard a lot of Punjabi abuses being hurled at him. Apparently a West Pakistani radio operator
was indulging in low level electronic warfare.
On being told of the happening, Lieutenant D.V. Pantvaidya detailed a
Sikh radio operator to take over the control station. The slanging match started. Soon the two sides reached an understanding
to take a respite when either side had any urgent traffic to pass. The CO was not aware of it till one day while
standing near D1 control station; he heard his operator saying- “Oye mera sparrow mere pichhe khalotta
hai. Oh nu jan de, pher men tainu
wekhanga. Khote da puttar. (My sparrow is standing
behind me. Let him go, and then I will see you, son of a donkey)”. Later,
when they went to visit the Pakistani brigade at Saidpur after the cease fire,
the operators concerned were located and a hand shake soon led to a hug and a
hearty laugh, and all was forgiven.27
101
Communication Zone Area Signals
HQ
101 Communication Zone Area was located at Shillong, under the command of Major
General G.S. Gill. The DCSO was Colonel D.B. Lahiri. The area of responsibility
of 101 Communication Zone Area included the states of Assam
The
first commitment of 101 Communication Zone Area in Meghalaya was in connection
with Operation ‘Jackpot’. For this operation Meghalaya was divided into two
sectors viz. E1 and EJ. Operations in E1 Sector (Eastern
Meghalaya ) were directly controlled by GOC 101 Communication Zone
Area. The operations in Western Meghalaya were controlled by the GOC through HQ
EJ Sector, which was located about 10 km away from Tura on road Tura-Dalu. HQ 1
Artillery Brigade (East Bengal Infantry Brigade) comprising 1, 3 and 8
Artillery Regiments (East Bengal Infantry Battalions) was also located in
Western Meghalaya approximately 35 km from Tura on road Tura-Mankachar.
Initially,
communications for command and control were established in both sectors. In the
E1 Sector, the training camp at Jowai was extended a telephone on civil circuit
from Shillong, while the ‘hides’ at
Muktapur, Shella, Balat and Barspra were each provided a radio set C 11/R210
with one cipher operator, being controlled from Shillong. In the EJ Sector, the
training camp at Tura was provided with speech and telegraph circuits from
Shillong. In addition, a C11/R210 was provided for communication to Shillong
and a BC 610 for communication to Calcutta
As
soon as the operational role was finalized, it was decided to develop Tura, the
district headquarters town of Garo Hills (Meghalaya) as the operational
headquarters of 101 Communication Zone Area. Signals started work immediately
to establish a trunk and local CB exchange at Tura, along with a VHF radio link
to Cooch Behar West Bengal ) so that the formation could
enter the national grid. Resuscitation
of permanent lines to the borders all along Meghalaya was taken in hand and
Cherrapunji was developed as a relay station for radio relay communications to
the south and along the border when so required.
It
was decided that once operations commenced, 101 Communication Zone Area, in
addition to its original role, will act as a divisional headquarters from
Tura. Until then, both roles were to be
performed from Shillong. The formations
placed under command were 95 Mountain Brigade, 167 Mountain Brigade, F Sector with one regular brigade and a large
force of irregulars, and 5/5 Gorkha Rifles in an independent role. While 95 and 167 Brigades were to operate on
axis Tura – Mahendraganj – Tangail – Dacca
One
of the major problems for Signals was finding resources, both of equipment and
manpower, to meet the additional demands. Initially two static medium power
radio sets Siemens 400W and batteries for RS C11/R 210 which were in short
supply were released and immediately dispatched to Tura. Unfortunately the vehicle carrying the
equipment met with an accident and had a watery grave in one of the
rivers. Two static Siemens 400W sets
were then removed from the Shillong transmitter station and dispatched to Tura.
Other radio equipments such as C11/R210, GR 345 and AN/PRC 25 with boosters
were arranged from within the command. Initially CSO Eastern Command released
four radio relay terminals, but subsequently agreed to one more. Radio relay sets were at a premium as the
existing network from Shillong, the communication anchor of the North East, had
to continue functioning, providing connectivity to Gauhati, Jorhat, Zakhama,
Dimapur, Aijal, Masimpur and Agartala.
As regards personnel it was decided that CO ‘S’ Communication Zone
Signal Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel S.N. Barooah, would personally command the
Signals element comprising about 50 personnel at Tura with one subaltern to
assist him.
With the induction of IV Corps, the
communication responsibility in that zone was taken over by IV Corps Signals.
However, Cherrapunji remained as anchor for their outlets and alternate
routing. N Communication Zone Signal Regiment was placed under IV Corps, which
was a great loss to 101 Communication Zone Area. To make up for this loss, 1002
Independent Signal Company (Mountain Brigade) under raising was promised.
However, three days before the actual outbreak of operations, this decision was
rescinded. Only a few detachments from the newly raised Bravo Signal Regiment
were allotted, which did not do much to boost the resources or morale of 101
Communication Zone Area Signals.
On 2 December 1971 Colonel
Lahiri had just reached Gauhati after a visit to Tura Sector, when an urgent
message was received summoning him for a conference chaired by the GOC. That same
evening at 1730 hours the headquarters commenced its move to the concentration
area. From the Signals Branch the only other officer stayed behind, as did
Major Biswas, who was commanding the company of S Communication Zone Signal
Regiment at Shillong. Lieutenant Colonel Barooah also moved to Tura, leaving
Major M. Guin, the second-in-command, to look after the unit and communications
at Gauhati. The Signals element made a dash and reached Tura in the early hours
of the morning of 3 December, while the headquarters reached at about 1400
hours. By the evening, the headquarters was fully functional and communications
to the two brigades, F Sector and rearwards to Shillong and Calcutta
At
0600 hours on 4 December, 95
Mountain Brigade commanded by Brigadier H.S. Kler crossed the international
border. Communications worked without a
break. In the evening, on his return from the front the GOC, General Gill, called Colonel Lahiri and complimented him
for the excellent communications, adding that had it not been for Signals the
operations particularly the air strikes could not have gone that well. He
stated that after the fall of Kamalpur, the enemy’s next strong hold Bakshiganj
must be captured next day i.e. on 5 December and he wanted the communications
for the battle to be perfect. He asked Lahiri to accompany him to the front in
his helicopter next morning. Lahiri pleaded that he should move the same night
and organise things so that no time was wasted and everything was ready by the
time the attack developed. Gill agreed
and Lahiri left at 2100 hours for the front to see that the communications were
planned and executed properly.
The
next morning, while returning from the forward localities, Lahiri met Gill who
was going forward with Kler who was driving the jeep. After Lahiri had briefed
Gill, they moved off. A few minutes later he heard a loud bang and a then saw a
vehicle from the GOC’s party rushing back. It transpired that his jeep had
struck a mine and Gill and Kler were both injured and had been evacuated to the
Kamalpur post. On reaching there Lahiri found Gill badly injured in the feet.
Kler had minor injuries but was stunned by the impact. The medical officer
treated the injuries and advised immediate evacuation of the GOC. A helicopter
still in the area was immediately called up and Gill was evacuated to Gauhati.
Before leaving, he told Lahiri that nobody should be told that he was injured
and those who knew should be told it was light. He further stated that he would
be back by the evening and the attack on Bakshiganj must be pressed on hard –
it must be taken that day. He asked Lahiri to keep him informed at the
hospital. After Gill’s departure, Kler wanted to return to the front but seeing
his condition, Lahiri persuaded him to rest a while and drove him to his main
headquarters. He promised Kler that a helicopter would pick him up at 1600
hours, by which time he should be fit enough and take him to Bakshiganj. He was
made to go to bed after medication and two stiff doses of brandy.
Lahiri returned to the tactical
headquarters. A telephone had been
provided in the GOC’s room in the hospital and when Lahiri rang up in the
afternoon the first thing Gill wanted to know was whether Bakshiganj had fallen.
On being answered in the negative he showered Lahiri with the choicest curses
and directed that the pressure must be kept on and he will return if not that
day, then on the next day. The OC Military Hospital on being contacted told
Lahiri that the GOC would not be fit for discharge for some time. At 1600 hours
a helicopter picked up Kler and dropped him at his tactical headquarters. On
reaching there Kler rang up Lahiri and told him that he had seen a large
concentration of enemy vehicles and troops at Jamalpur crossing and they were
the finest target for the air if a strike could be arranged immediately. Lahiri
immediately got through to the Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO) of Eastern Air
Command at Shillong with the information and requested for a strike. The SASO
was doubtful if the effort required could be made available at this late hour.
However, within 15-20 minutes the troops on the ground at Tura saw the Indian
Air Force aircraft streaking overhead towards the south. Later the SASO rang up to say that the bag
was wonderful. The enemy withdrew from Bakshiganj at 1730 and the GOC was
informed. By now it was clear that Gill would not come back and Major General
G.S. Nagra, GOC 2 Mountain Division would be taking over.28
During
his first briefing Nagra insisted that plans should be made to go right up to Dacca
personal for COS from
NAGRA (.) firstly (.) have already visited fwd elements KLERs and SANTs sector
(.) am satisfied with progress (.) secondly (.) personal assessment for scope
of ops in KLER’s sector as follows (.) alfa (.) good possibility of contacting
DACCA defs early (.) bravo (.) adm sp can be arranged for addl tps if inducted
(.) thirdly (.) recommend induction following tps (.) alfa (.) skeleton HQ 2
mtn div with div tps not op required in a div sector (.) bravo (.) inf bde gp
(.) shall prefer allotment 5 inf bde (.) echo (.) two 106 RCL for engaging
concrete bunkers (.) foxtrot (.) allotment line comn resources upto DACCA (.)
fourthly allotment armour and med arty essential mainly for early contacting DACCA
defs
Kamalpur
surrendered on 4 December and a carrier quad cable was put through to
Bakshiganj by the evening of 5 December.
This could not be done earlier as after the mine accident in which the
GOC was injured on the road to Bakshiganj, an embargo was placed on all
vehicular movement on the road till it was declared safe. In addition to laying the carrier quad, the
line party was also detailed to repair the existing PL route which was
extensively damaged and erect a new two-km route from Mahendraganj to Kamalpur
to linkup with the existing PL for communication to Bakshiganj and beyond.
On
7 December it was learnt that HQ 95 Mountain Brigade proposed to move from
Bakshiganj to Pengharchar, on the direct route to Jamalpur. A line party was
immediately sent out to lay a carrier quad cable to that location about 12 km
from Bakshiganj. The line was completed
by midnight . However, 95 Mountain Brigade instead of going
to Pengharchar, moved to Sherpur on a completely different axis, approximately
29 km from Bakshiganj. It was decided
not to lay any more carrier quad but rehabilitate the PL to Sherpur and in the
meantime communications would be only on radio relay. Simultaneously, it was considered that the
tactical headquarters should move direct to Bakshiganj from Tura instead of
moving to Mahendraganj in the first hop. Mobile signal elements of the Tura
signals complex were sent to Bakshiganj to set up communications and were ready
to receive the tactical headquarters.
However, at the last moment the plans were changed and it was decided to
set up the tactical headquarters at Sherpur. Accordingly, the communications
were shifted to Sherpur from Bakshiganj on 9 December in the morning.
HQ
FJ Sector was to function as a static headquarters at Ghasupara. With the capture of Haluaghat and rapid
progress of 6 Bihar and the BSF unit, the sector commander decided to make his
headquarters mobile and moved to Haluaghat and thereafter it continued its move
forward till it reached Dacca on 16 December.
This movement of HQ FJ Sector was a major surprise to Signals as no
planning had been done for this contingency. However, thanks to the flexibility
of the signal plan and determination of the personnel involved, communications
to the formation were provided right up to Dacca
On 10 December 167 Mountain
Brigade was inducted at Sherpur as reinforcement. Shortly afterwards, elements
of 2 Mountain Division also started arriving at Sherpur to augment the limited
resources of 101 Communication Zone Area. They included the COs
of the engineer and signal regiments along with their regimental
headquarters. A large number of staff
officers including the Colonel GS and the AQMG of HQ 2 Mountain Division also
joined. The complement of 2 Mountain
Divisional Signal Regiment comprised seven officers, eight JCOs and 209 OR.
Jamalpur
surrendered on the morning of 11 December after which the speed of advance
became very rapid. Communication problems multiplied as the build-up of signal
resources across the river was not fast enough. On this day at 1630 hours 2
Parachute Battalion was dropped just near Tangail. Originally the battalion was
to have established communications with HQ 95 Mountain Brigade under whom they
were to operate after the drop. However, it was later decided that the
battalion would be placed under command of 95 Mountain Brigade only after the
link up had taken place. It was therefore decided to set up initial
communications only with the tactical headquarters of 101 Communication Zone
Area. The battalion was out of communication throughout the night and came up
on the net only on 12 December in the morning. After the link up with 95
Mountain Brigade in the evening, the radio link with 2 Para was closed down.
The reasons for the failure of communications with 2 Para have been covered in
detail in the account of 50 Parachute Brigade Signal Company.
On 12 December, the responsibility of
provision of communications was divided between S Communication Zone Signal
Regiment and 2 Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment, with the latter being made
responsible for communications forward of the tactical headquarters and the
former for communications to the rear of the tactical headquarters which was
still at Sherpur. Another commitment given to Signals was the provision of
communications for the Inland Water Transport convoy sailing down the Brahmaputra from Dhubri with stores for the advancing
units beyond the river obstacle (Brahmaputra )
at Jamalpur. As soon as hostilities started the convoy was ordered to sail and
communications were required between the convoy commander and the tactical
headquarters. Radio sets were made available to the unit from Gauhati and one
operator was provided from S Communication Zone Signal Regiment at Tura.
Communications were established on D2 and maintained till the convoy reached
Jagannathganj Ghat, between Jamalpur and Tangail on the River Jamuna.
The
bottle neck at Jamalpur posed some problems for Signals. Initially, for
communication across the river, one pair WD1 cable was laid in the river
followed by a carrier quad cable duly water proofed and weighed down by
weights. As soon as the PL was rehabilitated to the river bank, use was made of
the main power grid cable running across the river as the PL span across the
river was destroyed due to heavy shelling. Line parties comprising Army Signals
and the East Pakistan T & T Department were sent out from Jamalpur and
Tangail towards Mymensingh and line communication was restored between the
three places by 14 December. The PL particularly at Jamalpur and between
Tangail and Madhupur was badly damaged. The line to Mymensingh from Tura via
Baluaghat was put through by the morning of 13 December.
Radio
relay between Sherpur and Tangail did not get through and hence one terminal
was sent across the river to Jamalpur to be established on top of a high
building. The operational staff of the tactical headquarters had by now reached
Jamalpur and the remainder at Sherpur was ordered to up stick and move to
Tangail. Radio relay communications from Jamalpur to Tangail in a single hop
was satisfactory only for a part of the day, which was not acceptable and thus
it was decided to establish a relay station at Madhupur half way between
Jamalpur and Tangail. It was also decided to send back one terminal from
Sherpur to Tura so that direct communications could be established between Tura
– Tangail and Tangail – Jamalpur, via Tura. The relay station at Madhupur was
planned to be shifted to Tangail for forward communications beyond Mirzapur
once the Tura – Tangail link was through.
On
the evening of 13 December the GOC moved up to Mirzapur instead of remaining at
Tangail. The tactical headquarters which was to be established at Tangail on 14
December had not completed its move due to the bottleneck at Jamalpur. The radio relay terminal earmarked for
Madhupur was moved up for communications forward of Tangail. The terminal to work to Tangail from Tura had
also not reached Tura. As a result, on 15 December there was no rearward radio
relay communication from Tangail. The
line from Tangail to Jamalpur via Mymensingh was rehabilitated but the speech
was of poor quality and good enough only for communication between Tangail and
Jamalpur. Hence, radio was the main mode
of communications on 15 December. On 16 December the GOC entered Dacca Dacca
On
14 December Lahiri had been told by Eastern Command Signals that 101 Communication
Zone Area was being placed under HQ IV Corps with effect from midday on 15 December and he should
establish direct communications with them. However, this could not be done as
no signal instruction had been received either from HQ Eastern Command from HQ
IV Corps. Ultimately frequencies and call signs were obtained on phone on 15
December. However, when the radio operator of 101 Communication Zone Area tried
to join the net he was challenged by the control at IV Corps. Since the relevant docs were not held the
challenge could not be answered. This
was brought to the notice of IV Corps Signals. A liaison officer was
immediately dispatched from IV Corps with the necessary documents. However, these could not be delivered to 101
Area Signals even on 16 December. As a result, 101 Communication Zone Area
continued to function independent of IV Corps as before. 39
At 1630
hours on 16 December the surrender ceremony took place at Dacca Dacca West
Pakistan . Lahiri asked for the CSO, Pak Eastern Command. He was
pleasantly surprised to meet Brigadier Raza, who had been his course mate at
the Indian Military Academy Dacca Dacca
Colonel
Lahiri collected a pair of brass emblems of the Pakistan Army Signals from the
door of the Pak Eastern Command Signals Mess and after obtaining permission
from HQ Eastern Command to retain them as war trophies, brought them to
Shillong. At the request of General Nagra, one was given to 2 Mountain
Divisional Signal Regiment. The other ‘Jimmy’ was presented to the SO-in-C when
he visited Shillong after the war. It is kept in the Headquarters Mess at Mhow.
2
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment
The
unit had been raised in November 1962 in the wake of the Chinese attack in NEFA
as an infantry divisional signal regiment. It was subsequently re-designated as
2 Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment and moved to Dinjan in early 1966. The
unit was looking after communications of 2 Mountain Division which was
responsible for the defence of the present day Arunachal Pradesh, then known as
NEFA (North East Frontier Agency). The divisional commander in 1971 was Major
General G.S. Nagra, while the signal regiment was under the command of Major
S.S. Dhillon.
Since
the formation was deployed on the Chinese border, it had not been planned to be
used during the invasion of East Pakistan .
However, soon after the commencement of the operations on 4 December 1971 , General Nagra had to
take over command of 101 Communication Zone Area whose GOC was injured in a
mine accident. Finding the signal resources at Tura woefully inadequate, Nagra
decided to supplement them from those from his own formation viz. 2 Mountain
Division. The unit arrived at the tactical headquarters at Sherpur on 10 December 1971 and
established communication with the forward brigades viz. 95 and 167 Mountain
Brigades and FJ Sector.
On 12 December, linemen
of the unit repaired the PL route running along the railway line from Jamalpur
to Mymensingh with the help of local P&T personnel. A railway motor trolley
was requisitioned for speedy movement along the route. On 13 December the
Jamalpur-Tangail VHF link was tested. The specialist radio vehicles carrying
the control stations for D1 and D2 step-up crossed over for setting up the
advance headquarters at Jamalpur. On the next day, the PL route Jamalpur-Mymensingh
was also put through. Soon after wards,
the officiating CO, Major Dhillon, proceeded to the new location of the
advanced tactical headquarters at Tangail with two radio and three radio relay
detachments. The unit established a 12-line exchange at Tangail for the
advanced tactical headquarters, from which a line was extended to the forward
air supply officer at the airfield.
On 16 December a liaison officer arrived from
HQ Eastern Command with new signal instructions. Direct contact was established
with HQ Eastern Command from the rover group. The divisional tactical
headquarters and main body of the unit arrived at Tangail. The PL route
Tangail-Mymensingh was through and now available for communications from
Tangail. Elements of 2 Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment arrived in Dacca
95
Mountain Brigade Signal Company
Before
its deployment in Operation ‘Cactus Lily’, 95 Mountain Brigade Signal Company
was located in Paphima in Nagaland, as part of 8 Mountain Divisional Signal
Regiment. The company commander was
Lieutenant Vinod Aggarwal. The company subsequently moved to Tura in Meghalaya,
where Major Pratap Singh took over from Aggarwal. The brigade was placed under
101 Communication Zone Area. Shortly afterwards, Major G.R. Singh from ‘S’
Communication Zone Signal Regiment was posted as the new OC. The brigade
commander was Brigadier H.S. Kler, from Signals.
Colonel
Aggarwal relates some interesting anecdotes of the period. In the preparatory phase, the brigade was
located opposite Kamalpur, which was to be captured as a preliminary operation.
It was noticed that Pakistani company located at Kamalpur employed a simple
substitution method to encode messages to the battalion headquarters. Using the
security classification of the messages and initial substitution indicators,
the Indian signallers were able to fill in the blanks by the sequential
substitution being followed by the enemy. Thus after any action, they were able
to get the enemy’s version even before the Pakistani battalion and brigade
commanders.
After the fall of Kamaplur the next
objective for the brigade was Jamalpur. Before the attack, when the brigade was
deployed on the banks of River Brahmaputra, the signal company was asked to
provide line communications to one of the forward battalions which was located about 40 km away. Coming to know from the locals that the power
supply from Jamalpur had been available till the previous day, the signallers
resorted to an innovation. They located a Pakistani lineman and with his help
cut the power line U-link towards Jamalpur. Using WD 1 cable at both ends of
the power line, they were able to get line through to the battalion in about 90
minutes, with strength 5 speech.
After
crossing the River Brahmaputra, a line had to be slung across. However, a large number of boats that were
crossing the river posed a danger to the line. The problem was solved by
slinging the cable across the river at a distance from the crossing point and
weighing it down with bricks so that it sank below the surface, ensuring that
it was not cut by boats passing over it. Subsequently, a radio relay link was
provided by 2 Mountain Division. The brigade subsequently reached Tangail,
where it linked up with 2 Para that had been dropped earlier.
When the brigade was at Kalaikar,
about 40 km from Dacca Mirpur
Bridge Dacca
50
Parachute Brigade Signal Company
50
Parachute Brigade Signal Company had moved from Agra Calcutta West Bengal . After it became known that
Operation ‘Cactus Lily’ was likely to be conducted in the later part of
the year, all specialist vehicles and
medium power radio sets were called up from Agra to Barrackpore near Calcutta
where 50 Parachute Brigade was located.
The company commander, Major Manmohan Bhatia, joined the company in early
November 1971. The three other officers in the company were Captain P.K. Ghosh,
Lieutenant A.S Bhagat and Lieutenant I.P. Singh. The brigade commander, Brigadier
Mathew Thomas had also assumed command a few days earlier.
At
Barrackpore local telephones were provided from the automatic exchange already existing.
Due to the non availability of underground and overhead permanent pairs for
extensions, these were provided on cable laid by linemen of the company. The
scale of telephones was also reduced to two for each major unit. Towards the
end of November 1971 Major Bhatia was informed by Brigadier Thomas that Captain
P.K. Ghosh was to go on a special mission. Apparently it was a toss-up between
two Bengali officers and finally Ghosh was selected. On 28 November Ghosh moved
by air along with Lieutenant Colonel K.S. Pannu to Shillong for an operational
conference from where they proceeded to HQ 95 Mountain Brigade. Pannu returned
on 1 December whereas Ghosh was sent on the special mission, details of which
have been described elsewhere.
Another
important action in which the company was involved was the para drop that was planned
near Tangail. The battalion earmarked for the drop was 2 Para, communications
for which were planned as shown below:
|
The personnel and equipment that
were earmarked to be dropped were as under:-
·
Pathfinder - One radio operator with RS 734
·
Air support tentacle
comprising eight personnel, including a driver, with a jeep and trailer. They
were to carry one RS GU 734, one RS GR 345, one RS AN/PRC-25 and one receiver R
209.
·
A radio detachment to
work as out station on B1 link, comprising three operators and two RS GR
345.
On 3 December a one to one link was
established between 2 Para and HQ 95 Mountain Brigade at Gauhati to check the
radio sets and confirm suitability of frequencies. The detachment earmarked for
the para drop was attached to 2 Para next day and preparations began to prepare
the jeep and trailer for heavy drop.
Line detachments were moved to Kalaikunda and Dum Dum air fields for
establishing line communications to the mounting bases. On 5 December information was received that 2
Para was to operate under 101 Communication Zone. Since signal instructions of
this formation were not held, an officer was sent by air to Shillong to collect
them.
Being
Army HQ reserve, 50 Parachute Brigade had not been assigned any specific role
before the commencement of hostilities. It was only on 5 December that the brigade
commander was called by the Chief of Staff, HQ Eastern Command and briefed
about his mission to capture Jessore from the rear. They were to form part of 9
Infantry Division, under II Corps. Major Bhatia immediately left for the CSO’s
Branch in HQ Eastern Command to get the signal instructions for the operation.
However, his visit was fruitless. The CSO, Brigadier Tewari told Bhatia that he was not
aware of this operation and advised him to contact the concerned
formations. After informing the brigade commander
and the BM, Bhatia left by road for HQ 9 Infantry Division on 6 December. He reached their location in the night and
since the shelling was intense, decided to stay the night there. On his return
to Calcutta Bangladesh Khulna
On
7 December the brigade less 2 Para moved along axis Dum Dum – Basirhut –
Bangaon – Jessore and concentrated at Abdulpur 5 km short of Jessore. On 8
December the brigade was placed under 4 Mountain Division and commenced its
advance with 7 Para leading on Axis Pakhuria-Kajura-Simkhali, maintaining
communications on D1 and D2 nets. Bhatia was at the start point when Lieutenant
Colonel R.P. Singh, CO 7 Para got into the
first tank. At about 1130 hours they came under intense fire from Pakistani
troops occupying a defensive position at Khajura. Taking them to be Razakars,
and being unaware of the strength of the enemy, CO 7 Para decided to launch an
attack. In the ensuing skirmish, three officers including Colonel R.P. Singh
and three OR were killed and one officer and three OR were wounded. Bhatia was
at the B-1 control and fully in the picture.
The ill fated action came to an abrupt halt. The brigade commander was
also in the B-1 vehicle trying to fathom what happened. He spoke on the D-1 for
immediate award of a Param Vir Chakra for CO 7 Para. Bhatia was asked to rush
to HQ 9 Infantry Division to arrange a helicopter for evacuating the
casualties. Fortunately, the officer commanding the helicopter squadron was
Bhatia’s course mate and the helicopter was promptly made available.
Resuming
the advance that evening, they entered the domain of 4 Infantry Division which
was also advancing towards Magura.
Though the company had their frequencies, the operator at the D-1
control of 4 Division refused to let them join the net, since he did not have
any instructions. On Bhatia’s insistence, the operator agreed to get an officer
on the set. The officer turned out to be Major G.L. Chadha who was well known
to Bhatia. They decided on a code sign extract for seven days and thus we were
able to join the net. However, next morning 50 Parachute Brigade reverted to 9
Infantry Division and was ordered to return to its old location near Jessore. Lines were laid in the harbour and
communications again established with 9 Infantry Division on D1 and D2. On 10
December the brigade moved to concentrate at Barrackpore from where it was to
be air lifted to the Western Theatre. At a conference held the same evening it
was informed that the brigade less 2 Para that was to carry out the para drop
on 11 December would be air lifted to Palam, sorties for which would commence
at 6 am next morning. Next
morning the company was airlifted to Delhi
The
drop by 2 Para took place on 11 December, while the company was in Bararckpore.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, the battalion was not in communication
throughout the night and came up on the radio only at about 0715 hours on 12
December. While the Adjutant of 2 Para attributed the failure in communication
to a mix up in the frequency being used, Major Bhatia has this to say:-
“Regarding communications after the para drop, one has to
view all the facts in totality. The communications were not a failure as they
were not opened!!! I had talked to the operators after they got back to the
Company. The night of the para drop was pretty chaotic and on landing, they
were immediately on the move. They were not given time to stop and erect the
aerial for the comn link up. Knowing the force commander very well, I can fully
appreciate his priority in getting on to the objective by first light. This was
the reason why there was no news from them that night. In fact we too were on
listening watch that whole night at Barrackpore. I did not expect much as the
directions were totally different. I was hoping for some stray radiation or the
remote possibility that the detachment may try to contact us in case of any
emergency. This did not happen on ground and the force just pushed ahead to get
to the objective. (By then it was clear that the objective was to get to Dacca
first and claim the “first to enter tag”).30
In
response to a query whether the cause for the link not getting through could be
use of an incorrect frequency and the reason for not using alternate means such
as the air support net, Bhatia has
clarified :-
“We had tried out our
communications with 95 Brigade prior to the operations as also the tentacle
frequencies were tried out. So it stands to reason that had our detachment been
given time to establish communications, we would have been through. The fact
that they ‘mysteriously’ came up the next morning proves my point. How come
just over the night when they were running like hell towards their target all
the confusion got sorted out?? Elementary - they did not stop for anything
since they had it going so good and did not want to waste time on
communications - they had to get there first! The members of the communications
detachment were handpicked, very capable persons who could be trusted to take
all possible actions to ensure communications come what may - using alternate
frequencies, other nets etc. and I don't doubt their competence, capability or
integrity even for a second.”
Though
Tewari confesses that he could never really get to the bottom of the story as
to why it happened, he feels that the reason may be similar to that given above
by OC 50 Parachute Brigade Signal Company. He writes:-
“There was a bit of a
muddle because soon after the drop, they were rushed off to the West without or
before any investigation into the so called lapse could be carried out. There
was such a rush by different operational thrusts to reach DACCA
The
Saga of Captain P.K. Ghosh, VrC
The exploits of Captain Prashanta
Kumar Ghosh form an important part of the history of the Corps of Signals
during the operations for the liberation of Bangladesh
Contrary
to popular belief, Ghosh was not para-dropped with a signal detachment into East Pakistan . He crossed the border on foot, all by
himself, with only a local lad of 14 years to help him with local dialects He
infiltrated in mid November 1971 with the help of FJ Sector, then commanded by Brigadier Sant
Singh MVC**. The brigade major of the FJ Sector was a signaller - Major S.G.
Mookerjee, who later became a lieutenant general and the SO-in-C. Ghosh soon established contact with ‘Tiger’
Siddiqui near Madhupur, north of Tangail and set about carrying out his tasks. Briefly, he selected the main and alternate
dropping zones and with Siddiqui’s boys was able to secure them, and make sure
that the drop by 2 Para was organized safely. He had to ensure that the battalion was guided to Poongli Bridge
without loss of time and all the ‘heavy drop’, meaning light vehicles, guns,
ammunition and sundry logistics were recovered from water and deployed/hauled
to appropriate locations. He established road blocks on Road Madhupur-Tangail,
north and south of Poongli
Bridge Dacca
The
saga of Captain P.K. Ghosh is best described in his own words:
“By May 1971, the
General Elections were over and the situation in East
Pakistan was boiling over. Refugees had begun to pour into India Pakistan Joint
Air Warfare
School Calcutta Mission
In the middle of November I was
ordered to report to HQ 101 Communication Zone Area in Shillong along with CO 2
PARA , Lt
Col Calcutta Guwahati Airport East Pakistan without
further delay! Pannu looked at me with a ‘better you than me, boy’ smirk on his
face.
Landing up at HQ
95 Mountain Brigade, we realized that heavy and serious skirmishing was even
then going on in border areas with East Pakistan .
Brigadier H.S. Kler, the Commander (a former OC of 50 Para Brigade Signal
Company) briefed us and for the first time it became clear to me that, of all
the planned thrusts being aimed at Dhaka, the Northern thrust under 101
Communication Zone had a good chance of succeeding since there were no major
water obstacles impeding its projected path. The role of the planned airborne
assault in preventing a possible long drawn out ‘delaying battle’ at Tangail
also became clear. Brigadier Kler, who knew me from my days in 19 Division at
Baramulla/ Haji Pir, where he was the GSO1 (Ops) during 1965 War, then discussed with me how I planned to get on
with my job. Remarking that other than the fact that there wasn’t enough time
for me to get circumcised, I did not have the foggiest notion of how to proceed
in the matter. Brigadier Kler told me not to worry as he had had a chat with
Brigadier Sant Singh of F-J Sector and that I was to immediately report to
Major Mookerjee, the BM of F-J Sector for further briefing. Major Mookerjee
turned out to be none other than S.G. Mookerjee of Signals who I knew from my
days at Mhow while attending SODE Course. Now I came to grips with my ‘Mission
I do not the
recall the exact date on which I set course from Tura to cross the border; it
was mid Nov or thereabouts. At a personal level I do recall being a bit uneasy.
I was young but not so young as not to realize that my wife was in the family
way with our second child. She was due in December and it would be hard on her
if something were to happen to me. I had taken the precaution of writing out
about seven odd letters and sent them back to the Company with Pannu, with
instructions to ‘Bags’ (late General Andy Bhagat) to post them at regular
intervals to my wife. (As it turned out, this ploy failed miserably since my
letters were impossibly out of ‘sync’ with her letters, not to mention the well
known ‘women’s intuition’ factor). At a professional level I realized that my Mission
I had with me
‘Badshah’, a 14 year old boy who I had picked out from the batch of trainees in
F-J Sector. He came in handy as a local guide and as an interpreter, when
required. I was after all a ‘Bong’, born and brought up in Kanpur East Pakistan were concerned, I may as well have been of
Greek parentage. I soon established contact with Siddiqui, the boss of the
area. For the next 8 to 10 days we operated between Mymensingh and Tangail
passing back all information, military and otherwise, to HQ F-J Sector. During
this time I had recced two suitable locations for the para drop and had passed
this information back to F-J Sector. Needless to add, operating mainly at
night, we regularly ambushed Pakistani military convoys moving up and down the
Kamalpur/Mymensingh – Madhupur – Tangail Axis creating as much confusion and
insecurity in the Rear Areas, as we could. I have to say that the local boys
were in high spirits and fairly charged up.
I had earlier
indicated to HQ Eastern Command via F-J Sector that, given the local situation,
paucity of Pak troops in Tangail and road blocks that I had planned to
establish, a morning drop would be feasible and advisable. The para drop,
however, eventually took place after last light on 11 December. A dozen of our
Signal Company boys (later called the Dirty Dozen) with a jeep based Tentacle
formed part of the ‘2 PARA Battalion Group’. On looking back one does feel that
with about 200 excited local boys under my control on the DZ, we did contribute
substantially to the success of the operations in terms of getting the
battalion to Poongli Bridge, north of Tangail, without delay and recovering all
the heavy drop including arty guns, ammunition, light vehicles and other stores
to respective earmarked areas, with dispatch. By mid day on 12 December advance
elements of 1 MARATHA of 95 Mountain Brigade commanded by General ‘Bulbul’ Brar
with General Satish Nambiar as 2IC had linked up with 2 PARA. I would have to
add that had the drop taken place in the morning we would have been able to cut
off a major portion of the Pakistanis falling back from Mymensingh and Kamalpur
and inflict far more casualties than we actually did.
By the evening
of 12 December we had occupied Tangail and advance to Dhaka
resumed without further delay. Brigadier Kler, speaking to all officers on 13th
morning made it very clear that given the progress of XXXIII, IV and II Corps
he was convinced that 101 Communication Zone with 95 Mountain Brigade leading,
had the best chance of being the first to enter Dhaka and he expected nothing
less from us. The ‘Race’ for Dhaka was now
well and truly on! In the event we were the first to enter Dhaka
on 16th morning. Since 2 PARA was leading the advance at that point
of time, it was again the Red Berets who marched triumphantly into Dhaka on 16th morning to a tumultuous welcome
by the populace.
This story would
have turned out even better had it not been for a slight miscalculation on my
part. It was the evening of the 16th Dec and the stage was set for
the Surrender Ceremony at the Ramna Race Course. A contingent each of Indian
and Pakistan
Seeing that the
crowd was too dense to penetrate, Nirbhay Sharma (Adjutant 2 PARA and an ex
Signals officer) and I stepped aside and stood next to Niazi’s staff car. I
casually stole a glance to my left to admire the shiny black Mercedes with
Niazi’s flag still hoisted atop the bonnet. Suddenly it dawned on me that the
flag was no longer ‘authorised’ and it was now a ‘finders –keepers – losers –
weepers’ situation. This was my big chance! I saw a vision of this flag
adorning the HQ Mess at Mhow (with my name in the small caption below!). As I
was mustering courage and looking for a chance to swipe the thing there was a
sudden swelling of the crowd with much shoving and elbowing. I soon regained
proximity to the Staff Car again just in time to see a Naval officer
disappearing with the flag. I believe that the darned thing is displayed prominently
in the Eastern Naval Command Mess. Whenever I reminisce over the Dhaka days this incident still rankles. Who says life is
fair?”
As
already mentioned, Ghosh was awarded the Vir Chakra for his exploits. The
citation reads as under:-
|
“During
the operations against Pakistan in December 1971, Captain Prashanta Kumar
Ghosh was assigned a difficult task in the Eastern Sector which he completed
successfully. He established road blocks, intercepted several enemy convoys
and inflicted casualties on enemy men and equipment, thereby disrupting the
smooth movement of the enemy.
Throughout
Captain Prashant Kumar Ghosh displayed gallantry, leadership and devotion to
duty of a high order.”
|
 |
Ironically,
Ghosh almost missed the award. When his name did not come up in initial lists of
awardees, Brigadier Mathew Thomas took great umbrage and dashed off a DO
(demi-official) letter to General Jacob, who immediately took up this issue with 101 Communication
Zone Area. It transpired that the confusion arose since General Gurbux Gill was
injured in early December and General
Gandharv Nagra was brought in overnight from 2 Mountain Division to take over.
As result, no one was clear whether Ghosh had fought the war under 95 Mountain
Brigade or F-J Sector, each assuming that the other formation was doing the
needful. Fortunately, HQ Eastern Command intervened and ruled that Ghosh had
fought the war under F-J Sector! Thereafter Brigadier Sant Singh had no
hesitation in dashing off the citation.
It
will be noticed that citation is resoundingly silent on the para drop and
dropping zone aspects of the tasks carried out by Ghosh, who gives a simple
explanation for this. In normal airborne operations the dropping zone is
selected off maps and suitability corroborated by other intelligence sources.
It is then secured on the day of the drop by ‘Pathfinders’. However this was
not a World War II ‘Operation Market Garden’ scenario and there was hardly any
ground intelligence. Moreover, Major General Inder Gill, the Director of
Military Operations was also the Colonel of the Parachute Regiment. This was
going to be the first airborne assault of independent India
IV
Corps Signals
After
its raising in 1962, HQ IV Corps was located at Tezpur. The CSO was Brigadier
G.S Sidhu, while his SO 2 (Signals) was Major M.K. Ghosh, who subsequently rose
to the rank of lieutenant general and became the SO-in-C. By the middle of 1971 it was known that an
offensive would be launched during the winter months for the liberation of Bangladesh East Pakistan , the
choice fell on Teliamura, about 45 km to the East.
In
June 1971 Brigadier Sidhu and Major Ghosh accompanied by some other staff
officers proceeded to Agartala to reconnoitre a suitable location for the corps
headquarters. It was only after reaching Teliamura that Ghosh learned about the
purpose of the visit. The CSO returned to Tezpur, leaving Ghosh at Teliamura,
with instructions to liaise with the P&T Department and set up the
infrastructure that would be needed for the corps headquarters when it arrived.
This included engineering the speech and telegraph circuits, construction of a
VHF tower, several new PL routes and the installation of a 200 line exchange. For reasons of security, Ghosh and his men
wore civil clothes, ate at roadside eateries and lived at a nondescript address
about 15 km away. The only support he had was a jeep loaned by the brigade
signal company at Agartala.
IV
Corps Signal Regiment was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Har
Krishan. The other field officers in the
unit were Major I.C. Singal and Major M.R. Narayanan. Along with the corps
headquarters, the unit moved to Teliamura in August 1971. The commitments of
the unit at Tezpur were to be taken over by Bravo Signal Regiment which was
under raising, but due to the slow progress in the raising of the latter unit,
IV Corps Signal Regiment continued to provide signal communications at Tezpur
during the operations. The strength of the unit was further depleted by some
elements being moved to Calcutta West Bengal was not available. As a
result, the total present strength of personnel was about 65%, which had to be
split between the permanent and operational locations. The state of equipment
was also not healthy – the unit had only four sets of crystals for radio relay
working.
The
main body of the corps headquarters and signal regiment comprising over 250
vehicles left Tezpur on 28
August 1971 under Major Narayanan, OC Engineering Company. The 1200-km
journey took four days, during which there was a mishap at Badarpur. While
crossing the Barak
River 3
November 1971 .
The
corps plan involved an advance right up to the River Meghna and communications
had to be planned for move of formations along the Badarpur –Sylhet axis in the
north and Feni-Chittagong axis in the south. During his move Narayanan had seen
a police wireless detachment working on VHF from Badarpur to Aijal, over a line
of sight distance of 120 km. Being
located at a height of approximately 4000 ft, Aijal afforded an advantage which
could be exploited. Narayanan suggested that a radio relay node be located at
Aijal, from which both axes of advance of the corps could be covered. It
involved the move of six to eight radio relay detachments over a distance of
350 km along treacherous hill roads, and would take three days to reach. Once
there, the radio relay detachments would be on their own until the end of the
operations. However, Brigadier Sidhu immediately saw the advantages of the plan
and put it to the corps commander who accepted it. Narayanan accompanied the
corps commander to Aijal on one of his trips to site the node, which was
established by the middle of September 1971. It was on a mound inside the military
hospital in Aijal, an ideal site with a clear line of sight all around. For the
next three months, till the corps headquarters moved forward to Comilla, this
radio relay node proved to be most reliable means of communications to all the
formations under IV Corps.33
By
early October communications from Teliamura had been established and fully
stabilized. During the preparatory phase radio silence had been imposed which was
lifted at 1100 hours on 14 October. By 0300 hours next day six medium power
radio links with their triple folded dipole aerials and had been activated and
test calls taken through the remote control lines. It was felt that the radio
relay communication from Aijal would become marginal once the formations
crossed the International Border, and another node was planned to be located at
Sonamura. However, this could be established only in early November, when eight
radio relay terminals were obtained from Bravo Signal Regiment which was under
raising at Tezpur. Apart from establishing the node at Sonamura, an additional
terminal each was given to 23 and 57 Divisions, to enable them to work on radio
relay from their main as well as tactical headquarters.
The
corps offensive was launched on 3
December 1971 . By 5 December the leading elements had reached three
key points on the Meghna, i.e. Ashuganj, Daudkandi and Chandpur. By 9/10 December the leading formations of 23
and 57 Divisions had secured the east bank of the river and captured Akhaura,
Brahmanbaria, Bhairab Bazar, Comilla and Laksham, opening up the approaches to
Dacca. In view of the speed of the advance, the corps commander decided to move
his headquarters to Comilla. Thanks to the advance planning of Signals, the
move was carried out without a hitch and full scale communications were set up
at the new location which was still under the fire of Pak artillery even before
the arrival of the corps headquarters. This was an impressive achievement by
Signals, which was later publicly acknowledged by General Sagat Singh himself.
The story is best told by two of the officers who played an active part in the
move, Major Malay Ghosh and Major Nararyanan.
On
6 December a worried Brigadier Sidhu asked Ghosh to go forward to the location
of 23 Mountain Division, which had been out of communication on radio relay
after commencing their advance. On reaching Buschi village near Kakraban where
the divisional headquarters was located at about, Ghosh met the CO, Lieutenant
Colonel P.S. Talwar, who told him that they had not opened the rear radio relay
link on the divisional commander’s orders. Ghosh conveyed the instructions from
the CSO that the radio link should be put through immediately. Ghosh then
retired to the officers’ mess and tried to sleep on a tabletop. But an enemy
artillery battery located nearby began firing at our own gun area and the wagon
lines putting paid to his hopes of sleep. The ammunition dump in the wagon
lines was hit, starting a fire, resulting in the death of the CO of the artillery
unit while trying to supervise rescue operations.
By
early next morning the radio relay link had been put through. When Ghosh spoke
to Sidhu he asked him to return to Teliamura by way of Comilla, which was
reported to have been occupied by own troops. Ghosh started back taking the
Chittagong–Dacca road and reached Comilla around noon . Proceeding to the civil telephone exchange he met
Mr. Shaukat Usman, the divisional engineer telephones who told him that his was
the first Indian military vehicle that he had encountered. The platoon of the
Pak Army that had been guarding the exchange had left only that morning. He
took Ghosh around the Siemens 100 line auto exchange that was functioning and
manned. He then accompanied Ghosh to the circuit house, a large building which
had an extensive underground cable layout on which a large number of telephones
could be connected. Collecting a number of blueprints showing the cable layout
extended around the town, Ghosh returned to Teliamura via Belonia. En route, he
visited the police communication centre which was still communicating with Dacca Chittagong
Arriving
at the corps headquarters at about 2100 hours on 7 December, Ghosh went
straight to the CSO and briefed him about the communication infrastructure at
Comilla. The next day Sidhu himself went to Comilla accompanied by Major Gill
of Eastern Command Signals who had brought the much-needed radio relay
crystals. They met Mr. Usman and did their own reconnaissance. That night Sidhu
informed Ghosh that the corps commander had told him during dinner at the A
mess that the corps headquarters must be established on Bangladesh
On
9 December Major Narayanan was briefed by Brigadier Sidhu and Major Ghosh. He
was asked to proceed to Comilla and examine the feasibility of extending
rearward communications from Comilla to Shillong, Calcutta Delhi midday on 11 December. Mr Usman gave an assurance
that he would also arrange link up with the route on the Indian side, which had
been completed by N Communication Zone Signal Regiment.
Satisfied
with the communication facilities at Comilla, Narayanan started back at about
1700 hours. After driving for about 20 minutes they crossed a few fully armed
Pakistani soldiers walking in the same direction. Then they saw a road barrier
manned by Military Police. Narayanan realised that they had taken the wrong
road - instead of east, they were heading west towards Mynamati Cantonment!
Turning around the jeep, he made a quick getaway, reaching Teliamura at about
2100 hours. He briefed Ghosh and then Colonel Har Krishan in the officers’
mess, conveying to them his assessment that we would be able to provide
communications from Comilla if the corps headquarters moved there.
On
10 December morning, Har Krishan and Narayanan were summoned by Sidhu for an
urgent meeting in his office. Sidhu told them about the corps commander’s wish
that the corps headquarters should move forward and establish on Bangladesh Dacca
Sidhu
asked them to accompany him to the operations room that was close by. Asking
them to wait in the next room, Sidhu entered the room where the corps commander
was having a meeting with his staff, the main agenda being the move of the
corps headquarters. The CSO briefed all
present about the visits made by various officers to Comilla on the previous
three days and the communications infrastructure available. He concluded by
saying: “Sir, the CO of the corps signal
regiment is waiting outside along with his company commander. They are also
confident of providing the communications from Comilla.” General Sagat did
not waste any time. He said, “Gentlemen,
so we move to Comilla. We close our headquarters here at noon today, and reopen at Comilla in 48 hours.”
Early
in the morning on 11 December, Ghosh and Narayanan left Teliamura with a small
convoy of Signals and some elements of corps headquarters. They were followed
at 1000 hours by the advance party of the corps headquarters and the unit under
Major I.C. Singal, OC Operating Company.
Picking up the systems vehicle en route at Sonamura, Narayanan’s party
reached Comilla at about 1100 hours. To their pleasant surprise, the PL route
from Sonamura to Comilla had already been patched by Major J.M. Khullar of N
Communication Zone Signal Regiment and the staff of the divisional engineer
telephones. By noon , the
communications had been fully established.
Telephones had been connected in all the rooms at the circuit house
along with a directory and instructions for users with each instrument. The
corps headquarters elements arrived in the afternoon and started functioning by
the evening. The corps commander arrived in the evening and asked to be put through
to his family at Jaipur. The call was connected immediately and everyone felt
happy that Signals have again risen to the occasion.34
It
is worth mentioning that when HQ IV Corps moved to Comilla, there was an entire
Pakistani brigade located at Mynamati.
The corps headquarters at the circuit house in Comilla was within mortar
range of the enemy. In fact 117 Pak
Brigade at Mynamati under Brigadier Atif did not surrender till 16 December.
The bulk of the HQ IV Corps remained at Comilla from 12 to 20 December when it
moved to Mynamati, though some essential elements moved to Dacca
The
civil exchange taken over by IV Corps in Comilla was a Siemens automatic
exchange of 5000 lines with a number of trunk boards. The lady operators
operating the trunk/junction lines and assistance positions were all given
leave so that Signals operators and other Army personnel could function
effectively without endangering security, Because of the extensive UG cable
network emanating from this exchange at the circuit house, telephone
connections to the corps staff could be provided almost immediately after
arrival of the advance party. This was perhaps an unique example of a
city's civil exchange being taken over and used for providing military
communications including trunk speech circuits. Incidentally, the junction
lines to the exchange of 117 Pak Brigade at Mynamati continued to function and
there were some interesting conversations between Indian and Pak operators.
Though
IV Corps was poised to capture Dacca Dacca Dacca
On
16 December everyone in Comilla was
expectantly waiting for news from Dacca Dacca
At about 1100 hours on 17 December
Sidhu came up on the radio set. Telling Narayanan that everything in Dacca Dacca Dacca Dacca
Collecting
the matching frequency crystals for use at Dacca Dacca Dacca Delhi Calcutta
Narayanan
found that the receiver station located in the signal centre building was
manned by eight Pakistani signallers under Havildar Guldast. Leaving
instructions with them to stay put and not leave for the prisoner of war camp,
Narayanan commandeered a jeep and left for the transmitter station at 2100
hours with a Pak soldier as a guide. When he arrived at the transmitter
building he found an Indian Signals JCO who had been sent there earlier by
Major Gill of Eastern Command Signals. The Pakistani JCO in charge was Subedar
Riaz, who showed him round the station, which had over a dozen medium and high power
transmitters mostly British SWAB8 (Marconi) and Siemens 1 KW.
Working
feverishly through the night, the Indian and Pakistani signallers were able to
establish the radio links to Delhi Calcutta Delhi Dacca Dacca Delhi Calcutta midday
on 18 December, IV Corps Signals was relieved of the responsibility of
communications at Dacca
The
performance of IV Corps Signals during the entire operation was truly
commendable. This was highlighted by the corps commander, Lieutenant General
Sagat Singh. While attending the Corps Anniversary function on 15 February 1972 , he gave a
speech, which is reproduced below:-
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today is the Corps of Signals Day. I have conveyed my
felicitations to all members of the Corps of Signals serving in IV Corps. But,
this celebration tonight soon after our victory in Bangladesh Rhine . May I
submit to you, Rhine is one third of the water
obstacle of the Meghna. Meghna is two and half times wider than the Brahmaputra that you know here in Tezpur. However, that’s
a matter apart; a matter of topography. The Corps responsibility, lay from north
of Sylhet down to Cox’s bazaar, and the whole of Mizo hills, all of which I
think is a great geographical mass. I couldn’t possibly have exercised my
operational command, had it not been for Brigadier Sidhu and his resources. He
never failed me. He was entirely in my confidence. I would tell him, Gurdial,
this is what I have in mind, and he wouldn’t ask me any questions at all. He
rose to every occasion, every demand, and communications never, never failed. I
don’t think there is any parallel in history, where a corps headquarters moved
within enemy gun shells as we moved into Comilla. And we couldn’t have possibly
moved there, unless Brigadier Sidhu and the Corps of Signals had ensured our
communications. Now this is something, ladies and gentlemen, a fact of history
and undeniable. The whole corps headquarters moved on the night of 11/12 and we
couldn’t have functioned there, if he had not gone ahead and established the
communications within enemy gun range. May I gratefully, on behalf of the
entire Corps, the fighting Corps, submit that we couldn’t have achieved the
success that we did, had it not been for Brigadier Sidhu, IV Corps Signal
Regiment, Bravo and V Communication Zone Signals elements. Frankly I couldn’t
have achieved the success had it not been for their support and for their
efficiency. I am most grateful. Thank you Brigadier Sidhu”.35
8
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment
8
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment was located at Zakhama in Nagaland in 1971
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Kalyan Singh. The second-in-command was
Major S.C. Ahuja (he subsequently became a lieutenant general and the SO-in-C)
while the adjutant was Captain Bharat Parkash. The other field officers in the
unit were Majors G.R. Bhardwaj, J.L. Puri and MS Dhillon.
As soon as the unit came to know of
its role in Operation ‘Cactus Lily’, it started making preparations. The unit conducted feasibility
trials from several locations such Dharmanagar, Rattabari and Kailashahar to
the projected locations of brigades. Some PL and cable routes were constructed
in the area of operations. These included a 70 lbs cadmium copper spaced PVC
route from Dharmanagar to Kalashahar and a field cable route from Dharmanagar
to Amtila. A G1 system of the P&T Department was mounted in a vehicle to
derive circuits by integration with their circuits at Dharmanagar. This proved very useful during the
operations.
The move of 8 Mountain Division to
its concentration areas was carried out in strict secrecy. To conceal its
identity, the divisional headquarters was referred to as Rear HQ 57 Mountain
Division, which was also functioning in the area. This created a lot of
confusion and it was later decided to revert to its original name. The
operational commitments of the unit in Operation ‘Orchid’, including the signal
centre at Zakhama were taken over by 1001 Independent Signal Company (Mountain
Brigade) which had been raised for this purpose. Major Mukandan and Captain S.
S. Badal who had been with the company through its raising took charge of the
communication duties. Lieutenant A.K Choudhary of the unit remained at Zakhama
to assist Mukandan and his team.
On
15 October the special train arrived at Baraigram railway station. By 17
October, the signal centre was fully functional, and trunk speech circuits had
been provided to Main HQ IV Corps, to Rear HQ 8 Mountain Division and to 59 and 81
Mountain Brigades. On 18 October the remainder of the unit arrived by road,
completing the concentration of the unit at Sherpur. Radio relay links were
established with both brigades and direct channels given between the operations
rooms at both ends. Radio links were
also put through with corps, both brigades as well as with Zakhama. The rear divisional headquarters came up at
Ratbari, where the signal centre became functional on 25 October and a 40 line
Ericsson exchange was installed. Initially, traffic was cleared to corps on C2
but the link was closed down on 30 October after a telegraph circuit was
engineered by mounting ACT 1+1 on the PL
between Dharmanagar and Sherpur.
In
addition to its own brigades, 8 Mountain Division also had a brigade of East
Bengal Regiment (EBR) located at Kadamtila. Communication to the EBR brigade
was provided by sending a HF/VHF radio detachment to their location on 5
November. Subsequently another radio detachment was sent to Kamalpur to provide
communications to the EBR brigade at that location. By this time the
teleprinter was working on the radio link to 81 Brigade. For 59 Brigade, a VFT
circuit was provided on the radio relay link. Shortly afterwards, a party of
the P&T Department arrived to install the G1 carrier system between
Sherpur-Silchar and Sherpur-Dharmanagar, which was commissioned on 15 November.
Circuits were engineered from Sherpur to Dharmanagar as well as to Teliamura
and Sonamura by dropping the audio at Patherkandi. The audio channel of
Sherpur-Silchar GI System was dropped at Karimganj and extended to Tactical HQ
2 Artillery Brigade at Fakirbazar, about
15 km away.
On
17 November the rear divisional element of Signals moved to Rattabari under
Captain K.G. Tewari. During this period
a divisional tactical headquarters was established for Operation ‘Spring Time’,
the code name for the capture of Atgram and Zakiganj, in order to remove the enemy
threat to Karimnagar and the Badarpur Ferry.
A radio relay detachment under Second-Lieutenant Virendra Kumar was
deployed for providing communications at the divisional tactical headquarters.
A monitoring detachment under Captain John Cherian was also sent along. Radio
communications were provided on D5 and D5A nets, for which detachments were
sent from 2 Mountain Artillery Brigade Signal Company. These detachments were
all withdrawn on 21 November after the capture of Atgram and Zakiganj by 59
Mountain Brigade.
Even
after the capture of Atgram and Zakiganj, Pak troops continued to fire at
Indian positions and carry out acts of sabotage in the area across the border.
To eliminate this threat, Operation ‘Winter Flower’ was launched for the
capture of area up to Kulaura by 59 Brigade and Operation ‘Black Jack’ was
undertaken by 81 Brigade for the capture of Shamshernagar. For these operations, communications were
provided on the same lines as for Operation ‘Spring Time’ to the divisional
tactical headquarters at Bhagban Nagar. On 27 November orders were received for
the move of the main divisional headquarters to Missiontila. On 29 November the
main body of the unit moved to Missiontilla and established communications on
line, radio and radio relay with forward elements as well as rearwards. A line construction section of N
Communication Zone Signal Regiment under Captain V.K. Girdhar attached to the
unit was asked to extend the PVC route from Chandipur to Chatlapur the new
location of 81 Mountain Brigade and complete the task by midnight 3/4 December.
Operation
‘Cactus Lily’ commenced on 3
December 1971 . The M1 Group moved to the new location in general
area Kailashahar at 1100 hours. Captain S.V. Jagannath, OC 81 Mountain Brigade
Signal Company visited Shamshernagar which had already been liberated and gave
information regarding the communication infrastructure available. Apart from a
40 line magneto exchange, a huge quantity of PL stores was found. There were a
number of partially damaged PL routes existing towards Kulaura, Kamalganj,
Maulvi Bazar and Chatlapur, and also some carrier quad. On 4 December the rear divisional
headquarters moved from Ratabari to Bhagban Nagar. The PVC route was extended
from Chandipur to Chatlapur, the new location of 81 Brigade. The same day a
line party of 59 Mountain Brigade Signal Company apprehended two Razakars
cutting the line running to 9 Guards.
By
5 December line communications to rear divisional headquarters had been
provided by dropping the audio at that location by use of a BBFU on the circuit
derived by mounting ACT 1+1 between main and tactical divisional headquarters.
A 10 line magneto exchange was installed at the tactical headquarters at
Shamshernagar. On 7 December
line communications were provided between tactical headquarters at
Shamshernagar and 81 Brigade at Munshi Bazar. A radio relay link was also
established and channels dropped at Shamshernagar and connected to the tactical
headquarters exchange. On the same day the famous heliborne operation took
place for the capture of Sylhet. A radio detachment of 59 Mountain Brigade
Signal Company accompanied 4/5 Gorkha Rifles, the battalion that carried out
the heliborne operation and landed at a point north of Sylhet.
On
10 December the M1 Group moved from Missiontila to the new location at
Shamshernagar. The detachment of N Communication Zone Signal Regiment laid an
additional pair of 150 lbs GI (galvanised iron) wire between Shamshernagar and
Munshi Bazar on the existing PL alignment. A team of the P&T Department had
been positioned with the G1 system at Shamshernagar. A radio relay link was established from the
new location to HQ IV Corps through the relay station at Aijal. These
communications were through before the move of the main divisional headquarters
from Missiontilla to Shamshernagar on 11 December.
Radio
links from the main divisional headquarters were established to 59 Brigade at
Sagarnal and 81 Brigade at Maulvi Bazar. The G1 system between Dharmanagar and
Shamshernagar was commissioned. This provided two speech and one telegraph
channels to Teliamura. The third channel was patched to 59 Brigade at Kulaura,
with the audio channel dropped at rear division at Bhagban Nagar. Next day a
direct line was provided to 59 Brigade at Kulaura by rehabilitating the
existing PL route along the railway alignment under supervision of Major M.S.
Dhillon. The third channel of the GI system was terminated at Dharmanagar
exchange. Two pairs of PL route Maulvi Bazar – Sylhet were rehabilitated by 81
Brigade Signal Company to provide line communications to 3 Punjab
from the brigade exchange.
Tactical
HQ 59 Mountain Brigade moved to Fenchuganj after it was cleared on 12 December.
A radio relay link was immediately established to the new location on 13
December. Next morning a monitoring detachment under Captain John Cherian
accompanied the divisional commander to Fenchuganj. On 15 December 59 Mountain Brigade moved
to area Magla Bazar. Communications on
radio relay and radio were established with main divisional headquarters at
Shamsher Nagar over distance of 60 km. By this time the corps headquarters had
moved to Comilla. To cater for this, Channel 1 of the GI system Shamshernagar –
Dharmanagar – Teliamura was patched at Teliamura for Comilla. The operations ended on 16 December.49
57
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment
The
unit was raised on 10
December 1969 at Masimpur, the first CO being Lieutenant Colonel
B.S. Chadha. The role of the unit was to provide communications for counter
insurgency operations over a wide area, comprising difficult and mountainous
terrain. The division at that time had 19 battalions including para-military
forces, resulting in heavy work load for the unit. After the worsening of the
political situation in East Pakistan in March
1971, large numbers of refugees started pouring in across the international
border. This led to an increase in subversive activities by the Pak Army in the
area of operational responsibility of the division. Delta and Echo Sectors were
created at Agartala and Masimpur respectively under the command of 57 Mountain
Division. The co-ordination of their communications became the responsibility
57 Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment. To counter the border violations by the
Pak Army, 61 Mountain Brigade was moved from Mizo Hills to Cachar District with
its headquarters at Badarpur. After this, 73 Mountain Brigade at Aijal became
responsible for the whole of Mizo Hills.
During
Operation ‘Cactus Lily’, 57 Mountain Division operated in the Akhaura-Bhairab
Bazar Sector as part of IV Corps. The
divisional headquarters moved from Masimpur to Jerania in Tripura on 28 August 1971 .
Communications on radio, radio relay and line were established soon after
arrival. The D1 net was established on
HF as well as VHF. The VHF D1 control
using ANPRC 25 with remote control facility was set up on top of a water tank
at a height of 50 feet from the ground, as the distances were beyond the
effective range of the set. In addition, a one to one radio link using GR 345
was established for the divisional commander’s rover, so that it could get
through from any place in the area of responsibility. Radio relay links were
established to all brigades and to Main HQ IV Corps as a standby to speech
circuits.
To
derive speech channels with brigades a three channel composite system of the
P&T Department was installed on the PL between Jirania and Agartala. A VFT
system was mounted to derive the teleprinter circuit to the corps. A carrier quad route on bamboo poles was laid
between Jirania and Agartala Carrier, on which a (1+4) carrier system was
mounted to provide standby speech lines to brigades. Field cables routes were
laid on bamboo poles, for the line to Champaknagar from Jirania, and for speech
and telegraph tails to three brigades at Jirania and Agartala. Three phase
power supply was taken from the civil mains and utilised for battery charging,
as also for power supply to radio relay detachments and other signal
installations. This obviated the need to run charging engines and generators, which
were conserved for the actual operations.
An underground signal centre was constructed by 15 Engineer Regiment.
During
the last week of October 1971 an operation was conducted for the capture of
Dhalai across the international border. The divisional tactical headquarters
moved to Kamalpur on 30 October. A
signal detachment with HF and VHF radio sets, a 10 line exchange, telephones
and cable accompanied the tactical headquarters. The radio relay link between
Jirania and Ambasa was extended to Kamalpur to provide standby line
communications between Teliamura -Kamalpur and Jirania -Kamalpur. During the
attack, line communication was provided to the advancing troops on manpack
basis. Signal detachments from the unit did an excellent job in providing communication
for this action, which brought the first major victory for the division.
Shortly
before the commencement of open hostilities with Pakistan
Immediately after the capture of
Akhaura, line communications were extended to 311 Mountain Brigade and later to
73 Mountain Brigade even before the road axis was opened for vehicular
traffic. The existing PL routes were
badly damaged by the retreating enemy and due to heavy artillery shelling from
both sides. Because of the urgency of
getting across guns and artillery ammunition at bottle necks, very low priority
was given to Signals for crossing at Akhaura ferry. All stores, cables and equipment had to be
manhandled and carried on manpack basis. Even the radio relay detachments
including generators and petrol were manhandled across the river and radio
relay communications provided to 73 Mountain Brigade.
The divisional tactical headquarters
moved to Brahmanbaria on 8 December after it was vacated by the enemy. The 73
Brigade radio relay terminal located at Brahmanbaria ferry site was converted
hurriedly to establish communications with Main HQ IV Corps, until the corps
detachment reached Brahmanbaria. Crystals
The Agartala -Teliamura PL
With
the fall of various strong holds of the enemy, his morale was shattered and he
was on the run. To cut off enemy troops and prevent them from reaching Dacca
On
the following day i.e. 12 December, two more helicopters were allotted. These
carried the CO and adjutant, along with the remainder of the radio relay
detachment stores, 20 km of cable with four linemen, and three RS C11/R210 with operators.
Another party of 15 men under Subedar K.S. Patial left Brahmanbaria by boat for
Narsingdi with one radio relay detachment, one RS C11/R210 station, batteries,
rations and 30 km of cable. This party
took about 40 hours to reach Narsingdi jetty. Another party of four OR under a
Yeoman of Signals left Brahmanbaria on 13 December with an exchange, 10
telephones, two more barrels of 73 NL petrol and rations. This party took 36 hours to reach
Narsingdi. The same day another party of
four officers, 25 operators, eight linemen, the corps radio relay detachment,
20 km of WD-1 cable, two type-X machines and a 5.5 KVA generator left by
steamer which reached Narsingdi after 10 hours.
The last party of two officers with 30 OR left Brahmanbaria on 16
December by steamer, reaching Narsingdi after eight hours.
From the helipad at Narsingdi,
equipment had to be manhandled to the tactical headquarters location, which was
about 7 km away. Stores coming by boat had to be manhandled from Narsingdi
jetty, over a distance of 2 km. The
Signals element at Narsingdi had to go without rations for two days as priority
was given to important equipment and stores. Communications from Narsingdi were
mainly based on radio and radio relay. Tactical headquarters of 73 and 311
Brigades and 4 Guards were placed on D1 HF net using GR 345, others being on D1
VHF. Radio relay links were established to 311 Brigade and Brahmanbaria.
However, a direct link to Tactical HQ IV Corps at Comilla could not be
established even after erecting the aerial on top of the United Jute Mill water
tank at a height of 80 feet. Calls to IV Corps had to be routed through
Brahmanbaria radio relay link which remained steady.
In addition to local lines, cable
routes were laid on man pack basis to 73 Mountain Brigade, 57 Artillery Brigade
and Narsingdi jetty. One operator of 73 Mountain Brigade Signal Company
battalion detachment was killed due to enemy action during their crossing of
the Meghna. On the morning of 14 December, 301 Mountain Brigade ex 8 Mountain
Division and 95 Mountain Brigade ex 2 Mountain Division which were closing in
on Dacca were placed under command 57
Mountain Division. These were added to
the D1 and D2 net, though lack of road communications posed problems in
coordinating communication arrangements with these formations.
By
afternoon 15 December 1971 ,
our advancing troops were within 7 km of Dacca Dacca Dacca
23
Mountain Divisional Signal Regiment
According
Lieutenant Colonel M. Sathesan who served in the unit in the early sixties, 23
Infantry Divisional Signal Regiment was originally known as GOC Assam Signal
Company located in the Naga Hills . It was subsequently renamed as 23 Infantry
Divisional Signal Company, functioning under DCSO HQ 23 Infantry Division, the
last officer to hold the appointment being Lieutenant Colonel Kulwant Singh
Deol. The brigade signal companies were independent. Soon afterwards, the
DCSO’s branch, divisional signal company
and the brigade signal companies were all grouped and reorganized into 23
Infantry Divisional Signal Regiment. The division had a large area of
responsibility, comprising five brigades and two Assam Rifles sectors. Road and
line communications were poor and communication was maintained primarily by
radio. Maintenance of lines was difficult and hazardous and line parties had at
all times to move with escorts, provided by Infantry or from unit resources. A
radio relay link to Shillong functioned using vintage AN/TRC sets. In addition
to its normal commitments, the unit manned the signal centres at Dimapur and
Jorhat. Subsequently this responsibility was taken over by N Communication Zone
Signal Regiment in 1966.
In
1971 the unit was located at Rangiya under the command of Lieutenant Colonel
P.S. Talwar. When the unit received orders for move to the concentration area
for Operation ‘Cactus Lily’, it was facing shortage of manpower particularly in
the operator category. There were also shortages of radio and radio relay sets,
secondary batteries, charging engines and cable. To complicate matters, B1 net of one brigade
viz. 83 Mountain Brigade was on the HF, whereas the other two brigades were on
VHF. The shortage of radio equipment of non-signal units, particularly VHF sets
in the battalions was very pronounced.
With a view to ensure equitable
distribution of signal equipment in the division, measures were undertaken to
rationalize the holdings of all units.
The Technical Officer Telecom (TOT) of the unit visited all units in the
division including non-signal units in order to make maximum equipment
serviceable, by carrying out repairs by cannibalization of components of
unserviceable radio sets. This resulted in considerable improvement in the
availability of serviceable radio sets before the commencement of operation.
The commitments of the unit during
Operation ‘Cactus Lily’ can be broadly divided into two major operations viz.
‘Harvest’ and ‘Sledge Hammer’. Operation ‘Harvest’ (19 to 29 November 1971)
dealt with operations in the Belonia Bulge and Operation ‘Sledge Hammer’ (3 to
15 December 1971) with the operations in the Comilla – Chandpur – Mynamati
sector.
By
about the second week of November, 83 Mountain Brigade took over the
operational responsibilities from 73 Mountain Brigade in the general area
Santir Bazar – Sabrum with the brigade headquarters at Bugafa. During the
relief of 73 Brigade 83 Brigade there was heavy enemy interference resulting in
considerable casualties to own troops. The divisional commander decided to put in
a two battalion attack in the area around Belonia – Parsuram from where the
enemy interference was reported. Due to stiff enemy resistance from area
Bulgazi, this operation was held up and it was decided to put in a two brigade
attack with 83 and 181 Mountain Brigades to clear the enemy from the Belonia
Bulge. Since the main divisional headquarters was located at Kakraban which was
over 40 km from Belonia, it was decided to move up the divisional tactical
headquarters to a suitable location.
On
17 November the CO, accompanied by OC 1 Company and GSO 2 (Operations) carried out a
reconnaissance and selected an area for the tactical headquarters on a high
ground about 6 km from Santir Bazar along the Belonia road. The brigades
commenced their moves on the night of 17/18 November and completed
concentration by first light. The
initial location of HQ 83 Mountain Brigade was Raj Nagar and that of HQ 181
Mountain Brigade was Amjad Nagar. HQ 301 Mountain Brigade remained at
Nirbhaypur looking after the Sonamura sector. The divisional signal centre was
established and started functioning by 1400 hours on 18 November 1971 . Radio, radio relay
and line communications were established to 83 and 181 Brigades. The corps
radio relay detachment was also moved to the tactical headquarters location.
Radio relay was established to Main HQ IV Corps at Teliamura and the main
divisional headquarters at Kakraban.
Operation ‘Harvest’ commenced at first light on 19
November with infiltrations by 83 and 181 Brigades along the western and
eastern sides of the Belonia Bulge respectively. One radio relay and one line
detachment each were attached to the brigade headquarters. The tactical
headquarters of the brigades moved up and established radio communications with
the divisional headquarters followed by the establishment of line
communications. After this the radio
relay detachment moved up with the main brigade headquarters and established
radio relay communications. This was the drill followed throughout the
operations by which continuous and reliable communications were maintained with
the brigades as they advanced. In addition to exchange lines to the brigades
lateral lines were also provided whenever possible. The brigades advanced
rapidly along their respective axes and the final distances of HQs Artillery
Brigade, 83 Mountain Brigade and 181 Mountain Brigade from the divisional
headquarters were 28, 35 and 42 km respectively. The operation ended on 28 November 1971 and the
divisional tactical headquarters returned to Kakraban after handing over the
trunk lines laid on the ground to HQ ‘K Sector’ which was made responsible for
the Belonia Bulge.
After
Operation ‘Harvest’ there was rethinking regarding the advisability of attack
on Lalmai Hills from the divisional headquarters location at Shobapur with
brigades located around Nirbhaypur-Dhanpur. On 29 November it was decided to move the divisional
tactical headquarters further south. After a reconnaissance by OC 1 Company and
the GSO 2 (Operations), Nidhiya was selected as the initial location of the divisional
tactical headquarters. The brigades began concentrating in their new locations
on the same night. By last light on 2
December, communications to brigades were established. The divisional tactical headquarters became
functional on the same day, while the main headquarters reached the location
two days later.
On 5 December 1971 , the
divisional tactical headquarters moved to area Bahadurpur. By last light that day radio and radio relay
had been established from the new location. On 7 December, main divisional
headquarters moved up to join the tactical headquarters. Communications were provided on radio and
line to HQ 23 Mountain Artillery Brigade (Bhatora); HQ 83 Mountain Brigade
(Chaudagram); HQ 181 Mountain Brigade (Harischar); and HQ 301 Mountain Brigade
(Bhatora). Radio relay was provided to 83 and 181 Brigades and rearwards to HQ
IV Corps (Teliamura).
In view of the rapid advance of 301
Mountain Brigade along Chandpur – Narayanaganj axis it was decided to move the
divisional tactical headquarters to Chandpur after it fell. With the fall of Hajiganj on 8 December
and Chandpur on 9 December, a reconnaissance party with OC 1 Company and
essential radio and line detachments proceeded to Chandpur to establish the tactical
headquarters. By the last light on 9
December, radio and radio relay to corps were established. On 10 December, the main divisional
headquarters moved up to Chandpur.
With the fall of Comilla on 12
December it was anticipated that the enemy at Mynamati would surrender. However, the garrison held on, in spite of
heavy battering of Lalmai and Mynamati by air.
It was then decided to clear Mynamati using 61 and 181 Brigades, 83
Brigade being still under HQ IV Corps. The divisional tactical headquarters
moved from Chandpur to Aileshwar.
According to the drill, radio nets D1, D2 and C1 and radio relay link to
corps were established at Aileshwar, followed by the other communication links
which subsequently moved up from Chandpur. On 15 December 1971 the surrender of Pakistani
troops in East Pakistan was announced by a
signal from HQ IV Corps. The Mynamati
garrison surrendered at 1000 hours on 16 December 1971 .
On 18 December, the divisional
headquarters moved to Mynamati. With the
move of Eastern Command to Dacca Chittagong
During Operation ‘Sledge Hammer’,
the advance of the brigades was very fast and usually beyond normal field cable
range. The divisional headquarters moved no less than five times during the
operation. In all these moves it was
split into tactical and main headquarters. The usual practice of a
reconnaissance by Signals before move of the tactical headquarters could not be
followed. Invariably full scale
communications on radio, line and radio relay had to be provided at both
tactical and main divisional headquarters till the latter joined the former,
which could be after 12 to 36 hours. The
frequent changes in the order of battle posed problems regarding allotment of
frequencies, code signs, authentication sheets, radio relay crystals and cipher
documents.51
2 Air Support Signal Regiment
In
1971, the unit was located in Calcutta
To
make up the shortage of about 100 odd secondary batteries, the Deputy Director
Ordnance, HQ IV 4 Corps suggested that these be purchased from the local
market. However, the local dealers, being unfamiliar Army procedures refused to
supply the batteries on credit. Besides, some modification had to be done to
the battery terminals, to permit them to be used on radio sets. Fortunately, Major
Siddiqui learned that 57 Mountain Division Signal Regiment was planning to back
load a large number of new batteries which were not even given the initial
charge. Siddiqui promptly got orders issued transferring the batteries to his
unit. That still left the problem of initial charge, which is the
responsibility of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME). Since the
affiliated EME workshop refused to carry out this job, Siddiqui decided to do
it within his own resources. He asked his unit in Calcutta
After
arrival at the new location, the process of training in air support procedures
was taken in hand. The detachments were reorganised so that each tentacle had
at least one trained operator. Intensive training of operators was conducted
for the next two months, at the end of which all detachments had achieved a
high degree proficiency and were ready for the operations. By the time the
orders came to deploy the air support tentacle detachments with their
respective formations, their confidence and morale was high.
Initially,
the radio set that was held for ground to air communications for the air
observation post was BE 201, which used secondary batteries. The set was
vehicle bound and not suitable for carriage in man pack mode. Before operations
started, the company received the new portable GU 734 sets, which used portable
Nickel Cadmium batteries. Out of four frequencies allotted to the company, one
was an international frequency and another open for civil use. This left the
company with only two reliable operational frequencies. Subsequently, HQ
Eastern Command agreed to allot additional frequencies, the crystals for which
were issued to the EME workshop, which was to fit them in the sets. The story
of how this was done has been described by Colonel Siddiqui thus:-
By mid November
1971, all the tentacles were deployed with their respective formations. One
day, the SO1 (Signals) Corps Headquarters called me and said that orders for
the new frequencies have come and are to be implemented. For this new crystal
sets had to be installed in our GU 734 radio sets. I told the SO1 that it was
impossible as the sets were already deployed with the formations. The SO1 then
suggested a novel method of getting the crystals replaced. I was told to
withdraw sets from one formation, get the replacement incorporated and then do
the same with the second formation and finally the third one. In his estimate,
we could do this in a few days time. When I firmly told him that I cannot carry
out the task as suggested by him as it was impractical, he told me that it was
an order and I simply had to implement it.
I then went to
the 5 TAC Commander, Group Captain Gopalan and told him about the orders that I
had received, stating that I can promise no ground to air communications, in
the event of hostilities breaking out, as we will have our formations on
different frequencies, not compatible with those fitted in the aircraft. His
reply was, “ Look Siddiqui, it has already been confirmed by your Command
Headquarters to Headquarters Eastern Air Command that they are ready with new
frequencies to operate and based on this all our aircraft have already been
fitted with new frequencies. What do you expect me to do at this stage?” My
reply was “Sir, your aircraft are at their bases but my sets are deployed with
the forward formations in the field, where technical support for replacement of
the crystals is not available. Therefore, I am unable to implement the orders
that have been given by our Signals Branch”. Unluckily, the CSO was also away
at that time and I could not seek his help. The TAC Commander understood my
problem and spoke to the CSO Eastern Air Command, who was simply told that we
are not ready yet for the new frequencies. Their order to the bases was thus
reversed and all the aircraft were asked to switch back to old frequencies. We
were thus able to avoid a major disaster, as air support to the ground troops,
played a very significant role in the entire Bangladesh operations and our
communications never failed.36
As
part of the offensive of IV Corps, 23 Mountain Division was to launch an attack
on Akhaura on 4 December. An air strike was demanded but as the ETOT (expected
time over target) was being repeatedly postponed by IAF, the corps commander
decided that the attack should go in without waiting any further. Finally, two
Hunters took off from Bagdogra for the mission. However, instead of going
towards Akhaura the aircraft headed for Sylhet which was on the front of 8
Mountain Division. Since the aircraft
were way off the planned target, there was no contact with the ground troops
and the pilot decided to go back to base. Since their return path was from the
direction of the enemy, the Air Force radar station at Shillong declared the
Hunters as hostile aircraft. This created a panic at the JOC of IV Corps, where
it was assumed that the warning coming from the radar station at Shillong
implied that Pakistani Sabres were coming to neutralise our Hunters. The TAC
Commander asked Siddiqui do something to warn the Hunter pilots of the presence
of the hostile aircraft. Siddiqui told him that all that he had was a GU 734
set. Since they were located in a depression it was highly unlikely that the
pilots would hear his transmission. Just then, they saw the Hunters fly past. It
was only then that they realised that what the radar had thought to be hostile
aircraft were our own Hunters.
At
this time the aircraft carrier I.N.S. Vikrant
was in the Bay of Bengal and joined the air
support net on the fourth day of the operations. An immediate air strike demand
was raised by HQ IV Corps with I.N.S. Vikrant.
Due to some reason, the ship suddenly went off the net and the message
could not be passed. When Siddiqui informed the GSO1 (Operations) at the corps
headquarters he said that how he passed the message was his problem and refused
to hear any excuses. Siddiqui then called the signal officer at the Naval
Establishment in Calcutta
Soon
afterwards, 8 Mountain Division planned a heliborne operation of 59 Mountain
Brigade, about which Siddiqui was not informed. The tentacle detachment with 59
Brigade carried the bulky C11/R210 radio set with two secondary batteries and a
generator. They were in the first wave which came under heavy enemy fire, could
not land and came back. One soldier was hit by a bullet and died. This had
visibly shaken Naik Raju, the tentacle detachment commander and it took a lot
of persuasion and pep talk from Major J.L. Puri, OC 1 Company in 8 Mountain
Divisional Signal Regiment to build up his morale when the detachment was sent
again in the next wave. Siddiqui came to know of this the next day, when he
found this tentacle going off the air frequently. He then called Puri who
informed him of what had happened. Siddiqui regretted that he was not informed
about the heliborne operations. Had he known, he could have requested the CSO
to loan him the portable HM 30 sets, a few of which were held by the corps
signal regiment.
However,
the tentacle detachment performed very creditably. The C11/R210 radio set of
the air support tentacle was the only means of communication of 59 Brigade with
outside world, as the HF set that was being used as an out station on the D1
net of 8 Mountain Division had a battery
problem and could not get through. In order to conserve batteries, Naik Raju
was told to open the set only when he had a message to pass. They could not start
the generator to charge the batteries as the noise immediately drew enemy fire.
He was able to remain on the D1 net and provide crucial communications to the
brigade, switching back to his own net to pass air support demand messages. As
many as six immediate air support demands were initiated by the heliborne
forces and all of them materialized, thanks to the air support
communications. Naik Raju was later
‘Mentioned in Despatches’.
During
the last few days of the operations, everyone was racing for Dacca
Siddiqui’s
experience during the war had an element of adventure as well, when he
inadvertently was made officer in charge of an escort mission to take a
Pakistani general (by the name of Qazi Abdul Majeed), the GOC of 4 Pakistan
Infantry Division, from Bhairab Bazar to Dacca on 15 December 1971 in a MI 4
helicopter. This was a day before the formal surrender of the Pakistani
Army. The company performed creditably
during the operations and Siddiqui got a 'Mention -in- Despatches'. In
addition, one JCO and two OR got COAS commendation cards.
L Communication Zone
Signal Regiment
The
unit was raised on 15 April
1964 in Siliguri. The role of the unit was to carry out
communication tasks in the rear areas of formations deployed in Sikkim West Bengal under XXXIII Corps. It also carried out line
construction and maintenance in far flung areas such as North
Sikkim . In 1971 the unit was located at Lebong, near Darjeeling
Since
the unit was looking after communications along the L of C, it was not actively
involved in the invasion East Pakistan .
However, it was given the responsibility of relieving units that were to take
part in the operations of their static communication responsibilities in XXXIII
Corps sector. This involved maintenance of line routes, as well as manning of
radio links, exchanges and locality signal centres. The major commitment of the
unit was maintenance of PL routes in XXXIII Corps sector. It was also asked to man locality signal
centres at Gangtok, Kalimpong and Hashimara; and locality exchanges at
Bengdubi, University Area, Sevoke
Road 20 October 1971 .
In mid October, 42 Light Radio
Section (8 set- mobile) was sent to IV Corps Signal Regiment on temporary
attachment. On 3 November, 2 Company of the unit moved to Kalimpong. Towards
the end of November, the regimental headquarters along with HQ Company moved to
Bengdubi near Siliguri, where 1 Company was already located. The PL route along
axis Jalpaiguri – Chandra Banda – Patgram – Baora – Bara Khata was resuscitated
to provide a direct line between HQ XXXIII Corps and Garhwal Rifles, the total
distance being 67 km. On 2 December, the unit was given the responsibility of
maintaining all PL routes north and east of Bengdubi including the PL routes in
Bangladesh
Though
the unit had not been given any role in Operation ‘Cactus Lily’ at the planning
stage, once the operations started it was called upon to perform various
communication tasks. On 3 December, 77 Line
Construction Section ex Bravo Signal Regiment was placed under command of the
unit. On 4 December, one officer, one JCO and 22 OR of this section were
deployed at Pachagarh. The detachment was given the responsibility to provide
line communication up to HQ 71 Mountain Brigade which was advancing on axis
Pachagarh – Birganj – Saidpur. On 7 December the line detachment was moved from
Pachagarh to Thakurgaon. A
line party of seven OR was positioned at Sevoke Road
Consequent
to the move of HQ 71 Mountain Brigade to Birganj, the existing PL route was
resuscitated upto Birganj on 9 December. 77 Line Construction Section, which
had joined the unit on 3 December, was detached on 12 December and allotted to
XXXIII Corps Signal Regiment. On 12 December, HQ 71 Mountain Brigade moved to
Khansama – Darwani and finally to Saidpur. Line communication was provided on
field cable. As a PL route was existing on axis Haldibari – Chilahati – Domar –
Nilphamari – Saidpur, a reconnaissance was carried out on 13 December to
undertake the resuscitation of the route. A line party of one officer, one JCO
and 21 OR was placed at Jalpaiguri for this purpose. The line from Jalpaiguri
to Haldibari was put through on 14 December. On 15 December, one JCO and eight linemen
were positioned at Sevoke Road
After
the surrender of Pakistani troops on 17 December 1971 , the unit was given the responsibility of
rehabilitating several PL routes in Bangladesh Rampur Bangladesh
V Communication Zone
Signal Regiment
V
Communication Zone Signal Regiment was located at Tezpur in mid 1971 when
preparations started for Operation ‘Cactus Lily.’ The CO was Lieutenant Colonel
M.L. Khanna, who was relieved by Lieutenant Colonel Baldev Aurora shortly
before the commencement of the operations.
The unit was given the responsibility of looking after the
communications needs of the newly raised HQ II Corps till the raising of II
Corps Signal Regiment was completed. To
carry out this task, the unit was split in two parts. While the main body moved
to Krishnanagar where HQ II Corps was being raised, the rear elements remained
at Tezpur to look after the communications responsibilities of the unit before
it was split.
The
main body comprising six officers, five JCOs and 176 OR left Tezpur for
Krishnanagar on 19 September
1971 . On arrival at the new location the unit established the
signal centre and began looking after the communication requirements of II
Corps. A 150 line CB exchange with two
T-43 trunk boards was commissioned on 15 October by the P&T Department.
Radio silence was imposed during the concentration of units and
formations. As a result, communications
had to be on line. Due to the large distances cable could not be used except
for local communication and many permanent and semi-permanent line routes had
to be constructed at short notice. In addition, some already existing routes
were rehabilitated.
A
major problem faced by the unit was lack of resources. The unit was asked to
move at short notice with very little time to make up its deficiencies in
equipment, transport and personnel. Moreover the commitments of the unit at
Tezpur remained unaltered. When the unit moved in September a large number of
personnel were away on courses and leave. Although these personnel were
recalled yet during the initial stages there was a considerable drain on the
manpower resources of the unit. The
situation was aggravated owing to the necessity of sending escort parties to
various ordnance depots for collection of stores released to the unit at that
time. The problem of manpower was alleviated through the efforts of DCSO II
Corps by attachment of personnel from other units. A line construction section was attached from
S Communication Signal Regiment, while a skeleton line construction section was
attached from Bravo Signal Regiment which was itself under raising at Tezpur.
Since
the unit was mainly responsible for construction and maintenance of permanent
line routes priority was given only to line stores. When the unit was asked to
establish a signal centre and man circuits to Calcutta
The
unit was heavily dependent on the P&T Department, whose reaction to
maintenance of equipment and lines was slow. To speed up things, additional
manpower was provided by the unit at the P&T carrier centre. The unit
personnel were not trained for such tasks and it took some time before they
became familiar with P&T equipment. The 150 line CB exchange functioned
well but the T-43 trunk boards gave a lot of trouble and developed frequent
faults. Consequently, the trunk lines
were transferred to two Ericsson exchanges and the T-43 boards were handed over
to P&T Department for maintenance. A link panel was procured from Indian
Telephone Industries, Bangalore
107 Communication Zone
Signal Company (Territorial Army)
The
company was embodied for Operation ‘Cactus Lily’ on 5 December 1971 . Immediately after embodiment orders were
received to deploy the company under various formations. Subsequently two officers, one JCO and 27 OR were
dispatched to HQ II 2 Corps on 8
December 1971 . Out of the
above personnel one officer and three OR were sent to Jessore to repair the
carrier equipment which was damaged due to enemy action. They were able to
repair the damaged equipment and put through the line to Calcutta Bangladesh
After
the cease fire, all personnel reported back at Calcutta New Delhi New Delhi Calcutta
Bravo Signal Regiment
(Corps)
In anticipation of its role in Operation
‘Cactus Lily’, HQ IV Corps was split into two parts - main and rear. Main HQ IV
Corps moved to Teliamura in Mizoram under Lieutenant General Sagat Singh for
undertaking operations in East Pakistan . Rear
HQ IV Corps under Major General O. P. Malhotra (who later became the COAS)
stayed behind at Tezpur to command the troops which remained deployed along
northern & eastern borders in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam East Pakistan as well as to meet the communication needs
of Rear HQ IV 4 Corps, it became necessary to augment its resources. For this
purpose, Bravo Signal Regt (Corps) was ordered to be raised post haste at
Tezpur in August 1971.
The
authorized strength of the unit was 40 officers, an equal number of JCOs and
over 1350 OR. The first CO was Lieutenant Colonel Col B.G. Chakraborty who assumed
command on 28 August 1971 .
The first second-in command was Major Charan Singh. The other officers in the
unit during the initial years were Majors Jaswal, V.K. Sidhwani, R.K. Kak,
Mehta, and Tiwari; Captains D.M.
Tripathy, S.R. Raju, Tamhane, V.J. Gomes, Devrajan, G.C. Nair , M.K.Das,
Shanbhag, Ramachandran, Ramaswamy, V.K. Chamela, V.K. Kutty; and Lieutenants
Bhardwaj and Pritam Singh. The first OC
Light Repair Workshop was Captain Manubhai of the Electrical and Mechanical
Engineers (EME).
The
unit was issued new generation communication equipment and vehicles from the
Central Ordnance Depot (COD), Agra East Pakistan
were imminent, the time available to complete the raising of the unit was at a
premium. To save time collection parties were sent to various depots to collect
equipment and vehicles. On receipt the
equipment such as radio relay etc. were fitted in vehicles using the resources
of civilian workshops in Tezpur town. To train the unit personnel in operation
and maintenance of the new equipment training classes were held even at night.
With sustained efforts and hard work put in by all ranks the unit became fit
for war in a short span of just three months. When war broke out on 3 December 1971 the unit
was ready to fulfil its role. All mobile
communication elements were attached to IV Corps Signal Regiment and they
provided crucial communications to Main HQ IV Corps during its advance to Dacca
After the termination of the war the
unit was ordered to move from Tezpur to Nagrota near Jammu
CONCLUSION
The
Indo- Pak War of 1971 is a milestone in India India India
The
Corps of Signals played a stellar role in Operation ‘Cactus Lily’. Unlike the
previous wars, communication failures were almost negligible. The primary
reason for this splendid performance was the time available and the improvement
in the quality of signal equipment. This was perhaps the first time when Signals
plans were made six months before the commencement of the operations. Thanks to
the free hand and support given to the Corps by Army HQ and the Government of
India, various measures such as improvement of communication infrastructure,
import and indigenous production of critical signal equipment and raising of
new units were implemented well before the actual operations.
Perhaps the most significant factor
was the availability of radio relay, which became the backbone of
communications. The rapid rate of advance of formations precluded laying of
lines. Though radio functioned well, it could obviously not replicate lines,
especially for telephone conversations. This is where radio relay proved its
worth; making converts of commanders and staff who had hitherto been allergic
to the presence of radio relay aerials near their headquarters, on
considerations of camouflage and concealment.
As in the 1965 war, leadership at
all levels was crucial to the success of the Corps. The SO-in-C, Major General E.G Pettengell and
his deputy, Brigadier K.S. Garewal, played a proactive role, going down to
formations to get first hand information about their problems. Their excellent
rapport with the P&T Department, the Ministry of Defence, Finance,
Ordnance, production agencies etc. was instrumental in making up deficiencies
and building up infrastructure. There was excellent rapport between the
commanders, Signals and staff. The exemplary leadership and organizational role
played by Brigadier K.K. Tewari, CSO Eastern Command, in getting the
communication infrastructure established, synergizing the capabilities of so
many signal units and making available human and equipment resources as per
requirement, stands out in this campaign. The CSO and his staff at Eastern
Command did a magnificent job, fine tuning the Signals plan for the campaign.
There were many glitches, but they overcame them, ensuring that communications
did not fail. Perhaps the only blame that can be laid at their door is not
planning communications from Dacca Dacca
There
were a few cases of instances of communication failure, which could have been
avoided by better planning and attention to detail. As recorded in the diary of
Brigadier Tewari, when HQ 101 Communication Zone Area moved from Tura on 13
December, the radio relay vehicles were held up at the ferry, leading to
disruption in communications. The radio relay link between HQ XXXIII Corps and
the HQ 20 Mountain Division also did not function for two days on 14 and 15
December, when the latter moved from Patiram to Gobindganj. The link became functional after the relay
station was shifted to Hilli on 15 December. Considering that radio relay
communications in the plains can be planned with a fair degree of certainty
with the help of path profiles and power balance calculations, the incorrect
siting of the relay station was an inexcusable lapse. As had happened in
Operation ‘Vijay’ in 1961, the breakdown of rearward communications from a
divisional headquarters was probably overlooked in the euphoria of victory.
The
reason for the breakdown of radio communications between HQ 95 Brigade and 2
Para after it was dropped near Tangail on 11 December appears to be due to the
failure of the battalion to switch on the radio sets. In this particular
instance, perhaps the lapse can be forgiven. As is well known, 2 Para was
tasked to capture the Poongli
Bridge
Operations in Bangladesh
End Notes – Chapter 6
This
chapter is largely based on Gen. K.V. Krishna Rao’s Prepare or Perish, (New Delhi, 1991); Lt Gen J.F.R. Jacob’s Surrender in Dacca – Birth of a Nation, (New Delhi, 1997);
Brigadier M.R. Narayanan’s When Sparrows Flew Like Eagles – Memoirs of a
Signal Officer; a tape recorded interview of Maj. Gen. K.K. Tewari; and personal accounts. Specific
references are given below:
1.
Maj. Gen. Sukhwant Singh , India Independence New
Delhi
2.
Maj Gen D.K. Palit, The Lightning Campaign, Thomson Press, New Delhi
3.
Gen K.V. Krishna Rao, Prepare or Perish, Lancer Publishers, New Delhi, 1991, pp.170-71
4.
Sukhwant Singh, pp.
71-73
5.
Personal account, Brigadier H.C.
Malhotra.
6.
Personal account, Colonel M.
Sathesan
7.
Personal account, Lt. Gen. S.R.R.
Aiyengar
8.
Personal account, Brigadier G.
Natarajan
9.
Personal account, Lt. Col S.
Ambady
10. Major General K.K. Tewari, tape recorded interview.
11. Lt
Gen J.F.R. Jacob, Surrender in Dacca New
Delhi
12.
DO Letter No 00576/EGP/SO in C of 6 October 1971 .
13.
Jacob, pp.71-77.
14. Krishna Rao, p. 176
15.
Jacob, p. 113
16.
Krishna
Rao, pp. 177-180
17.
Maj. Gen. Lachhman Singh, Victory in Bangla Desh, Natraj
Publishers, Dehra Dun
18.
Krishna
Rao, pp. 182-183
19.
Lachhman Singh, pp.207-208
20.
Maj. Gen. V.K. Singh, Leadership
in the Indian Army – Biographies of Twelve Soldiers, Sage Publications, New Delhi
21.
Personal Diary, Maj Gen. K.K. Tewari
22.
Tewari, tape recorded interview
23.
Personal Diary, Maj Gen. K.K. Tewari
24.
Personal account, Brigadier A.
Verma.
25.
Personal account, Maj. Gen. G.L.
Chadha.
26.
Personal account, Maj. Gen. Hardayal
Singh
27. Personal
account, Maj. Gen. Yati Pratap.
28.
Personal account, Brigadier D.B.
Lahiri.
29.
Personal account, Lieutenant Colonel
Vinod Aggarwal
30.
Personal account, Maj. Gen. Manmohan
Bhatia
31.
Personal account, Maj Gen. K.K.
Tewari
32.
Personal account, Brigadier P.K.
Ghosh
33.
Brigadier M.R. Narayanan, When Sparrows
Flew Like Eagles – Memoirs of a Signal Officer. pp. 23-24
34.
Narayanan, pp. 45-46
35.
Narayanan, p. 118
36. Personal account, Colonel M. A. Siddiqui
37. Personal Account, Brigadier Charan Singh
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Bangladesh Operations 1971
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