A stirring account of an Indian mission during the 1965 war.
Wheat is ripening in the fields – a dazzling sea of gold – and, from my window seat in the Shatabdi Express that is chugging its way to Jaipur, I can see women in fluorescent saris hard at work, cutting and stacking it up in neat piles. I’m on my way to meet Lt Col Hari Ram Janu (Retd), SM, of 4 Grenadiers.
We spend the day in his Ambabari house where the seventy-two-year-old retired Colonel sifts through his memories and old black-and-white photographs of the war, and nostalgically remembers comrades lost and those still living. It was fifty years ago that he and his men fought the Battle of Asal Uttar, he says with a faraway look in his eyes.
And then, in a conversation that stretches across a few hours, broken only by a traditional Rajasthani lunch, he tells me the unbelievable story of a battle where foot soldiers took on the mighty Patton tanks that America had so famously bragged could not be destroyed by anything in the world. “We proved them wrong,” the septuagenarian chuckles softly, showing me a crumbling old photograph where he stands atop a captured Patton, arms akimbo.
6 September 1965
It is a warm September afternoon when the Grenadiers reach Dibbipura, one of the last towns on the Indo-Pak border. Lush sugarcane fields interspersed with ripening cotton stretch for miles around them. Where the International Border separates India from Pakistan, however, the land is barren. All that they can see is sarkanda or elephant grass growing wild all the way to Ichhogil Canal that roughly marks Pakistan’s boundary.
Twenty-two-year-old Lt Hari Ram Janu is wading through chest-deep water, his .303 rifle held above his head as he trudges through the sarkanda that lashes his slush-caked body. Around him are 600 soldiers of his battalion, each at a distance of about 5.5 metres from the other, each holding his weapon high, ensuring that the water does not touch the ammunition packs strapped to their bodies.
Artillery shells whistle past, quickening their heartbeat and triggering a buzz in their ears; above their heads, enemy bullets fly relentlessly. Pakistani soldiers have spotted them from the other side of Ichhogil and opened the gates of the canal, flooding the area completely. Undeterred by the water soaking them to the bone, and ignoring the bullets, the men trudge on.
The unit has been tasked to cross the International Border and capture the strategically located Theh Pannu Bridge on Ichhogil Canal. The attack was supposed to have been launched at 7 am from Dibbipura but has been delayed owing to the late arrival of the troops who are able to reach the spot from Ambala only by 8 am. A and B companies of Jats are spearheading the daring daylight attack with C and D companies (Muslims and Dogras respectively) in direct support. Amongst the soldiers is CQMH Abdul Hamid who will bring laurels to the unit a few days later, but as of now he is just one of the many brave soldiers who are stoically putting their lives at risk to teach Pakistan a lesson it will not forget.
When the men reach the canal, they are surprised to find it heavily defended. While Pakistan has craftily lowered the bank of the canal on the Indian side, on their own bank they have constructed solid cement pillboxes with holes through which they keep watch and fire their weapons.
“There was a real din all around. Heavy machine-gun fire and artillery shelling from the enemy was coming straight at us, but luckily it was all passing overhead. I think god was with us. We suffered lightly with only four jawans injured and no fatal casualties,” Col Janu says as he recounts the storming of Theh Pannu Bridge. “The flooding of the area by the Pakistanis also proved to be a boon for us as their artillery shells would land in the water, being rendered completely ineffective.”
Tired and soaking wet, the soldiers attack the bridge, braving the onslaught of the machine-gun fire. Their lightning advance across the border has worked to their advantage and by 10 am they capture their objective. They are under heavy enemy fire throughout the day but face it stoically. Respite comes only at night.
But that is when they learn that they are the only ones who have been able to capture their objective and are now completely exposed to the enemy on both sides. They also learn that 1 Armoured Division of the enemy is heading for the Khem Karan sector with the intention of capturing the Harike and Beas bridges and then Amritsar. The 4th Battalion is told to withdraw the next day and concentrate on building defences around the village of Asal Uttar so that Pakistan is not able to advance on the Khem Karan–Amritsar road.
Lt Janu is told to launch covering medium machine-gun fire as the troops withdraw. By 11 am on 7 September the withdrawal is complete; Sub Daryao Singh of A company is the last man to pass through the heavy enemy shelling. He is hit by a splinter that cuts into his chest and he falls, pleading with Lt Janu to leave him behind and move on.
The young Lieutenant pulls him into a nearby nullah, gives him some water and inspects his wound (which is not fatal, he finds). The two then make their way back slowly, reporting to the Commanding Officer that the withdrawal is complete without any fatal casualties.
The Battle of Asal Uttar
The soldiers walk 4 km in their wet uniforms to reach Dibbipura where they halt for food. They then walk another 7 km to reach Chima village, the area they are to defend. Darkness is falling when the tired and sleep-deprived men start digging trenches and covering them with sugarcane stalks plucked from the fields so that they are not visible to enemy planes.
It has been three days since they have changed their clothes, and the stink and grime of the water through which they have trudged cling to their sunburned and wind-lashed skin. They spend another anxious night in their shallow trenches, flitting in and out of sleep.
News is rife that Pakistan will attack the next day. They have no idea that this is where they will take on the might of 1 Armoured Division of Pakistan in a three-day bloody battle that will be remembered in military history as the Battle of Asal Uttar. That it is fought in the village of Asal Uttar (which means ‘befitting reply’ in Hindi) is a coincidence that would not be lost on the soldiers.
Excerpted with permission from 1965: Stories From The Second Indo-Pak War, Rachna Bisht Rawat, Penguin Books.
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