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WAR 1971
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The Battle of Sylhet Fortress
The Battle of Sylhet Fortress
The Battle of Sylhet Fortress November - December 1971
The Battle of Sylhet Fortress
Major (Retd) Mumtaz Hussain Shah was born on 19 July 1945. Commissioned in Punjab Regiment in July 1966. He saw operations in former East Pakistan during the 1971 War. a graduate from Command and Staff College, Quetta, he is associated with number of training institutions as guest speaker. As a freelancer, scribes for the leading national dailies; including The News, Dawn, The Nation and The Muslim. He is also associated with Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation as an international cricket commentator.
The Battle of Sylhet Fortress November - December 1971
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By Rear Adm (Retd) S Ramsagar
The flagship of the Navy, INS Vikrant was undergoing major dry-dock work in Bombay during 1971. Her one boiler was non-operational for weak boiler tubes unfit for flashing up. The tubes were under replacement along with other repair jobs and the ship was not expected to be operational for another year or so. This was the time when refugees were flooding in, owing to suppression and atrocities leashed out by General Yahya Khan on the people of East Pakistan. Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibhur Rehman was arrested and was not allowed to take over the government as an elected majority leader.
INS Vikrant was patched up in a hurry, but her speed was curtailed. This would mean she would be an easy target to Pakistan’s submarines. It was then that the brilliant tactician, Vice Admiral Krishnan, C-in-C Eastern Naval Command, requested NHQ to utilize her on the eastern sea-front. At the speed of 12 knots, INS Vikrant was capable of operating only the erstwhile Bregeut Alize aircraft from her deck. Though the Alizes could be recovered on the carrier, the aircraft could not be launched as Vikrant’s catapult was not yet ready. It was in that situation that yours truly, a day-night qualified Alize QFI, was directed to do carrier trials by doing free takeoffs from the carrier’s deck. The Cdr(E), Cdr Roy Chaudhury (later awarded VrC, for his gallantry and finally retired as a Vice Admiral) was not sure if he could push the ship to at least give minimum speed of 14 knots in case their was no natural wind to assist the free take offs.
The Squadron had done the mathematics and I was sure that the wonderful Alize aircraft can easily do the job in the lightened condition, we initially planned to do the first free take off. Though the rest of the carrier crew were keeping their finger’s crossed, we proved the versatility of the Alize aircraft and not only completed the free take off trials successfully but also did Free Take Offs at full designed loads of the aircraft. Thereafter, Captain Swaraj Prakash (later awarded the MVC for gallantry inthe war and retired as the Vice Chief of Naval Staff) was ordered to move the carrier to the Eastern sector.
The Cobra squadron, INAS 310 under the command of late Cdr Ravi Dhir (who earned his VrC during the war) with me as his Senior Pilot and late Lt Cdr SP Ghosh (also a VrC awardee in the war) as senior Observer ofthe squadron, flew the squadron from Cochin INS Garuda to Chennai Meenambakkam airfield. We operated and trained all the pilots back to ‘ops status’ within 20 days. Cdr Roy Chaudhury with his dedicated engine room department got the catapult ready for operations. From then onwards we were doing the opssorties from the carrier.
As soon as the engineering department managed to flash up the unserviceable second boiler the carrier could give sustained speed of 18 knots for the Hawks quadron also to embark and so they too started flying from the carrier. The grit, devotion and the spirit to achieve the impossible gave one and all total confidence to take on all and sundry. The Carrier with its aircraft was itching to go into action. It was then middle of November 1971. Our ‘Iron Lady’, Prime Minister Madam Indira Gandhi gave the indication to our Chiefs that India may have to go to war with Pakistan.
In the mean time Vikrant was quietly moved to Port Blair in Andaman Islands and finally positioned in Port Cornwallis Lagoon. On third December evening, we heard on radio that Pakistan Air Force struck many of our airfields. Vikrant had just received orders to sail and strike enemy airfields in East Pakistan at the earliest. The briefing by the erstwhile Commander (Air), Cdr Parashar (fondly called by the aircrew as ‘The Superman’) spoke just one sentence “Gentlemen this is it!”
On the morning of 4th, the Hawks struck Dhaka airfield and the harbour. They faced no air opposition but heavy anti-aircraft ground fire. The Alizes being slower anti-submarine and reconnaissance aircraft flew through out the night of 3rd and 4th December providing the carrier force, in depth anti-submarine surveillance and early warning of enemy ships.
On the first day of War, NHQ directed that only thoseships which were of Pakistani origin should be sunk. This resulted in the Alize aircraft flying low over the merchant ships, establishing their identity before attacking them. All the ships seen by our squadron had many women and children, all waving white flags from the open decks. It was suspected that on the first fewdays many Pakistani civilian officials with their families left East Pakistan with all their gold and money.
Only when we received clearance to fire at the shipsthat were coming out or heading towards East Pakistan that the Alize came into their own in the war. As the Hawker hunters were not cleared for night operations, the good old Alize had to do night strikes on enemy targets. We carried out night strikes using 500 pound bombs; we could see tracers coming all the way up to our aircraft and just missing us. We confirmed that the attacks by Hawks during day rendered havoc in the harbour and there was just no enemy fighter opposition.
As there was no enemy air opposition, Captain Swaraj Prakash cleared yours truly to fly over and inspect the beaches for amphibious landing operations. INS Magar and the landing craft recently acquired from Russia were to do this operation. I flew low over the whole length of the beach south of Chittagong and found it totally deserted, so I continued my reconnaissance sortie over the road leading to Chittagong. The road was strewn with abandoned vehicles and people running helter-skelter. As there were no suitable targets to bomb, I continued on to Chittagong. There we saw people looting every house of all its articles. Just then we sighted a wireless station with large transmission towers and a government office. We successfully bombed the wireless station with our 500 lbs bombs but left the government building as it had a red cross on it.
Later we learnt from the Mukti Bahini that this act of ours saved many innocent Bangladeshis in the hospital but successfully destroyed the enemy hiding in the wireless station. My report helped Navy to change the landing operations to directly proceed to Chitagong town. With the help of Bangladeshi fishing vessels guiding our amphibious force, the Navy landed the Ghurkas, for a hero’s welcome by the locals.
As we had no knowledge of the goings on at the Western end of East Pakistan, I was launched to fly all the way up the mutha-mulla river to the Ports of Chelna and Khulna during daylight hours. On reaching Khulna, I noticed that there were five merchant vessels anchored in line in the river. I carried out a daylight rocket attack on one of the ships. Immediately there was heavy anti-aircraft fire from a gunboat, and as my mission was to recce and report on the state of the harbours, I pressed on to Chelna and found the harbor deserted. After reading my report, Admiral Sri Harilal Sarma, FOCEF appreciated that the ships in Khulna were the evacuating merchant ships for the Pakistani troops and so launched Cdr Ravi Dhir and me that same night with five 500lb bombs each. There was very heavy ack-ack fire from shore, with tracers just missing us. We successfully bombed the ships. Our attack was so effective that the ships that were fit to sail cut their anchor chains and sailed out towards the mouth of the river to sea.
The Admiral judged the expected actions of the merchant ships correctly and directed INS Brahmaputra commanded by then Cdr Ramdas (laterto become CNS) to proceed at high speed and await the enemy’s merchant vessels at the mouth of the river. As expected all the ships came out together and as soon as they saw our naval ship, all of them did the ‘scatter’ maneuver, such that Brahmaputra could not stop all of them at the same time. INS Brahmaputra engaged one ship ‘Mini Lady’ and sent a signal to Vikrant that the ships were breaking away in all directions. At that time Hawks were on their way back to the carrier after striking Dhaka. They were directed to strafe the ships with whatever front gun ammunition they had with them. The strike was so successful that all the merchantmen stopped and obeyed the orders given by our frigate and a boarding party under the command of the Executive Officer, Lt Cdr Raj Bajaj of Brahmaputra, boarded the first ship and escorted five ships to Diamond harbor. The night strike by the Breguet Alizes helped Navy capture the evacuation fleet of the Pakistani forces and broke their morale.
Two days later, I was launched to check the situation at the Khulna and Chelna harbours. I sighted at the mouth of the river, a Naval Tug towing two very long boats camouflaged with branches all over. On closer examination, it was noticed that the boats contained troops who were being ferried to the Eastern sector to Dhaka or Chitagong. Immediately I attacked the naval vessel with my rockets. We saw that the tug was still firing its foxl’e gun. As we had expended our rockets we decided to strike with Depth Charges. For a good depth charge attack, the strike had to be done practically skimming over the target. My crew Lt Bhagwat and Lt Pawar both valiantly agreed for the low level strike to prevent the Pakistan forces escaping to safer areas.
After our successful depth charge attack, the enemy hoisted a white flag and turned the vessels on to the beach and abandoned them. Our aircraft was hit by a spray of 20 mm bullets right along the centerline all theway to the rear. Lucky for us the crew sits with the pilot on the left of centre, the navigator on the right and the rear radar operator also sits on the right of the centerline. So all the direct hits on the aircraft missed us by inches but the aircraft lost electrical power, hydraulics and the radome was hit causing a small fire; still the aircraft was able to fly back to the carrier at slowspeed. We had to lower the undercarriage and the hook by gravity.
As we were, long overdue and the carrier was unable to contact us on radio, Vikrant launched young Lt Mohanan (who retired as a Rear Admiral) to look for us. By then we were in visual range and could inform the ship on VHF operating on battery that we were coming in directly for landing. The ship suggested that we use the ‘Net’ for ourlanding but I refused as I knew that once the aircraft uses the net, she would sustain greater damage. I successfully did the night landing and saved the aircraft.
The ground crew over night patched up the eight direct hits the aircraft received and made it operational by next morning. Young Lt Mohanan flew all the way to the beaching point and found all the vessels abandoned and empty of personnel. With this strike and return of the bullet ridden Alize aircraft back safely to the ship the ground crew experienced war at close quarters and it raised their morale high up.
The Cobra Squadron during the war earned five Vir Chakras and one Mention-in-dispatches. The wonderful Alize aircraft performed all its tasks excellently under the able guidance of the valiant Cobra squadron’s crew. So ended the saga of wonderful aircraft, Breguet Alize 1050. She is no more operational in service except in museums. May God bless the soul of the designer of this aeroplane.
(This rare account was published in the 2008-09 edition of Quarterdeck, the Indian Navy's annual journal. The Indian Navy owns the copyright to this article and the images)
LiveFist: The Alize 1050 in 1971
The flagship of the Navy, INS Vikrant was undergoing major dry-dock work in Bombay during 1971. Her one boiler was non-operational for weak boiler tubes unfit for flashing up. The tubes were under replacement along with other repair jobs and the ship was not expected to be operational for another year or so. This was the time when refugees were flooding in, owing to suppression and atrocities leashed out by General Yahya Khan on the people of East Pakistan. Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibhur Rehman was arrested and was not allowed to take over the government as an elected majority leader.
INS Vikrant was patched up in a hurry, but her speed was curtailed. This would mean she would be an easy target to Pakistan’s submarines. It was then that the brilliant tactician, Vice Admiral Krishnan, C-in-C Eastern Naval Command, requested NHQ to utilize her on the eastern sea-front. At the speed of 12 knots, INS Vikrant was capable of operating only the erstwhile Bregeut Alize aircraft from her deck. Though the Alizes could be recovered on the carrier, the aircraft could not be launched as Vikrant’s catapult was not yet ready. It was in that situation that yours truly, a day-night qualified Alize QFI, was directed to do carrier trials by doing free takeoffs from the carrier’s deck. The Cdr(E), Cdr Roy Chaudhury (later awarded VrC, for his gallantry and finally retired as a Vice Admiral) was not sure if he could push the ship to at least give minimum speed of 14 knots in case their was no natural wind to assist the free take offs.
The Squadron had done the mathematics and I was sure that the wonderful Alize aircraft can easily do the job in the lightened condition, we initially planned to do the first free take off. Though the rest of the carrier crew were keeping their finger’s crossed, we proved the versatility of the Alize aircraft and not only completed the free take off trials successfully but also did Free Take Offs at full designed loads of the aircraft. Thereafter, Captain Swaraj Prakash (later awarded the MVC for gallantry inthe war and retired as the Vice Chief of Naval Staff) was ordered to move the carrier to the Eastern sector.
The Cobra squadron, INAS 310 under the command of late Cdr Ravi Dhir (who earned his VrC during the war) with me as his Senior Pilot and late Lt Cdr SP Ghosh (also a VrC awardee in the war) as senior Observer ofthe squadron, flew the squadron from Cochin INS Garuda to Chennai Meenambakkam airfield. We operated and trained all the pilots back to ‘ops status’ within 20 days. Cdr Roy Chaudhury with his dedicated engine room department got the catapult ready for operations. From then onwards we were doing the opssorties from the carrier.
As soon as the engineering department managed to flash up the unserviceable second boiler the carrier could give sustained speed of 18 knots for the Hawks quadron also to embark and so they too started flying from the carrier. The grit, devotion and the spirit to achieve the impossible gave one and all total confidence to take on all and sundry. The Carrier with its aircraft was itching to go into action. It was then middle of November 1971. Our ‘Iron Lady’, Prime Minister Madam Indira Gandhi gave the indication to our Chiefs that India may have to go to war with Pakistan.
In the mean time Vikrant was quietly moved to Port Blair in Andaman Islands and finally positioned in Port Cornwallis Lagoon. On third December evening, we heard on radio that Pakistan Air Force struck many of our airfields. Vikrant had just received orders to sail and strike enemy airfields in East Pakistan at the earliest. The briefing by the erstwhile Commander (Air), Cdr Parashar (fondly called by the aircrew as ‘The Superman’) spoke just one sentence “Gentlemen this is it!”
On the morning of 4th, the Hawks struck Dhaka airfield and the harbour. They faced no air opposition but heavy anti-aircraft ground fire. The Alizes being slower anti-submarine and reconnaissance aircraft flew through out the night of 3rd and 4th December providing the carrier force, in depth anti-submarine surveillance and early warning of enemy ships.
On the first day of War, NHQ directed that only thoseships which were of Pakistani origin should be sunk. This resulted in the Alize aircraft flying low over the merchant ships, establishing their identity before attacking them. All the ships seen by our squadron had many women and children, all waving white flags from the open decks. It was suspected that on the first fewdays many Pakistani civilian officials with their families left East Pakistan with all their gold and money.
Only when we received clearance to fire at the shipsthat were coming out or heading towards East Pakistan that the Alize came into their own in the war. As the Hawker hunters were not cleared for night operations, the good old Alize had to do night strikes on enemy targets. We carried out night strikes using 500 pound bombs; we could see tracers coming all the way up to our aircraft and just missing us. We confirmed that the attacks by Hawks during day rendered havoc in the harbour and there was just no enemy fighter opposition.
As there was no enemy air opposition, Captain Swaraj Prakash cleared yours truly to fly over and inspect the beaches for amphibious landing operations. INS Magar and the landing craft recently acquired from Russia were to do this operation. I flew low over the whole length of the beach south of Chittagong and found it totally deserted, so I continued my reconnaissance sortie over the road leading to Chittagong. The road was strewn with abandoned vehicles and people running helter-skelter. As there were no suitable targets to bomb, I continued on to Chittagong. There we saw people looting every house of all its articles. Just then we sighted a wireless station with large transmission towers and a government office. We successfully bombed the wireless station with our 500 lbs bombs but left the government building as it had a red cross on it.
Later we learnt from the Mukti Bahini that this act of ours saved many innocent Bangladeshis in the hospital but successfully destroyed the enemy hiding in the wireless station. My report helped Navy to change the landing operations to directly proceed to Chitagong town. With the help of Bangladeshi fishing vessels guiding our amphibious force, the Navy landed the Ghurkas, for a hero’s welcome by the locals.
As we had no knowledge of the goings on at the Western end of East Pakistan, I was launched to fly all the way up the mutha-mulla river to the Ports of Chelna and Khulna during daylight hours. On reaching Khulna, I noticed that there were five merchant vessels anchored in line in the river. I carried out a daylight rocket attack on one of the ships. Immediately there was heavy anti-aircraft fire from a gunboat, and as my mission was to recce and report on the state of the harbours, I pressed on to Chelna and found the harbor deserted. After reading my report, Admiral Sri Harilal Sarma, FOCEF appreciated that the ships in Khulna were the evacuating merchant ships for the Pakistani troops and so launched Cdr Ravi Dhir and me that same night with five 500lb bombs each. There was very heavy ack-ack fire from shore, with tracers just missing us. We successfully bombed the ships. Our attack was so effective that the ships that were fit to sail cut their anchor chains and sailed out towards the mouth of the river to sea.
The Admiral judged the expected actions of the merchant ships correctly and directed INS Brahmaputra commanded by then Cdr Ramdas (laterto become CNS) to proceed at high speed and await the enemy’s merchant vessels at the mouth of the river. As expected all the ships came out together and as soon as they saw our naval ship, all of them did the ‘scatter’ maneuver, such that Brahmaputra could not stop all of them at the same time. INS Brahmaputra engaged one ship ‘Mini Lady’ and sent a signal to Vikrant that the ships were breaking away in all directions. At that time Hawks were on their way back to the carrier after striking Dhaka. They were directed to strafe the ships with whatever front gun ammunition they had with them. The strike was so successful that all the merchantmen stopped and obeyed the orders given by our frigate and a boarding party under the command of the Executive Officer, Lt Cdr Raj Bajaj of Brahmaputra, boarded the first ship and escorted five ships to Diamond harbor. The night strike by the Breguet Alizes helped Navy capture the evacuation fleet of the Pakistani forces and broke their morale.
Two days later, I was launched to check the situation at the Khulna and Chelna harbours. I sighted at the mouth of the river, a Naval Tug towing two very long boats camouflaged with branches all over. On closer examination, it was noticed that the boats contained troops who were being ferried to the Eastern sector to Dhaka or Chitagong. Immediately I attacked the naval vessel with my rockets. We saw that the tug was still firing its foxl’e gun. As we had expended our rockets we decided to strike with Depth Charges. For a good depth charge attack, the strike had to be done practically skimming over the target. My crew Lt Bhagwat and Lt Pawar both valiantly agreed for the low level strike to prevent the Pakistan forces escaping to safer areas.
After our successful depth charge attack, the enemy hoisted a white flag and turned the vessels on to the beach and abandoned them. Our aircraft was hit by a spray of 20 mm bullets right along the centerline all theway to the rear. Lucky for us the crew sits with the pilot on the left of centre, the navigator on the right and the rear radar operator also sits on the right of the centerline. So all the direct hits on the aircraft missed us by inches but the aircraft lost electrical power, hydraulics and the radome was hit causing a small fire; still the aircraft was able to fly back to the carrier at slowspeed. We had to lower the undercarriage and the hook by gravity.
As we were, long overdue and the carrier was unable to contact us on radio, Vikrant launched young Lt Mohanan (who retired as a Rear Admiral) to look for us. By then we were in visual range and could inform the ship on VHF operating on battery that we were coming in directly for landing. The ship suggested that we use the ‘Net’ for ourlanding but I refused as I knew that once the aircraft uses the net, she would sustain greater damage. I successfully did the night landing and saved the aircraft.
The ground crew over night patched up the eight direct hits the aircraft received and made it operational by next morning. Young Lt Mohanan flew all the way to the beaching point and found all the vessels abandoned and empty of personnel. With this strike and return of the bullet ridden Alize aircraft back safely to the ship the ground crew experienced war at close quarters and it raised their morale high up.
The Cobra Squadron during the war earned five Vir Chakras and one Mention-in-dispatches. The wonderful Alize aircraft performed all its tasks excellently under the able guidance of the valiant Cobra squadron’s crew. So ended the saga of wonderful aircraft, Breguet Alize 1050. She is no more operational in service except in museums. May God bless the soul of the designer of this aeroplane.
(This rare account was published in the 2008-09 edition of Quarterdeck, the Indian Navy's annual journal. The Indian Navy owns the copyright to this article and the images)
LiveFist: The Alize 1050 in 1971
Excellent coverage of the 1971 war on this site:
The 1971 India-Pakistan War: The Episodes
I will be posting some excerpts from here.
The 1971 India-Pakistan War: The Episodes
I will be posting some excerpts from here.
There is an already existing thread.
http://www.defenceforum.in/forum/wars-events/497-different-perspectives-1971-war.html
May be we can merge the two. Suggestions?
http://www.defenceforum.in/forum/wars-events/497-different-perspectives-1971-war.html
May be we can merge the two. Suggestions?
Good coverage of the war at:
The 1971 India-Pakistan War: The Episodes
Covers the land, air and sea war in both theaters in good details. I especially liked the air war part.
The 1971 India-Pakistan War: The Episodes
Covers the land, air and sea war in both theaters in good details. I especially liked the air war part.
1971 India-Pakistan War: The Air War - Case West[SIZE=+3]The Western Air Situation[/SIZE]
Pakistani military analysts writing after the War tried to make out that the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) was heavily outnumbered even in the West. One writer claims that Pakistan had just 10 squadrons against 44 fielded by India. Such absurd assertions notwithstanding, fact is in 1971 the Indian Air Force (IAF) had a total of about 34 effective combat squadrons plus three under strength Canberra bomber squadrons and one AN-12 transporter squadron, which as it turned out played a remarkable role as modified bombers during the War. Of these Indian squadrons, ten were in the East (plus one Canberra squadron) and four were kept as reserves for protecting the inner cities. This meant the IAf had about 20 front-line combat squadrons in the West. Some of the front-line Indian squadrons were broken up and posted at different stations. This could be one reason for confusion on the Pakistani air intelligence side - and considerable exaggeration.
The Pakistanis, according to the IISS (International Institute of Strategic Studies) Military Balance 1971, had 19 squadrons including two B-57B light bomber and one recce squadron. According to our studies, the Pakistanis had about 14 effective combat squadrons in the West excluding the B-57B bombers and recce aircraft. However, PAF squadrons tended to have more aircraft per squadron than the IAF. This was further bolstered by the acquisition of an unspecified number of F-86 Sabres, Mirage IIIs, Starfighters (from Jordan) and about 15 Chinese F-6s in the months prior to the war. These aircraft were not accounted for the IISS in its 1971 Military balance or in any other report. Also, the serviceability of PAF Sabres was much higher - meaning more aircraft could be fielded. The Indians had 16 aircraft per combat squadron but the effective availability during the war was 12 per squadron. Bomber and transporter squadron had 10 aircraft each of which about 6 to 8 were serviceable at any given time. Many PAF squadrons, in contrast, had as many as 25 aircraft. Thus, while the PAf was outnumbered in the West, at no point was it ever fighting against overwhelming odds.
More important, the PAF on the whole was far better equipped to fight a modern air war than the IAF. The Pakistanis, for instance, had very effective air-to-air missiles which the Indians lacked. American made Sidewinder missiles were fitted on Chinese-made F-6 aircraft, on Sabres and on Starfighters. These were accurate missiles and accounted for at least three kills by PAF fighters in air-to-air combat. The Indians had only their guns and cannons to rely on. The Soviet-made MiG-21 was the only aircraft in the IAF's inventory fitted with missiles. But the missiles - the infamous K-13 - were a poor copy of the American Sidewinders and were so useless that they were scrapped after the war.
The other major advantage, and a critical one, the Pakistanis had was their radar and communication system built by the Americans. In most parts, particularly Punjab, the PAF had a real time radar surveillance system, the ability to track low flying aircraft coming over Pakistan and the means to guide their aircraft right to intruding enemy aircraft. India had nothing in comparison. Instead of low level radar, the IAF had to rely on men posted near the borders. Every time a suspected enemy aircraft flew over, the observation post had to call in on their high frequency radio sets to warn the sector controllers. Even the medium and high level radar cover available to the IAF was poor with the result that each forward base had to earmark between one to two combat squadrons just for air defence. It was a primitive and wasteful system - and the Pakistanis knew it. The technologically inferior but numerically superior Indian Air Force could be tackled quite easily by a smaller but more modern force. This is what prompted the PAF to launch pre-emptive strikes against forward Indian air bases on 3 December 1971.
[SIZE=+1]
IAF Gnats in their Hardened Shelters[/SIZE][SIZE=+3]IAF Counter Strike[/SIZE]
Within 30 minutes of the Pakistani President General Yahya Yahya Khan's declaration of war against India at 1630 hours on 3rd December 1971, Pakistani fighter bombers struck five Indian airfields - Srinagar, Avantipur, Pathankot, Amritsar and the advanced landing ground at Faridkot. More strikes by PAF B-57 bombers followed at night against Ambala, Agra, Halwara, Amritsar, Pathankot, Srinagar, Sirsa, Adampur, Nal, Jodhpur and Jamnagar. Not a single aircraft was destroyed in these raids and runways damaged were repaired within a matter of hours.
[SIZE=+1]
IAF Hunters On Bombing Run[/SIZE]The IAF's counter strike in the west was mounted on much greater scale than in the east. Within hours of the first PAF strike, converted An-12s from No.44 Squadron (led by Wg Cmdr Vashist) struck ammunition dumps in the Changa Manga forests. In one of the first counter air sorties of the war, Sukhois from No.222 Squadron struck Risalwala air field, while aircraft from the No.101 attacked Pasrur. The No.101 was to later become involved in providing support to the 10 Infantry Division in the Sialkot Sector, eventually destroying over 60 enemy tanks. Keamri oil installations near Karachi harbour were struck twice on the 4th by a three ship Hunter formations. And No.27 Squadron's Hunters continuously strafed enemy positions around Poonch and Chhamb. The four antiquated Harvard/Texans of the IAF also joined in ground support missions, their slow speed being particularly useful in hitting enemy gun emplacements in the valleys and gorges of Kashmir. Three counter air strikes were mounted on the 4th by Hunters of No.20 Squadron against PAF airfields at Peshawar, Chaklala and Kohat. The raids left 8 aircraft destroyed on the ground, including at least 1 Mirage III. Maruts from No.10 Squadron were heavily involved in counter air operations, hitting targets upto 200 miles inside Pakistani territory.
The second day of the war began with a Canberra strike against Masroor air base and other strategic installations around Karachi. A force of eight Canberras flying lo-lo over the Arabian sea set strategic and military installations around Karachi alight. A similar raid was mounted on the 6th. The success of these missions being confirmed by Photo Recon. Canberras reporting "the biggest blaze ever seen over South Asia". On the 5th , one four-ship formation from No.20 struck Chaklala for a second time in as many days destroying a C-130 and an Twin Otter on the ground. A second four-ship formation went for radar installation around Lahore and Walton. And a third raid by No.20 was mounted against the radar site at Sakesar, unfortunately two Hunters were lost during this mission. Later that day Maruts from the Nos. 10 and 220 Squadrons, and their MiG escorts moved against rail heads at Sundra, Rohri and Mirpur Khas. Between the 5th and the 12th , two Sukhoi squadrons flying form Halwara and Adampur repeatedly struck railway marshalling yards around Lahore.
One of the most celebrated actions of the 5th and 6th December is contribution of four Hunters from the ATW in the defeat of a Pakistani armoured force at Longewala. A previous section covers this in great detail. The AN-12s were also quite busy on the 6th. A bombing raid by the AN-12s early in the day destroyed a Pakistani brigade in the Haji Pir salient. Later that day HQ 18 (Pakistan) Division at Fort Abbas was bombed, as were areas around Bhawalpur.
The 7th of December got off to a rather bizarre start; a Marut from the No.220 Squadron, on its way back from a bombing raid against Rohri, actually engaged and brought down with cannon fire an F-86 sent up to intercept it. Surprisingly no Maruts were ever lost to enemy aircraft, although four were downed by ground fire. Two days later an enemy Shenyang F-6 was to be brought down by a ground attack aircraft - this time a Su-7 from No.32 Squadron. Between the 7th and the 12th, Sukhoi and Mystere Squadrons were engaged in support of I and XI Corps in the Fazilka-Ferozepur sector. The Indian Army's efforts in the Fazilka area were also assisted by bombing raids by No.44 Squadron's AN-12s. A four-ship formation flying at 180 ft above sea level struck Pakistani installations across from Fazilka on the 9th.
As fighting in the west intensified, the Pakistanis launched an offensive against Poonch on the 10th. To break up this offensive Canberras dropped 28,000 lbs. of ordnance on the enemy. On the 11th, in even larger interdiction sorties the Canberras delivered 36,000 lbs. of ordnance against enemy emplacements and tank farms. Despite the damage, the Canberras inflicted on the enemy, four of the force were lost to ground fire.
The war in 1971 revealed the true air-air combat capabilities of the MiG-21, altering perceptions held about it as an outcome of its disappointing performance in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. The MiGs on both fronts had ample opportunity to engage the enemy in aerial combat. The five squadrons that served on the western front conducted frequent armed reconnaissance missions deep into enemy territory to lure out PAF fighters. All Su-7 and Marut raids were given MiG-21 cover. Unfortunately for the Indian pilots who flew in the northern sector (Western Air Command) there was little by way of aerial engagements. On the 11th a Gnat of the No.23 Squadron engaged and severely damaged a Mirage over Pathankot. Those who flew with the South Western Air Command were luckier. On the 12th a Jordanian F-104A Starfighter, on loan to the PAF was shot down by cannon fire by a MiG-21FL of No.47 Squadron flying from Jamnagar.
A Marut strike against Naya Chor on the 16th was intercepted by three PAF Shenyang F-6s. In the ensuing dogfight one of the F-6's was brought down by cannon fire from one of the two MiG escorts from the No.29 Squadron. No Indian aircraft were lost in the engagement and the Maruts were able to hit their targets. The following morning a low flying Starfighter was destroyed by a MiG-21 scrambled from Utterlai. A few hours later MiG-21 escorts of a Marut mission near Umarkot destroyed a pair of Starfighters.
While the hi performance MiGs were shooting down enemy fighters, the lumbering Antonovs were contributing more than their share to victory in the West. The Rohri railway yards which had remained under attack from day one of the war were hit by a pair of An-12s at dusk on the 13th. The following day the Antonovs delivered their coup-de-main against the enemy's fighting capabilities. On the evening of the 14th a three-ship formation of the Antonovs flying from Jodhpur struck the Sui Gas Plant. The damage caused by these aircraft was so extensive that it took six months to restore gas production at Sui to even 50% of capacity. Happily all three aircraft taking part in the mission were recovered safely, landing at Utterlai. Sadly however, that very night, Fg Offr N.S.Sekhon of the No.18 Squadron lost his life as he gallantly engaged 6 enemy Sabres over Srinagar by himself. Before being shot down Sekhon's Gnat managed to score hits on two of the enemy for which he was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously.
[SIZE=+1]Param Vir Chakra winner Fg. Officer N.S.Shekhon and the Gnat[/SIZE]The An-12s flew in the bombing role for the last time on the 17th. A mixed formation of Canberras and Antonovs commanded by Vashist sortied against Skardu air field in Pakistani occupied Kashmir. Of the thirty six bombs dropped on the runway by the Antonovs, twenty eight hit the target while two fell within yards of it (this was confirmed by a PR sortie later the same day). On the way back, Vashist's aircraft was chased by two Mirages. In order to evade them he climbed down into a valley and kept circling for twenty minutes until the Mirages gave up and left. The most astonishing thing about the An-12 bombing raids is that none of the eleven (ten bombers and one flying command post) converted aircraft were lost, although many were peppered by ack ack. The ease with which these rather slow aircraft could strike deep into enemy territory is testimony to the ineffectiveness of the Pakistani Air Force during the winter of 1971. Only the absence of modern weapons delivery systems for its air-to-surface weapons prevented the Indian Air Force from causing more damage than it did.
[SIZE=+3]Who Won the Air War?[/SIZE]
One of the last enduring debates on the 1971 War is the outcome of the air war. Both sides continue to claim that it won the air war. This debate continues because victory in the air is more difficult to quantify than victory on land or sea. In the land and sea wars, India emerged as the clear victor both in terms of objectives attained and losses/gains versus the enemy. In the air war, even estimates of losses on both sides are widely divergent. Immediately after the war, the official Indian Government figures given out were 86 Pakistan Air Force (PAF) aircraft destroyed as against 42 Indian Air Force (IAF) lost. The Pakistanis later claimed that they had actually won the air war by destroying over a 100 Indian aircraft while losing only 36 of their own. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between.
Unlike in 1965, the Indian Air Force in 1971 handled claims of aerial victories by its pilots with great maturity. No "kills" were awarded until all claims could be verified, preferably by photo reconnaissance missions. Almost immediately after the War was over, the Air Chief asked the Halwara station commander, Air Marshal C.V.Gole, to visit every IAF station in the West to ascertain the performance of various squadrons. "Later, we had access to other information as well and we worked out a pretty accurate picture of losses on both sides", he explains. But discrepancies could well remain. For instance, Gole recalls that one SAM battery had fired missiles at a couple of attacking Pakistani B-57 bombers. One was hit and streaming smoke. A few hours later, some villagers called to say that they had found the debris of the Pakistani aircraft. On investigation it was found that what remained was not the debris of an aircraft but that of a missile. The hit was not taken into account. It was only much after the war that some Pakistani report spoke about a B-57 pilot who had become "Shaheed" after he tried to bail out his burning aircraft but could not make it.
Pakistani claims of their own losses are less than reliable. The main cause of this confusion has to do with various "Official" histories of the PAF quoting different figures. It has been estimated by some observers, based on signal intercepts from the PAF, that the PAF lost at least seventy-two aircraft (including at least fifty-five combat types). Pakistan itself admits to the loss of twenty-nine combat aircraft on the ground. Only 16 were claimed to have been shot down over India. Add to this the 13 Sabres destroyed by the PAF itself at Dhaka. Even then the figure comes to 58. However, a lot of this is inaccurate.
After almost a year's of research, we at SAPRA INDIA believe that the losses of combat aircraft on both sides were as follows:
Another domension of the 1971 war, the genocide of Bengalis.
A Bangladeshi perspective, repeating from a previous post of mine.
This is the definition of iman by the Pakistanis! Great going!
No wonder they are in the situation they are. I have no words to describe my disgust for this filthy thinking. Its the same thinking that idolizes the likes of Gazani, the rapist and murderer of their own forefathers and mothers.
A Bangladeshi perspective, repeating from a previous post of mine.
The Daily Star - Details News
This is the definition of iman by the Pakistanis! Great going!
No wonder they are in the situation they are. I have no words to describe my disgust for this filthy thinking. Its the same thinking that idolizes the likes of Gazani, the rapist and murderer of their own forefathers and mothers.
The Sunday Times of London had reported, “It took only 12 days for the Indian Army to smash its way to Dacca, an achievement reminiscent of the German Blitzkrieg across France in 1940. The strategy was the same: speed, ferocity and flexibility”. The Army, of course, was not alone. The Indian Air Force, the Indian Navy and the Mukti Bahini helped to shape the victory.
Genocide in Bangladesh, 1971
The background
East and West Pakistan were forged in the cauldron of independence for the Indian sub-continent, ruled for two hundred years by the British. Despite the attempts of Mahatma Gandhi and others to prevent division along religious and ethnic lines, the departing British and various Indian politicians pressed for the creation of two states, one Hindu-dominated (India), the other Muslim-dominated (Pakistan). The partition of India in 1947 was one of the great tragedies of the century. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in sectarian violence and military clashes, as Hindus fled to India and Muslims to Pakistan -- though large minorities remained in each country.
The arrangement proved highly unstable, leading to three major wars between India and Pakistan, and very nearly a fourth fullscale conflict in 1998-99. (Kashmir, divided by a ceasefire line after the first war in 1947, became one of the world's most intractable trouble-spots.) Not the least of the difficulties was the fact that the new state of Pakistan consisted of two "wings," divided by hundreds of miles of Indian territory and a gulf of ethnic identification. Over the decades, particularly after Pakistani democracy was stifled by a military dictatorship (1958), the relationship between East and West became progressively more corrupt and neo-colonial in character, and opposition to West Pakistani domination grew among the Bengali population.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Catastrophic floods struck Bangladesh in August 1970, and the regime was widely seen as having botched (or ignored) its relief duties. The disaster gave further impetus to the Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The League demanded regional autonomy for East Pakistan, and an end to military rule. In national elections held in December, the League won an overwhelming victory across Bengali territory.
On February 22, 1971 the generals in West Pakistan took a decision to crush the Awami League and its supporters. It was recognized from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: "Kill three million of them," said President Yahya Khan at the February conference, "and the rest will eat out of our hands." (Robert Payne, Massacre [1972], p. 50.) On March 25 the genocide was launched. The university in Dacca was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. "Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people [!] were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military." (Payne, Massacre, p. 48.) Ten million refugees fled to India, overwhelming that country's resources and spurring the eventual Indian military intervention. (The population of Bangladesh/East Pakistan at the outbreak of the genocide was about 75 million.)
On April 10, the surviving leadership of the Awami League declared Bangladesh independent. The Mukhta Bahini (liberation forces) were mobilized to confront the West Pakistani army. They did so with increasing skill and effectiveness, utilizing their knowledge of the terrain and ability to blend with the civilian population in classic guerrilla fashion. By the end of the war, the tide had turned, and vast areas of Bangladesh had been liberated by the popular resistance.
The gendercide against Bengali men
The war against the Bengali population proceeded in classic gendercidal fashion. According to Anthony Mascarenhas, "There is no doubt whatsoever about the targets of the genocide":
They were: (1) The Bengali militarymen of the East Bengal Regiment, the East Pakistan Rifles, police and para-military Ansars and Mujahids. (2) The Hindus -- "We are only killing the men; the women and children go free. We are soldiers not cowards to kill them ..." I was to hear in Comilla [site of a major military base] [Comments R.J. Rummel: "One would think that murdering an unarmed man was a heroic act" (Death By Government, p. 323)] (3) The Awami Leaguers -- all office bearers and volunteers down to the lowest link in the chain of command. (4) The students -- college and university boys and some of the more militant girls. (5) Bengali intellectuals such as professors and teachers whenever damned by the army as "militant." (Anthony Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh [Delhi: Vikas Publications, 1972(?)], pp. 116-17.)
Mascarenhas's summary makes clear the linkages between gender and social class (the "intellectuals," "professors," "teachers," "office bearers," and -- obviously -- "militarymen" can all be expected to be overwhelmingly if not exclusively male, although in many cases their families died or fell victim to other atrocities alongside them). In this respect, the Bangladesh events can be classed as a combined gendercide and elitocide, with both strategies overwhelmingly targeting males for the most annihilatory excesses.
Bengali man and boys massacred
by the West Pakistani regime.
Younger men and adolescent boys, of whatever social class, were equally targets. According to Rounaq Jahan, "All through the liberation war, able-bodied young men were suspected of being actual or potential freedom fighters. Thousands were arrested, tortured, and killed. Eventually cities and towns became bereft of young males who either took refuge in India or joined the liberation war." Especially "during the first phase" of the genocide, he writes, "young able-bodied males were the victims of indiscriminate killings." ("Genocide in Bangladesh," in Totten et al., Century of Genocide, p. 298.) R.J. Rummel likewise writes that "the Pakistan army [sought] out those especially likely to join the resistance -- young boys. Sweeps were conducted of young men who were never seen again. Bodies of youths would be found in fields, floating down rivers, or near army camps. As can be imagined, this terrorized all young men and their families within reach of the army. Most between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five began to flee from one village to another and toward India. Many of those reluctant to leave their homes were forced to flee by mothers and sisters concerned for their safety." (Death By Government, p. 329.) Rummel describes (p. 323) a chilling gendercidal ritual, reminiscent of Nazi procedure towards Jewish males: "In what became province-wide acts of genocide, Hindus were sought out and killed on the spot. As a matter of course, soldiers would check males for the obligated circumcision among Moslems. If circumcised, they might live; if not, sure death."
Robert Payne describes scenes of systematic mass slaughter around Dacca that, while not explicitly "gendered" in his account, bear every hallmark of classic gender-selective roundups and gendercidal slaughters of non-combatant men:
In the dead region surrounding Dacca, the military authorities conducted experiments in mass extermination in places unlikely to be seen by journalists. At Hariharpara, a once thriving village on the banks of the Buriganga River near Dacca, they found the three elements necessary for killing people in large numbers: a prison in which to hold the victims, a place for executing the prisoners, and a method for disposing of the bodies. The prison was a large riverside warehouse, or godown, belonging to the Pakistan National Oil Company, the place of execution was the river edge, or the shallows near the shore, and the bodies were disposed of by the simple means of permitting them to float downstream. The killing took place night after night. Usually the prisoners were roped together and made to wade out into the river. They were in batches of six or eight, and in the light of a powerful electric arc lamp, they were easy targets, black against the silvery water. The executioners stood on the pier, shooting down at the compact bunches of prisoners wading in the water. There were screams in the hot night air, and then silence. The prisoners fell on their sides and their bodies lapped against the shore. Then a new bunch of prisoners was brought out, and the process was repeated. In the morning the village boatmen hauled the bodies into midstream and the ropes binding the bodies were cut so that each body drifted separately downstream. (Payne, Massacre [Macmillan, 1973], p. 55.)
Strikingly similar and equally hellish scenes are described in the case-studies of genocide in Armenia and the Nanjing Massacre of 1937.
Atrocities against Bengali women
As was also the case in Armenia and Nanjing, Bengali women were targeted for gender-selective atrocities and abuses, notably gang sexual assault and rape/murder, from the earliest days of the Pakistani genocide. Indeed, despite (and in part because of) the overwhelming targeting of males for mass murder, it is for the systematic brutalization of women that the "Rape of Bangladesh" is best known to western observers.
In her ground-breaking book, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller likened the 1971 events in Bangladesh to the Japanese rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during World War II. "... 200,000, 300,000 or possibly 400,000 women (three sets of statistics have been variously quoted) were raped. Eighty percent of the raped women were Moslems, reflecting the population of Bangladesh, but Hindu and Christian women were not exempt. ... Hit-and-run rape of large numbers of Bengali women was brutally simple in terms of logistics as the Pakistani regulars swept through and occupied the tiny, populous land ..." (p. 81).
Typical was the description offered by reporter Aubrey Menen of one such assault, which targeted a recently-married woman:
Two [Pakistani soldiers] went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed. Then there was silence again, except for some muffled cries that soon subsided. In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the extra room. And so on, until all the six had raped the belle of the village. Then all six left, hurriedly. The father found his daughter lying on the string cot unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit. (Quoted in Brownmiller, Against Our Will, p. 82.)
"Rape in Bangladesh had hardly been restricted to beauty," Brownmiller writes. "Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted ... Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use." Some women may have been raped as many as eighty times in a night (Brownmiller, p. 83). How many died from this atrocious treatment, and how many more women were murdered as part of the generalized campaign of destruction and slaughter, can only be guessed at (see below).
Despite government efforts at amelioration, the torment and persecution of the survivors continued long after Bangladesh had won its independence:
Rape, abduction and forcible prostitution during the nine-month war proved to be only the first round of humiliation for the Bengali women. Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman's declaration that victims of rape were national heroines was the opening shot of an ill-starred campaign to reintegrate them into society -- by smoothing the way for a return to their husbands or by finding bridegrooms for the unmarried [or widowed] ones from among his Mukti Bahini freedom fighters. Imaginative in concept for a country in which female chastity and purdah isolation are cardinal principles, the "marry them off" campaign never got off the ground. Few prospective bridegrooms stepped forward, and those who did made it plain that they expected the government, as father figure, to present them with handsome dowries. (Brownmiller, Against Our Will, p. 84.)
How many died?
The number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures. It was one of the worst genocides of the World War II era, outstripping Rwanda (800,000 killed) and probably surpassing even Indonesia (1 million to 1.5 million killed in 1965-66). As R.J. Rummel writes,
The human death toll over only 267 days was incredible. Just to give for five out of the eighteen districts some incomplete statistics published in Bangladesh newspapers or by an Inquiry Committee, the Pakistani army killed 100,000 Bengalis in Dacca, 150,000 in Khulna, 75,000 in Jessore, 95,000 in Comilla, and 100,000 in Chittagong. For eighteen districts the total is 1,247,000 killed. This was an incomplete toll, and to this day no one really knows the final toll. Some estimates of the democide [Rummel's "death by government"] are much lower -- one is of 300,000 dead -- but most range from 1 million to 3 million. ... The Pakistani army and allied paramilitary groups killed about one out of every sixty-one people in Pakistan overall; one out of every twenty-five Bengalis, Hindus, and others in East Pakistan. If the rate of killing for all of Pakistan is annualized over the years the Yahya martial law regime was in power (March 1969 to December 1971), then this one regime was more lethal than that of the Soviet Union, China under the communists, or Japan under the military (even through World War II). (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 331.)
The proportion of men versus women murdered is impossible to ascertain, but a speculation might be attempted. If we take the highest estimates for both women raped and Bengalis killed (400,000 and 3 million, respectively); if we accept that half as many women were killed as were raped; and if we double that number for murdered children of both sexes (total: 600,000), we are still left with a death-toll that is 80 percent adult male (2.4 million out of 3 million). Any such disproportion, which is almost certainly on the low side, would qualify Bangladesh as one of the worst gendercides against men in the last half-millennium.
Who was responsible?
"For month after month in all the regions of East Pakistan the massacres went on," writes Robert Payne. "They were not the small casual killings of young officers who wanted to demonstrate their efficiency, but organized massacres conducted by sophisticated staff officers, who knew exactly what they were doing. Muslim soldiers, sent out to kill Muslim peasants, went about their work mechanically and efficiently, until killing defenseless people became a habit like smoking cigarettes or drinking wine. ... Not since Hitler invaded Russia had there been so vast a massacre." (Payne, Massacre, p. 29.)
There is no doubt that the mass killing in Bangladesh was among the most carefully and centrally planned of modern genocides. A cabal of five Pakistani generals orchestrated the events: President Yahya Khan, General Tikka Khan, chief of staff General Pirzada, security chief General Umar Khan, and intelligence chief General Akbar Khan. The U.S. government, long supportive of military rule in Pakistan, supplied some \\$3.8 million in military equipment to the dictatorship after the onset of the genocide, "and after a government spokesman told Congress that all shipments to Yahya Khan's regime had ceased." (Payne, Massacre, p. 102.)
The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These "willing executioners" were fuelled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. "Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said Pakistan General Niazi, 'It was a low lying land of low lying people.' The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Punjabi captain as telling him, 'We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one.' This is the arrogance of Power." (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 335.)
The aftermath
On December 3, India under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, seeking to return the millions of Bengali refugees and seize an opportunity to weaken its perennial military rival, finally launched a fullscale intervention to crush West Pakistani forces and secure Bangladeshi independence. The Pakistani army, demoralized by long months of guerrilla warfare, quickly collapsed. On December 16, after a final genocidal outburst, the Pakistani regime agreed to an unconditional surrender. Awami leader Sheikh Mujib was released from detention and returned to a hero's welcome in Dacca on January 10, 1972, establishing Bangladesh's first independent parliament.
In a brutal bloodletting following the expulsion of the Pakistani army, perhaps 150,000 people were murdered by the vengeful victors. The trend is far too common in such post-genocidal circumstances (see the case-studies of Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the Soviet POWs). Such largescale reprisal killings also tend to have a gendercidal character, which may have been the case in Bangladesh: Jahan writes that during the reprisal stage, "another group of Bengali men in the rural areas -- those who were coerced or bribed to collaborate with the Pakistanis -- fell victims to the attacks of Bengali freedom fighters.
None of the generals involved in the genocide has ever been brought to trial, and all remain at large in Pakistan and other countries. Several movements have arisen to try to bring them before an international tribunal (see Bangladesh links for further information).
Political and military upheaval did not end with Bangladeshi independence. Rummel notes that "the massive bloodletting by all parties in Bangladesh affected its politics for the following decades. The country has experienced military coup after military coup, some of them bloody.
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The Lightning Concept
Maj Gen D K Palit
Courtesy: Hindustan Times
From the moment the Indian General Staff began planning for the liberation of Bangladesh, it became apparent that the key factor in the operation was going to be speed - for both political and military reasons; yet all the circumstances indicated that speed, or mobility, was going to be the most difficult thing to achieve. It was obvious that Pakistan was banking on support or even intervention of its two super allies, the USA and China, if India attacked Bangladesh. Yahya Khan made no secret of the fact that he expected to invoke CENTO and SEATO Treaty to bring the Americans in on his side; and though the Chinese had given no indication that they would physically intervene in case of war, the Pakistani President must have relied on the assumption that if he could hold out for long enough, a combination of military support and diplomatic action by the Chinese would halt India's war of liberation.
It was, therefore, essential for his eastern wing forces to delay the Indian advance for a sufficient period for these two great powers to manoeuvre. Possibly, he had already been given a hint about future manoeuvres of the mighty U.S. 7th Fleet. As with all commanders faced with the task of defending a long coastline or border, Lt. Gen. Niazi, the Pakistani commander, had two broad choices open to him for the defence of Bangladesh: a) to resist the enemy with all his strength and to aim to stop him at the border, or b) to fight a flexible battle on the border and, and if unsuccessful, plan to conduct an organised withdrawal back to the ground of his own choosing where he could offer protracted resistance.
Treachery of the Terrain
Although the decision on which course to adopt often depends on political and psychological factors - or the personality of the commander - the most important tactical consideration is the nature of the terrain. In general, it can be said that Bangladesh is perhaps the most river-crossed terrain in the world - a land ideal for defensive tactics. Not only do two of the world's great rivers flow through it, a complex criss-cross of small rivers also obstruct land movement. The greatest threat lies on the western and northern sides, not only because of the road that approaches from India, but also because the grain of the country accords with the likely direction of an Indian attack at least up to the line of the Jamuna and Madhumati rivers. From the North, i.e, the Meghalaya border, the terrain favours movements better than other parts. From the east, the threat from India was also not thought to be a major one because of a lack of infrastructure.
The plan that Lt. Gen. Niazi adopted was, as he thought, designed to meet the requirement of imposing maximum delay. It envisaged blocking all routes of entry from India by occupying strong defensive positions along all road approaches and making the best use of the terrain. He put his strongest division on the western front opposite Calcutta and constructed there his most formidable defences, for example the fortresses at Jessore and Jhenida. He pinned all his hopes on stopping the Indian forces on the border. One of the reasons that he decided on this course was that the pattern of Mukti Bahini operations during September and October had convinced him that their primary aim was to liberate a belt of territory inside Bangladesh all along the border, possibly including some important towns, which would enable them to establish the Bangladesh government - in exile on home territory and thus gain diplomatic leverage for seeking recognition. Since Lt. Gen. Niazi knew that Bangladesh policy had the support of the Indian government, he assumed that a limited territorial aim was also the policy of India.
The Indian Moves
GOC of the Indian Army's Eastern Command, Lt. Gen. J.S. Aurora was presented with a different set of problems. By training and tradition the Indian Army's normal methods of operation had always been the set piece battle. Lt. Gen. Aurora wanted to get to Dacca within 12 to15 days, a task achievable if only he could successfully divorce the traditional form of battle. But he was determined to accomplish it. To adhere to the lightening schedule, he decided to overcome established tactical concepts and unleash mobile, flexible thrust carried out with determination and dash. Indian forces would have to throw the enemy into such confusion that before he could resile from the surprise attack, Indian divisions would begin converging on Dacca.
No one was more aware of the difficulties inherent in this unorthodox approach to the battle than Lt. Gen. 'Jaggi' Aurora. No commander before him had ever attempted a war of movement such as this in a land where rivers run to five miles in width, where the going is all military - with no scope for fast moving armoured thrusts; where the enemy was a formidable organized foe with a reputation for fighting as high as that of the army under his command; where the nightmare logistical problems had begun to be solved only a few short weeks before the event. If it succeeded it would be only be because of the highest standards of command directions and leadership, skill and boldness in execution and consummate logistical management and the fortitude of his troops.
It was difficult for Lt. Gen. Aurora to foresee which of his initial thrusts would get him to Dacca first. It was a new kind of war he was unleashing; whole brigade groups were to be moved over paddy fields, dragging their impediments behind them; roads were to be avoided; rivers were to be air-bridged by helicopter ferry services; rickshaws and cycles were to be used for transporting ammunition and equipment - all these bold concepts carried their own risk - and on its success the race to Dacca was won.
The Lightning Concept
Despite the confrontation on the eastern front mounting in intensity, there was no indication that India would invade Bangladesh. The policy announced by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that Indian troops would cross the border only in self-defence implicitly imposed limits on the degree of penetration. Although President Yahya Khan had said on November 25th that in 10 days he "might not be here in Rawalpindi…but off fighting a war," this was taken more as an attempt at bravado than as a serious indication of aggressive intent. There was little he could gain from an all out war with India to which the conflict would inevitably escalate.
Why then did Yahya Khan launch an attack in the west? The answer perhaps lies in self-delusion that he, like others among his colleagues, has indulged for so long of launching a massive offensive deep into Indian territory. Unfortunately for them, General Hamid Khan, Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff, is not a Moshe Dayan. By November-end, the Pakistani High Command must have realized that the Indian Army had been deployed in full strength in the west. As for its own forces, the two divisions it had begun to raise in May to replace the divisions sent to the eastern wing, were still below strength and not fully operational. No one but an incurable optimist would in those circumstances hope for the cherished breakthrough. And yet that is exactly what they attempted.
On December 3rd, at 5:45 p.m. IST, Pakistan launched a pre-emptive air strike on Indian airfields - Srinagar, Avantipur, Pathankot, Uttaralai, Jodhpur, Ambala and Agra. Later in the night, which was the night of full moon, a second wave of aircraft came over to deliver a repeat blow. Incredible as it may seem, these attempts were so clumsy that not one Indian aircraft was lost on the ground. Not only that, within 24 hours the back of the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) had been broken by the Indian Air Force (IAF) counter strike. The IAF continued mounting operations in a crescendo till they reached the peak of 500 sorties a day - the highest air effort mounted anywhere since World War II. The IAF attacked Chanderi, Shorkot, Sargodha, Muri, Mianwali, Masroor (Karachi), Risalwalla (Rawalpindi), and Changa Manga (Lahore). Subsequently it was learnt that more than 25 aircraft were hit.
Pakistani propaganda that the PAF raids were in retaliation against multi-pronged Indian land offensives all along the Punjab-Rajasthan borders convinced no one. Meanwhile, the first Pakistani Army attack went in at 8:30 p.m. IST on December 3rd against the Indian Army's Poonch and Chhamb sectors. The Pakistan Army in the west consisted of 10 infantry divisions (two of them were newly raised) a few independent brigades, two armour divisions and an independent armoured brigade. The Indian forces were only marginally superior in over all strength. They were grouped as follows:
Lieutenant General K.P. Candeth, Western Command. Lt. Gen. Candeth commanded the bulk of the forces on the western front besides holding responsibility for the northern front facing the Chinese - from Ladakh in the north-west to the Himachal Pradesh sector up to the passes north of Shimla. The area of his responsibility in the west stretched from Jammu & Kashmir in the north down to the borders of Rajasthan.
Lieutenant General G.G. Bewoor, Southern Command. Lt. Gen. Bewoor had moved his advanced Headquarters from Poona and he was responsible for the Rajasthan front.
The Attacks
As stated earlier, the Pakistani Army launched a major offensive in the south west of J&K, shortly after the PAF air strike went in on December 3rd. If the aim was to capture a piece of Kashmir territory, the attack also failed miserable. In the Pooch Sector and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, the Pakistani infantry brigade launched an attack against Poonch from the direction of Kahuta in the northwest, while commandos infiltrated behind the Poonch area to cut off the road link. But Indian forces were ready for them and the frontal thrust made little progress. When the IAF began pounding their troops concentrations in the forest north west of Poonch, the enemy decided to call off the attack.
On December 9th and 10th, the enemy prepared for a second offensive from the same direction. This time the IAF strafed and bombed them in their assembly areas and the attack fizzled out. It was then the turn of the Poonch forces to go on to be counter offensive. By December 16th, the Indian forces had occupied several posts flanking the road. In the Chhamb sector, the Pakistani II Corps went on the offensive led by two infantry brigades and the regiment of mixed Chinese T-59 and Sherman tanks. The initial thrust was held - Indian forces destroying six enemy tanks. On December 5th, Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan, the Corps Commander, threw in another brigade into the attack and another regiment of armour. This thrust cost him 23 T-59 tanks, with much of the killing done by the IAF.
The enemy, under the crass leadership of Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan, continued to launch repeated frontal assaults against well-prepared positions, incurring heavy losses. In all these futile attacks, Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan lost some 3,000 troops and nearly 50 tanks. By December12th, he had had enough. The Butcher of Baluchistan and Dacca lived up to his reputation even as far as his own men were concerned. In the rest of the J&K theatre, it was the Indian Army that took the initiative - though not with the intention of launching major offensives or acquiring Pakistan-held territory. The Kargil sector, which is dominated by heights occupied by Pakistani forces, the straightening out of the line entailed the capture of about 15 enemy posts located at height of 16,000 feet and more. All the attacks were launched at night when the ground temperatures sank to below -17º Centigrade.
In the Tithwal sector, a large salient of Pakistan-held territory lies on the east bank of the Kishenganga river, which poses a threat to the Indians. The enemy was cleared from here too. Similarly, in Uri sector, where the Haji Pir salient provides easy infiltration access to Gulmarg, Indian forces captured posts in the Tosh Maiden area to neutralize this threat. In the Jaisalmer sector, an enemy infantry brigade supported by a regiment of armour (mixed T-59s and Shermans) launched an attack on Indian positions at Longewala. It was a bold idea, but it had not reckoned with the sands of the desert. Then, it was the turn of the armour separated from its supporting column, to flounder in the soft desert, forming as easy target for Indian aircraft. As one of the IAF Hunter pilots described it, "It was like a duck shoot - only we had sitting ducks to shoot at." Sorties after sorties went into attack, and before long, more than 20 enemy tanks had been destroyed. All in all, the Longewala battle turned out to be quite a disaster for the enemy.
Of the three bridges over the rivers Ravi and Sutlej, the only one that lay in Indian territory was the Hussainiwalla Bridge near Ferozpur. On December 3rd and 4th, the Pakistani forces launched an attack on this enclave in some strength. Fighting a delayed action in which the Pakistanis lost 18 tanks, the Indian garrison made a planned withdrawal to the east bank of the river. Retaliating in kind, the Corps Commander, Lt. Gen. Rawlley, ordered an offensive to capture the Sehjra salient, north-west of Ferozpur. The attack came as a complete surprise to the enemy and soon Sehjra was captured. In the process, the threat to Khem Karan and Harike was removed. Similarly on December 6th and 7th, Indian forces attacked and captured the Pakistan enclave on the eastern side of Ravi, guarding the Dera Baba Nanak Bridge.
In keeping with the government's policy and the strategic plan the Indian armed forces confined their major operations to the offensive-defensive. A major threat to India's J&K theatre has always been along the southern boundary of the state. The offensive was launched along the three axis - two striking southwards from Kathua-Samba stretch of the main Pathankot Jammu road; and the third, subsequent thrust from the Gurdaspur area striking westwards. The operation started on December 5th and 6th night and lasted till ceasefire, ending in the biggest tank battle of the war.
A fascinating story about the spirit of the Indian Armoured Corps concerns a young Major, a squadron commander of Hodson's Horse (the 4th Horse). Ordered to launch an attack on a Pakistani position across the Basantar River, which was supported by eight Patton tanks, he decided on a dawn attack, so that he could negotiate the soggy riverbed during the hours of darkness. While crossing the river during the night before his D-Day, the poor unfortunate found one after another of his tanks bogging down in the sand. He spent the whole night pulling his tanks, only to find that as he towed out one, another got stuck. Eventually, at 4 a.m. IST, he found himself with only four tanks on the enemy side of the river. Fortunately, he had created enough noise during the night to make the enemy think that a whole regiment was crossing over.
In the half-light of dawn, he attacked the enemy tank positions. To his utter consternation, he saw the Pakistani crew abandon their tanks and make for home. When he had rounded up the prisoners, the young major was seething - chagrin beyond description. He gathered the Pakistan crew together and vented his wrath upon them: "Don't you have any sharam (shame)? You have let down the armoured corps. You are supposed to stand and fight. You have cut our noses." And with that he marched them off to regimental headquarters.
Maj Gen D K Palit
Courtesy: Hindustan Times
From the moment the Indian General Staff began planning for the liberation of Bangladesh, it became apparent that the key factor in the operation was going to be speed - for both political and military reasons; yet all the circumstances indicated that speed, or mobility, was going to be the most difficult thing to achieve. It was obvious that Pakistan was banking on support or even intervention of its two super allies, the USA and China, if India attacked Bangladesh. Yahya Khan made no secret of the fact that he expected to invoke CENTO and SEATO Treaty to bring the Americans in on his side; and though the Chinese had given no indication that they would physically intervene in case of war, the Pakistani President must have relied on the assumption that if he could hold out for long enough, a combination of military support and diplomatic action by the Chinese would halt India's war of liberation.
It was, therefore, essential for his eastern wing forces to delay the Indian advance for a sufficient period for these two great powers to manoeuvre. Possibly, he had already been given a hint about future manoeuvres of the mighty U.S. 7th Fleet. As with all commanders faced with the task of defending a long coastline or border, Lt. Gen. Niazi, the Pakistani commander, had two broad choices open to him for the defence of Bangladesh: a) to resist the enemy with all his strength and to aim to stop him at the border, or b) to fight a flexible battle on the border and, and if unsuccessful, plan to conduct an organised withdrawal back to the ground of his own choosing where he could offer protracted resistance.
Treachery of the Terrain
Although the decision on which course to adopt often depends on political and psychological factors - or the personality of the commander - the most important tactical consideration is the nature of the terrain. In general, it can be said that Bangladesh is perhaps the most river-crossed terrain in the world - a land ideal for defensive tactics. Not only do two of the world's great rivers flow through it, a complex criss-cross of small rivers also obstruct land movement. The greatest threat lies on the western and northern sides, not only because of the road that approaches from India, but also because the grain of the country accords with the likely direction of an Indian attack at least up to the line of the Jamuna and Madhumati rivers. From the North, i.e, the Meghalaya border, the terrain favours movements better than other parts. From the east, the threat from India was also not thought to be a major one because of a lack of infrastructure.
The plan that Lt. Gen. Niazi adopted was, as he thought, designed to meet the requirement of imposing maximum delay. It envisaged blocking all routes of entry from India by occupying strong defensive positions along all road approaches and making the best use of the terrain. He put his strongest division on the western front opposite Calcutta and constructed there his most formidable defences, for example the fortresses at Jessore and Jhenida. He pinned all his hopes on stopping the Indian forces on the border. One of the reasons that he decided on this course was that the pattern of Mukti Bahini operations during September and October had convinced him that their primary aim was to liberate a belt of territory inside Bangladesh all along the border, possibly including some important towns, which would enable them to establish the Bangladesh government - in exile on home territory and thus gain diplomatic leverage for seeking recognition. Since Lt. Gen. Niazi knew that Bangladesh policy had the support of the Indian government, he assumed that a limited territorial aim was also the policy of India.
The Indian Moves
GOC of the Indian Army's Eastern Command, Lt. Gen. J.S. Aurora was presented with a different set of problems. By training and tradition the Indian Army's normal methods of operation had always been the set piece battle. Lt. Gen. Aurora wanted to get to Dacca within 12 to15 days, a task achievable if only he could successfully divorce the traditional form of battle. But he was determined to accomplish it. To adhere to the lightening schedule, he decided to overcome established tactical concepts and unleash mobile, flexible thrust carried out with determination and dash. Indian forces would have to throw the enemy into such confusion that before he could resile from the surprise attack, Indian divisions would begin converging on Dacca.
No one was more aware of the difficulties inherent in this unorthodox approach to the battle than Lt. Gen. 'Jaggi' Aurora. No commander before him had ever attempted a war of movement such as this in a land where rivers run to five miles in width, where the going is all military - with no scope for fast moving armoured thrusts; where the enemy was a formidable organized foe with a reputation for fighting as high as that of the army under his command; where the nightmare logistical problems had begun to be solved only a few short weeks before the event. If it succeeded it would be only be because of the highest standards of command directions and leadership, skill and boldness in execution and consummate logistical management and the fortitude of his troops.
It was difficult for Lt. Gen. Aurora to foresee which of his initial thrusts would get him to Dacca first. It was a new kind of war he was unleashing; whole brigade groups were to be moved over paddy fields, dragging their impediments behind them; roads were to be avoided; rivers were to be air-bridged by helicopter ferry services; rickshaws and cycles were to be used for transporting ammunition and equipment - all these bold concepts carried their own risk - and on its success the race to Dacca was won.
The Lightning Concept
Despite the confrontation on the eastern front mounting in intensity, there was no indication that India would invade Bangladesh. The policy announced by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that Indian troops would cross the border only in self-defence implicitly imposed limits on the degree of penetration. Although President Yahya Khan had said on November 25th that in 10 days he "might not be here in Rawalpindi…but off fighting a war," this was taken more as an attempt at bravado than as a serious indication of aggressive intent. There was little he could gain from an all out war with India to which the conflict would inevitably escalate.
Why then did Yahya Khan launch an attack in the west? The answer perhaps lies in self-delusion that he, like others among his colleagues, has indulged for so long of launching a massive offensive deep into Indian territory. Unfortunately for them, General Hamid Khan, Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff, is not a Moshe Dayan. By November-end, the Pakistani High Command must have realized that the Indian Army had been deployed in full strength in the west. As for its own forces, the two divisions it had begun to raise in May to replace the divisions sent to the eastern wing, were still below strength and not fully operational. No one but an incurable optimist would in those circumstances hope for the cherished breakthrough. And yet that is exactly what they attempted.
On December 3rd, at 5:45 p.m. IST, Pakistan launched a pre-emptive air strike on Indian airfields - Srinagar, Avantipur, Pathankot, Uttaralai, Jodhpur, Ambala and Agra. Later in the night, which was the night of full moon, a second wave of aircraft came over to deliver a repeat blow. Incredible as it may seem, these attempts were so clumsy that not one Indian aircraft was lost on the ground. Not only that, within 24 hours the back of the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) had been broken by the Indian Air Force (IAF) counter strike. The IAF continued mounting operations in a crescendo till they reached the peak of 500 sorties a day - the highest air effort mounted anywhere since World War II. The IAF attacked Chanderi, Shorkot, Sargodha, Muri, Mianwali, Masroor (Karachi), Risalwalla (Rawalpindi), and Changa Manga (Lahore). Subsequently it was learnt that more than 25 aircraft were hit.
Pakistani propaganda that the PAF raids were in retaliation against multi-pronged Indian land offensives all along the Punjab-Rajasthan borders convinced no one. Meanwhile, the first Pakistani Army attack went in at 8:30 p.m. IST on December 3rd against the Indian Army's Poonch and Chhamb sectors. The Pakistan Army in the west consisted of 10 infantry divisions (two of them were newly raised) a few independent brigades, two armour divisions and an independent armoured brigade. The Indian forces were only marginally superior in over all strength. They were grouped as follows:
Lieutenant General K.P. Candeth, Western Command. Lt. Gen. Candeth commanded the bulk of the forces on the western front besides holding responsibility for the northern front facing the Chinese - from Ladakh in the north-west to the Himachal Pradesh sector up to the passes north of Shimla. The area of his responsibility in the west stretched from Jammu & Kashmir in the north down to the borders of Rajasthan.
Lieutenant General G.G. Bewoor, Southern Command. Lt. Gen. Bewoor had moved his advanced Headquarters from Poona and he was responsible for the Rajasthan front.
The Attacks
As stated earlier, the Pakistani Army launched a major offensive in the south west of J&K, shortly after the PAF air strike went in on December 3rd. If the aim was to capture a piece of Kashmir territory, the attack also failed miserable. In the Pooch Sector and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, the Pakistani infantry brigade launched an attack against Poonch from the direction of Kahuta in the northwest, while commandos infiltrated behind the Poonch area to cut off the road link. But Indian forces were ready for them and the frontal thrust made little progress. When the IAF began pounding their troops concentrations in the forest north west of Poonch, the enemy decided to call off the attack.
On December 9th and 10th, the enemy prepared for a second offensive from the same direction. This time the IAF strafed and bombed them in their assembly areas and the attack fizzled out. It was then the turn of the Poonch forces to go on to be counter offensive. By December 16th, the Indian forces had occupied several posts flanking the road. In the Chhamb sector, the Pakistani II Corps went on the offensive led by two infantry brigades and the regiment of mixed Chinese T-59 and Sherman tanks. The initial thrust was held - Indian forces destroying six enemy tanks. On December 5th, Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan, the Corps Commander, threw in another brigade into the attack and another regiment of armour. This thrust cost him 23 T-59 tanks, with much of the killing done by the IAF.
The enemy, under the crass leadership of Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan, continued to launch repeated frontal assaults against well-prepared positions, incurring heavy losses. In all these futile attacks, Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan lost some 3,000 troops and nearly 50 tanks. By December12th, he had had enough. The Butcher of Baluchistan and Dacca lived up to his reputation even as far as his own men were concerned. In the rest of the J&K theatre, it was the Indian Army that took the initiative - though not with the intention of launching major offensives or acquiring Pakistan-held territory. The Kargil sector, which is dominated by heights occupied by Pakistani forces, the straightening out of the line entailed the capture of about 15 enemy posts located at height of 16,000 feet and more. All the attacks were launched at night when the ground temperatures sank to below -17º Centigrade.
In the Tithwal sector, a large salient of Pakistan-held territory lies on the east bank of the Kishenganga river, which poses a threat to the Indians. The enemy was cleared from here too. Similarly, in Uri sector, where the Haji Pir salient provides easy infiltration access to Gulmarg, Indian forces captured posts in the Tosh Maiden area to neutralize this threat. In the Jaisalmer sector, an enemy infantry brigade supported by a regiment of armour (mixed T-59s and Shermans) launched an attack on Indian positions at Longewala. It was a bold idea, but it had not reckoned with the sands of the desert. Then, it was the turn of the armour separated from its supporting column, to flounder in the soft desert, forming as easy target for Indian aircraft. As one of the IAF Hunter pilots described it, "It was like a duck shoot - only we had sitting ducks to shoot at." Sorties after sorties went into attack, and before long, more than 20 enemy tanks had been destroyed. All in all, the Longewala battle turned out to be quite a disaster for the enemy.
Of the three bridges over the rivers Ravi and Sutlej, the only one that lay in Indian territory was the Hussainiwalla Bridge near Ferozpur. On December 3rd and 4th, the Pakistani forces launched an attack on this enclave in some strength. Fighting a delayed action in which the Pakistanis lost 18 tanks, the Indian garrison made a planned withdrawal to the east bank of the river. Retaliating in kind, the Corps Commander, Lt. Gen. Rawlley, ordered an offensive to capture the Sehjra salient, north-west of Ferozpur. The attack came as a complete surprise to the enemy and soon Sehjra was captured. In the process, the threat to Khem Karan and Harike was removed. Similarly on December 6th and 7th, Indian forces attacked and captured the Pakistan enclave on the eastern side of Ravi, guarding the Dera Baba Nanak Bridge.
In keeping with the government's policy and the strategic plan the Indian armed forces confined their major operations to the offensive-defensive. A major threat to India's J&K theatre has always been along the southern boundary of the state. The offensive was launched along the three axis - two striking southwards from Kathua-Samba stretch of the main Pathankot Jammu road; and the third, subsequent thrust from the Gurdaspur area striking westwards. The operation started on December 5th and 6th night and lasted till ceasefire, ending in the biggest tank battle of the war.
A fascinating story about the spirit of the Indian Armoured Corps concerns a young Major, a squadron commander of Hodson's Horse (the 4th Horse). Ordered to launch an attack on a Pakistani position across the Basantar River, which was supported by eight Patton tanks, he decided on a dawn attack, so that he could negotiate the soggy riverbed during the hours of darkness. While crossing the river during the night before his D-Day, the poor unfortunate found one after another of his tanks bogging down in the sand. He spent the whole night pulling his tanks, only to find that as he towed out one, another got stuck. Eventually, at 4 a.m. IST, he found himself with only four tanks on the enemy side of the river. Fortunately, he had created enough noise during the night to make the enemy think that a whole regiment was crossing over.
In the half-light of dawn, he attacked the enemy tank positions. To his utter consternation, he saw the Pakistani crew abandon their tanks and make for home. When he had rounded up the prisoners, the young major was seething - chagrin beyond description. He gathered the Pakistan crew together and vented his wrath upon them: "Don't you have any sharam (shame)? You have let down the armoured corps. You are supposed to stand and fight. You have cut our noses." And with that he marched them off to regimental headquarters.
The 1971 Bangladesh genocide
Guys, opening this thread to have substantive discussion on this issue. Not with the intention of hyperbole but to bring out the facts clearly.
Please post with relevant links and sources. I believe there is sufficient information out there that clearly points to the facts of the genocide. It was a war that was well covered by the media and the facts are out there. However many Pakistanis stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the facts and want to get comforted by living in denial.
Guys, opening this thread to have substantive discussion on this issue. Not with the intention of hyperbole but to bring out the facts clearly.
Please post with relevant links and sources. I believe there is sufficient information out there that clearly points to the facts of the genocide. It was a war that was well covered by the media and the facts are out there. However many Pakistanis stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the facts and want to get comforted by living in denial.
Regrading the demand of neutral sources, how is this for neutral source:
1984 World Almanac: up to 1,000,000 civilians were killed.
Hartman: 1,000,000 Bengalis
B&J: 1,000,000 Bengalis
Kuper cites a study by Chaudhuri which counted 1,247,000 dead, and mentions the possibility that it may be as many as 3,000,000.
MEDIAN: 1,000,000-1,250,000
Porter: 1M-2M
Rummel: 1,500,000.
Eckhardt: 1,000,000 civ. + 500,000 mil. = 1,500,000 (Bangladesh)
Harff & Gurr: 1,250,000 to 3,000,000
The official estimate in Bangladesh is 3 million dead. [AP 30 Dec. 2000; Agence France Presse 3 Oct. 2000;
Rounaq Johan: 3,000,000 (in Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views, Samuel Totten, ed., (1997))
Compton's Encyclopedia, "Genocide": 3,000,000
Encyclopedia Americana (2003), "Bangladesh": 3,000,000
1984 World Almanac: up to 1,000,000 civilians were killed.
Hartman: 1,000,000 Bengalis
B&J: 1,000,000 Bengalis
Kuper cites a study by Chaudhuri which counted 1,247,000 dead, and mentions the possibility that it may be as many as 3,000,000.
MEDIAN: 1,000,000-1,250,000
Porter: 1M-2M
Rummel: 1,500,000.
Eckhardt: 1,000,000 civ. + 500,000 mil. = 1,500,000 (Bangladesh)
Harff & Gurr: 1,250,000 to 3,000,000
The official estimate in Bangladesh is 3 million dead. [AP 30 Dec. 2000; Agence France Presse 3 Oct. 2000;
Rounaq Johan: 3,000,000 (in Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views, Samuel Totten, ed., (1997))
Compton's Encyclopedia, "Genocide": 3,000,000
Encyclopedia Americana (2003), "Bangladesh": 3,000,000
YouTube - CBS - Featuring Khulna Massacre
First hand account of a neutral journalist claiming minimum 100,000 were killed in a single medium sized district in Bangladesh. He met eye witness and victims.
First hand account of a neutral journalist claiming minimum 100,000 were killed in a single medium sized district in Bangladesh. He met eye witness and victims.
