The following quote in the report above seems to suggest that Indian Navy was somehow in the wrong.
Vice Admiral Krishnan, later the eastern naval commander during the 1971 war with Pakistan is reported to have said, "One of our frigates was at Okha. It is unfortunate that she could not sail forth and seek battle. Even if there was a mandate against the Navy participating in the war, no government could blame a warship for going into action, if attacked. An affront to our national honour is no joke and we cannot laugh it away by saying, 'All the Pakistanis did was to kill a cow.' Let us at least create a memorial to the 'unknown cow' who died with her hooves on in a battle against the Pakistan Navy."
First about the source,
http://indiadefenceforum.com/three-...admiral-rks-ghandhi-breathed-his-last-mumbai/
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Ghandhi was Parsi by religion and was son of Khushro Shapoorjee Ghandhi and Dina Dhunjishah Amroliwalla, and was born at Jabalpur,(in Central India) on 1st July 1924. He graduated from St Joseph’s Nainital 1941 with an Intermediate Science degree and after a year of advanced studies at Allahabad University fired by the desire to serve the nation, joined the RIN, and earned a permanent commission on 1 January 1943 and after 2 years Subs courses in UK
served under Lt N Krishnan DSO later VADM on board INS Shamsher as a Sub Lt during the 1945 mutiny and told Krishnan to bomb Royal Bombay Yacht Club. Krishnan cleverly kept Shamsher away from Bombay by pretending the ship was detailed a ditched aircraft 80 nm from Bombay and asked Ghandhi to supervise ! Information warfare (IW) that wily Krishnan again used in 1971 explained in Warring Nuclear Nations –India Pakistan 2015 (RR Publications) just released.[QUOTE ENDS]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Nadder_(K392)
[QUOTE BEGINS]In 1945,
Naddar was transferred into Royal Indian Navy and renamed HMIS
Shamsher. In February 1946, the
Indian Navy mutinied.
Shamsher was the only ship in
Bombay not to mutiny.
[5]Shamsher was underway at sea during the mutiny, however, her commanding officer,
Lt. N Krishnan, submitted testimony to the Commission of Inquiry stating that the fact that the ship's officers were primarily of Indian origin, unlike many ships of the RIN, may also have been a reason for the ratings not joining the mutiny.
[6]
[6] RIN Mutiny Papers - National Archives of India 'RIN Mutiny Papers' Sr. No. 13 - Memos of witnesses submitted to the commission
[QUOTE ENDS]
Now that we are clear about the source let us look at the facts:
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All off following is quote from the site
http://indiannavy.nic.in/book/1965-indo-pakistan-war. However these are randomly taken ie. do not confirm to any order in that site, to point towards what I believe was the case for Indian Navy actually.
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The Indian Navy comprised one aircraft carrier, two cruisers, nineteen destroyers/ frigates and one tanker. Of these 23 ships, 10 were under refit at Bombay - the carrier (VIKRANT), one cruiser (DELHI), three destroyers (RAJPUT, RANA and GANGA), two frigates (TRISHUL and BETWA), three ships (the training frigate KISTNA and survey ships DARSHAK and SUTLEJ). The tanker (SHAKTI) was barely servicable. Training frigate TIR was in the Andamans. Survey ship INVESTIGATOR and landing ship MAGAR were in Visakhapatnam. Two Hunt class destroyers (GODAVARI and GOMATI) were at Cochin. One cruiser (MYSORE), one destroyer (RANJIT), and six frigates ( BRAHMAPUTRA, BEAS, TALWAR, KHUKRI, KUTHAR and KIRPAN) comprised the Indian Fleet. The Seahawk and Alize air squadrons, which had disembarked from the aircraft carrier for the duration of her refit, were distributed between Bombay, Goa and Cochin. Indian Air Force Liberator aircraft were available for maritime reconnaissance.
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His memoirs "Lal Bahadur Shastri", state:
"At the back of his mind was always the firm advice of the Army Chief that an escalation of fighting in the Rann of Kutch area was, tactically, not in the country's interest and that if there had to be a trial of strength between India and Pakistan, it should be elsewhere."
Mr L K Jha, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister in 1965, recalls:
"I was involved with some of the overall considerations which were guiding the war effort and meetings of the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet as`well as the Secretaries where some aspects were viewed largely from the political point of view but equally from an operational point of view.
"Now, first of all, the attempt on our part was to keep the whole thing confined, territorially as well as otherwise, to a local conflict, rather than allow it to assume the character of an Indo -Pak War. This was the prime objective of our policy - it had been in the past also. But at the same time, we had come to realise that fighting on terrain chosen by the enemy would always leave you at a disadvantage. This came out very, very vividly during the Rann of Kutch affair when Pakistan had all the logistic advantage and we had a tremendous problem in getting men, material and supplies moving to the front.
<snip>
"In fact I recall, and it might be useful for the record, a meeting between Prime Minister Shastri and President Ayub during the Commonwealth Conference session. It was a private meeting and I was there. Ayub said somewhat patronisingly " You know, your chaps tried to commit aggression on our territory, our chaps gave them a few knocks and they began to flee". Then Shastriji said "Mr President, you are a General. I have no military knowledge or experience. But do you think if I had to attack Pakistan, I would choose a terrain where we have no logistic support and you have all the advantages? Do you think I would make such a mistake or any of my Generals would allow me to make that mistake?" And one could see from the face of President Ayub that this thought startled him. Because quite obviously he had been led to believe, in my judgment by Bhutto, that the Indians had attacked in the Rann of Kutch. And he was firmly of that view until this question was posed by Shastriji. I could see him visibly pause and not pursue the point any further". (Blueprint to Bluewater page 420)
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Vice Admiral N P Datta, then a Commander serving in Naval Headquarters, recalls: (Blueprint to Bluewater Page 424)
"Around the middle of August, I had gone to the Naval Chief, with whom I had earlier served as the Fleet Operations Officer. I gave him my view that if the Fleet was to be recalled, it would take a week or longer for them to get back to the west coast, after which they would require another week or so to effect necessary repairs and maintenance before they could be operational.
"Admiral Soman said that this was the very point that he had made to the Chiefs of Staff Committee but had been overruled by the Army Chief, General Chaudhuri, as the Chairman of the Committee, who had said that if any alterations were made in the disposition of the Indian Fleet, if the ships were hurriedly recalled from Calcutta and sent back to Bombay, it would create a furore in the press and it would forewarn the Pakistani General Staff of the Indian Armed Forces' knowledge of their plans and hence their reaction would be severe."
<snip>
After the 1965 operations, Admiral Soman , addressing the senior officers of the Navy, said: (Blueprint to Bluewater Pages 463 et seq)
"Notwithstanding our initial disadvantage of the location of the Fleet on the East Coast at the time of the commencement of the undeclared war, and the material limitations of the ships after three months of exercises away from base, the Fleet, with the help of the valiant efforts of the Dockyard, took the initiative to seek the enemy and bring him to battle. Although this was not achieved, I am sure it had placed itself in a position to contain the enemy in his waters if he had ventured out, which I know was all that was expected of the Fleet.
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Why was the Indian Fleet Sent to the Bay of Bengal
Vice Admiral Soman recalls:- (Blueprint to Bluewater Pages 456 et seq)
"After the Indo Chinese conflict in 1962, the defence of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands was left entirely to me. The Army refused to send even a platoon there and we had to raise our own land force with sailors in khaki uniform to man the various stations in these islands. So far as the Navy was concerned, as soon as Pakistan started the trouble in Kutch, I had felt that my first priority would be these islands because while talking to various people during my visit to Indonesia as the Fleet Commander a few years earlier, and having been briefed on the developments since then, I felt a little nervous about these islands. This was because when the Army refused to send any units for their defence, I had taken on the responsibility of doing so with sailors with no experience in landfighting. But I had also placed MYSORE and two major ships in the area till the very last minute. It was only after the war had started and I was permitted to bring the Fleet back to the West Coast that I brought the ships across to the Western theater because I wanted to ensure that no opportunity was given to Indonesia to start anything at the same time. Whether eventually it proved itself I do not know but prior to that, Soekarno was reported to have been keeping an eye on the Bay islands.
"The Fleet, when it reached Bombay, had to be given this thoughtless order from the 'higher authorities' of not operating north of the latitude of Porbandar. Nothing else could be done except to try and see that the Pakistani ships did not move towards the Andaman and Nicobar islands to hold hands with the Indonesians
"I also had some intelligence on the presence of some Indonesian ships at Karachi and knew that any operation undertaken by the combined naval forces of Pakistan and Indonesia would neither be against the Indian Fleet nor the Indian mainland. It was most likely to be for the capture of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. I was quite convinced in my mind that the Indonesian Navy, knowing full well that only a small force of sailors in khaki uniform was present on these islands, could make an attempt to capture the Nicobar Island despite the then pretty poor state of Indonesia's Navy."
Was there any threat from Indonesia? Air Marshal Asghar Khan, who had been the Chief of the Pakistan Air Force during the Rann of Kutch incident, retired in July 1965. Soon after India crossed the Wagah border on 6 September, he was sent to China, Indonesia, Turkey and Iran to seek aid. In his memoirs, 'The First Round", he recounts his discussions with President Soekarno and Admiral Martadinata of Indonesia: (Page 43 et seq)
(a) President Soekarno said that India's attack on Pakistan was like an attack on Indonesia and they were duty bound to give Pakistan all possible assistance. President Soekarno told him to take away whatever would be useful to Pakistan in this emergency. Two Russian supplied submarines and two Russian supplied missile boats were sent to Pakistan post haste. (Note: They reached Karachi only after the cease fire).
(b) Admiral Martadinata asked Air Marshal Asghar Khan "Don't you want us to take over the Andaman Islands? A look at the map will show that the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are an extension of Sumatra and are in any case between East Pakistan and Indonesia. What right have the Indians to be there? In any case, the Indonesian Navy will immediately commence patrols of the approaches to these islands and carry out aerial reconnaissance missions to see what the Indians have there".
In hindsight, it would appear that the concern voiced to Admiral Soman by the Prime Minister and by the Defence Minister and Admiral Soman's own concern at that time about the security of the Andaman and Nicobar islands was not entirely unfounded. Indeed, as will be seen in the Chapter on Russian Acquisitions 1965 to 1971, it was this concern in May 1965 at the rise in Indonesian activity that precipitated the decision to acquire Russian ships and submarines. It helps to understand one of the reasons for delaying the recall of the Indian Fleet to Bombay till 1 September, when the Pakistan Army crossed the international border to attack Kashmir.
Another reason for sending the Indian Fleet to the Bay of Bengal seems to have been not to forego the opportunity for exercising with a submarine, particularly since the Pakistan Navy had received the submarine GHAZI from the American Navy in 1964.
Vice Admiral Soman recalls: (Blueprint to Bluewater Pages 421 et seq)
"After the fizzle-out of the Kutch affair for which the Fleet ships had been hurriedly brought out from their refit and periodic maintenance, we had the Hobson's choice of either committing them back to their refit and maintenance,or of continuing to keep them operational in order to make full use of the (already projected) live anti submarine training with a Royal Navy submarine which was due to arrive in India shortly. It had been our experience in the past that no amount of simulated training on attack teachers in anti submarine training schools ashore can ever make anti submarine teams fully efficient.
"It was decided, therefore, that the live target hunting and tracking opportunity was too valuable to be missed even if, during the period, the ships were not in as good a shape in their material state as they should be, so long as their anti submarine searching, hunting and attacking equipment and personnel were effective and efficient. In making this decision, I had assessed that we perhaps had time till about November 1965 before things might get hot again.
"In the context of this assessment, I must point out that while MYSORE and the anti submarine frigates were sent out to the East Coast for anti submarine exercises with the British submarine Astute, VIKRANT was put into the dry dock for her normal but long overdue periodic maintenance, particularly the repairs to her flight deck machinery, malfunctioning of which would have endangered valuable lives of pilots and caused losses of aircraft. Another consideration in committing VIKRANT to her refit during this period was that the weather and visibility conditions during the monsoons do detract somewhat from the full operational value of such a ship. All ships from the East Coast were due back from the anti submarine exercises in early September 1965 and, after normal maintenance. would have been operational again by November 1965, by which time VIKRANT was also scheduled to get ready.
"As it happened, events forestalled our calculations. MYSORE and the first pair of frigates to complete their exercises with the submarine carried out such normal periodic maintenance as possible with the limited resources available at Visakhapatnam, and were deployed in the Andaman and Nicobar area from where, during the monsoon period, smaller patrol craft are withdrawn. This was in accordance with the normal operational programme of the ships and was necessary, as there had been reports of surface and submarine ( of unknown nationality ) activity in this area. It was virtually in the middle of this deployment and before the second group of ships exercising with the submarine had finished their periodic maintenance, that all these ships had to be deployed to the West Coast to cater for any Pakistan naval activity. Needless to say, therefore, the material state of the ships, so far as their propulsion systems were concerned, was by no means at the optimum, as it perhaps could have been had we foregone the anti submarine exercise. I have no doubt, however, that the anti submarine exercises carried out with the submarine ASTUTE stood our ships in very good stead.
"From intelligence available prior to the end of August, it was known that the Pakistan Fleet was in Karachi carrying out maintenance and various exercises throughout the months of July and August 1965, while ours was on the East Coast. Being away from their homeport, Bombay, our ships had to continue to do with very meagre maintenance and repair facilities and resources, which had yet to be developed on the East Coast.
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