THE GARUD STRIKES

by Mukul Deva

  It did not take long for Himmeth to gather his company commanders and give the orders for 4 Guards to begin its advance on Ashuganj.

  The advance was to be carried out on two axes—Alpha Company moving on the right flank with squadron less two troops, and Bravo Company with the remaining two tank troops along the Brahmanbaria-Ashuganj road.

  At approximately midday, Alpha Company and 5 Independent Armoured Squadron, alongwith the PT 76 tanks that had been captured from the Pakistanis, encountered the enemy at a railway junction five miles short of Ashuganj.

  Paunchy, with a few other Alpha Company men, was riding atop the lead tank, which belonged to Major Shamsher Mehta, the Squadron Commander. They became aware of the Pakistani presence when the tank was fired upon. The anti-tank round luckily fell a few feet short, exploding harmlessly in the mud.

  The infantrymen hurriedly dismounted, whilst Shamsher fired a couple of rounds into the grove from which they had been fired upon. Then, spraying the area with machine gun fire, he charged the grove, killing eleven Pakistanis and capturing the position.

  Moving along the Brahmanbaria-Ashuganj road, Bravo Company, however, ran into heavy weather. They came under very effective fire and their advance stalled.

  Himmeth coming up close behind with the rest of the battalion ordered Major Kharbanda, the Bravo Company Commander, to clear the opposition, secure the bridge, and resume advance.

  Leading the assault through open paddy fields, Kharbanda was hit by an MMG burst at almost point blank range.

  Guardsmen Ram Prasad and Ram Dayal Ram, both manning LMGs, saw their Company Commander fall. Kharbanda had fallen in the open and both realized that he would not survive for long. Moving forward immediately, they engaged and killed four Pakistanis, and silenced the bothersome MMG. That brought them momentary respite.

  The respite would obviously be brief since the Pakistanis were showing signs of mustering for a counter-attack. Himmeth, who had also seen Kharbanda go down, alongwith several other men from Bravo Company, spotted the Pakistani movement and knew that an attack on Bravo Company was imminent.

  This is what Himmeth said to Colonel Pyarelal about what happened next: ‘I knew Kharbanda was gone if we did not do anything immediately. I requested the armour officer, Lieutenant Raj Mohan to attack. The youngster was audacious. He did not hesitate even for a second and lit into the enemy with his troop. Thank God for that, otherwise we would have had to write off Kharbanda for sure. Though Raj himself was also grievously wounded during the attack, but his action saved many lives that day.

  Simultaneously, guided by Daljit the spunky FAC, the Indian Air Force carried out another very effective strike on the railway station, which literally broke the back of the Pakistani defenders. The three hundred odd Pakistanis holding the town fled without offering any serious resistance. They even left their wounded behind.

  Amongst those captured by Bravo Company was a Pakistani officer of 12 Frontier Force.

  ‘You are also from the Guards,’ the Pakistani officer told Sahni. ‘The guys who attacked us at Akhaura were also from the Brigade of Guards.’

  ‘We are the same ones,’ Sahni explained to him.

  ‘Bloody hell! You guys move fast,’ the Pakistani officer looked stunned. After a pause he added, ‘Do you know, you guys were always so close behind us that everytime we stopped for a breather, your men would turn up.’ He held up three fingers. ‘Thrice!’ Waving the fingers for emphasis, he said ‘Thrice we had to leave our tea and run. How did you manage to move so fast?’

  Even I wanted to know. I asked.

  ‘I didn’t say anything to him, but we were able to move fast because we improvised,’ Granthi smiled. ‘Now I don’t even remember the kind of things we used to keep moving. Boats, canoes, makeshift rafts, bicycles, cycle rickshaws, horse carts, improvised sleds to pull stuff on… We used whatever we managed to commandeer.’

  Just how effective they had been was clear from the fact that by now the psychological pressure on the Pakistanis was tremendous. And in the coming hours, it would continue to grow. Many more times would the Garud come knocking even before the tea finished brewing.

  With that resistance cleared, 4 Guards now resumed advance on Ashuganj. However, it had caused Himmeth the loss of yet another of his company commanders. Rapidly running out of options, Himmeth now ordered Captain Sahni to take charge of Bravo Company.

  The rest of the battalion was advancing behind Alpha and Bravo companies, but along the railway track.

  ‘Every so often we would pass pockets of Pakistani stragglers,’ Glucose commented. ‘By now they had become thoroughly demoralized and were falling back helter-skelter.’

  By 1500 hours, Dharamkot, situated on the railway line Brahmanbaria-Ashuganj, had also been taken. Here again, true to form, the Pakistanis withdrew without offering a fight, but they managed to demolish the bridge before the guardsmen could reach.

  The blowing of this crucial bridge across the Meghna river was to have a major impact on the conduct of operations. This was one of the major reasons for General Sagat to launch a heliborne operation soon, a game-changing operation that would put a rapid end to the war.

  Meanwhile, Midha had been sent back from the ADS in Agartala to the field hospital at Telliamora, about fifty kilometres back on the Dharmanagar-Agartala road. Eventually, he found himself on the operating table.

  ‘They were taking care of the more serious casualties first, so that is why they took a while to get to me,’ said Midha.

  By now, two of his three major wounds had healed and only his hand was still giving some trouble. The X-rays showed that the splinters were still lodged inside.

  ‘When the surgeon asked me if I wanted him to re-open the wounds and take out the splinters, I was not too keen to do that. The wounds seemed to be healing well, and even my hand was not really giving much trouble. Also, I did want to get back to my company. So I checked with the surgeon if the splinters would create any hassles for me later,’ Midha elaborated.

  ‘You can keep your war trophies if you want,’ the surgeon had smiled and told him. ‘They will eventually find their place in your body.’

  ‘You still have them inside you? The splinters?’ Honestly, I was surprised.

  ‘Yes,’ he held up the hand in a very matter of fact manner. ‘And they don’t really bother me. Only sometimes, when it is very cold and damp.’

  Refusing to be sent back to the hospital at Guwahati, with the other more seriously wounded, Midha got himself discharged from the field hospital and on the morning of 8th December began to head back to his unit. The doctor didn’t dissuade him either—everyone knows what a morale booster it is for any fighting unit to have its wounded re-join the battle.

  But by now, the rest of the guardsmen had raced ahead. Though the aerial distance between Midha and the unit was barely twenty-five kilometres, there was no direct surface link. To get to them, Midha had to accompany a convoy, which would swing around some ninety kilometres via Comilla before it could get back towards Ashuganj.

  ‘That’s when I learnt that our engineers had been unable to improvise the railway bridge on the Akhaura-Ashuganj track,’ Still sporting a bandage, Midha headed back to join his company. He was unaware that events were evolving very rapidly on the battlefield ahead. And caught firmly in the eye of the storm were the followers of the Garud—battered and bloody, but bashing on regardless.

  Himmeth was setting out with his radio operators and escort party when one of the locals came running to warn him that the Pakistanis had been laying mines just before they had pulled out. Himmeth immediately told his security escort, Naik Panna Lal, to advance with caution and watch out for freshly dug mud, since the mines had apparently just been laid.

  Naik Panna Lal had two sterling qualities. Firstly, he took his duty as the Commandant’s protector seriously and literally, ensuring that no matter where they had to go, it was he who was walking directly in front of Himmeth.

  Now this in itself
was nothing anyone could find fault with if it had not been for his second sterling quality. Panna Lal had an exceedingly atrocious sense of direction. Often, Himmeth found him moving in directions that were totally at variance with where they were actually supposed to go.

  ‘For a change, that day Panna Lal was headed in the right direction,’ Himmeth had told Colonel Pyarelal. ‘However, I am not sure he had heard a word of my warning about the land mines, because Panna Lal was moving as though he was on the parade ground; marching forward, steady and straight, without once looking down at the ground. However, God was watching over us that day; he saw us safely through the minefield.’

  Reaching Ashuganj, Himmeth deployed his HQ in the mosque, a practice he had adopted in line with the logic that the Pakistanis would be unwilling to shell a place of worship. The logic had proved flawed since very soon the HQ was under very effective artillery fire.

  Himmeth on radio at Ashhuganj

  The Pakistani Artillery OP had taken up position on top of a grain silo and had a commanding view of the area around Ashuganj. He was able to bring down very effective fire, and Himmeth knew he would make life miserable for the guardsmen if left unattended. Once again he turned to Daljit and asked the FAC to call in an airstrike.

  Unable to get a clear view of the target, Daljit decided to clamber on to an elevated position on top of the mosque. He had barely reached on top when the Pakistani gunners spotted him. Soon a blistering hail of fire began to rain down on him. Unmindful of it Daljit directed the strike.

  ‘Daljit’s airstrike was as effective as the previous one, if not as dramatic,’ said Glucose with another quick grin. ‘And despite the shelling he had been put through, two hours later, when Daljit finally dismounted from his precarious perch, he was as nonchalant and chirpy as ever.’

  With the Pakistani Artillery OPs momentarily out of action, a lull set in and some kind of normalcy returned.

  Also, by now, the Indian administrative vehicles had started to arrive. With the bridge across Lakhiya river (at Akhaura) now in Indian hands, essential supplies began to reach the unit. The engineers had also managed to float jeeps across. In addition, 4 Guards had commandeered a fire engine from the local fire brigade, so things had started looking up.

  ‘In the supplies that reached us, thoughtfully packed by some kindly soul was a bottle of whiskey,’ said Paunchy as he ran a hand over his namesake. ‘That day, after a week of dirt and deprivation, we all managed to get a hot and reasonably pleasant dinner, and of course, a very welcome drink.’

  Himmeth also took this opportunity to get his company commanders together for a briefing at the mosque.

  However, the brief lull in the storm proved to be just that. The hot and reasonably pleasant meal had barely been swallowed when the Pakistani 105 mm artillery guns began yet again at around 2100 hours. Getting the range and location right was obviously not a challenge for them since they were playing in their own backyard.

  ‘In all this mayhem, we were settling down for the night as best as we could when the call came from Brigade HQ,’ Glucose explained. ‘The Old Man was told to report to the commander at Brahmanbaria next morning and the unit was also told to be ready to move.’

  Paunchy returned from the mosque to the location where his company was deployed to find his company senior JCO, Subedar Makhan, very agitated. Makhan complained that the engineer boys attached to Alpha Company were not listening to him and had now disappeared. Makhan assumed that they had lost their nerve due to the shelling and run away. It was only after some extensive hunting that they realized what had happened to the engineer men.

  Alpha Company had suffered several direct hits. One of the enemy shells had landed right on top of the foxhole in which the engineers had taken shelter. So intense had been the blast that parts of their decimated bodies had been flung high up in the air, finally coming to rest in one of the trees overhead.

  Pakistani artillery kept up the barrages through the night. Despite that, as ordered, 4 Guards geared up for the forthcoming move.

  DAY NINE

  09 DECEMBER 1971

  A bout to depart for Brahmanbaria in his jeep, Himmeth called Paunchy, the senior-most company commander and officiating second-in-command, and told him to be ready to bring the battalion back to Brahmanbaria.

  ‘Whom do I hand over charge to, sir?’ Paunchy had queried, since they were now in contact with the enemy defences.

  ‘You don’t worry about that. 18 Rajput and 10 Bihar are coming up now, and 73 Brigade is moving in from the flank,’ was the reply he received.

  A few hours later, at about 1000 hours, Paunchy received orders from Himmeth to get the battalion back to Brahmanbaria as fast as possible.

  ‘That’s why we just got up and moved out. But it was not a very good decision by the brass,’ Paunchy said, while shaking his head mournfully. ‘Later, when 18 Rajput and 10 Bihar reached Ashuganj, they literally walked into hell. The Pakistanis blasted them with pretty much everything they had, and both units suffered very heavy casualties.’

  I was watching him closely; looking for any signs of thank-God-it-was-not-us. There were none. I realized he was merely telling the story, as objectively as he could.

  It was only when the battalion had gone a few miles from Ashuganj that Subedar Makhan realized that in all the confusion, they had forgotten to retrieve the bodies of the engineer men from the trees.

  Meanwhile, Himmeth had reached the Brigade Commander at about 0600 hours on 09th December 1971, and was told that he had to accompany General Sagat Singh and the Brigadier for an aerial recon. The trio took off at 0800 hours in an Alliot, with Sagat sitting in front with the pilot and Mishra and Himmeth in the rear seat.

  Aerial recon with Lieutenant General Sagat Singh GOC 4 Corps

  ‘Never having viewed land from the air before, I was quite lost, but Sagat had a very clear idea of what he was looking for. It is now that Sagat revealed his intention to clear the Meghna river with a heliborne operation and push ahead to Dacca. I was thrilled, since my presence here obviously implied that my unit would be involved in this historical operation,’ Himmeth’s recollections to Colonel Pyarelal said it as eloquently as anyone could.

  ‘We finally found what we thought was the ideal location for such an operation—at Raipura, west of the Meghna. The joyride was a novel experience for me, but turned out to be more than what I’d bargained for. Especially when, on the way back, Sagat decided to take a closer look at certain enemy positions. Much to my horror, he decided to go down as low as a hundred feet. I don’t know what it is with senior officers… Did they all believe that the bullet meant for them had not yet been made by the enemy? It did not seem to perturb the General much, not even when we were fired upon and Brigadier Mishra missed losing his head by a mere three inches. I’d heard stories about Sagat and his air escapades. The number of times he was shot at had become a standing joke. So often had it happened that the joke was that he had changed wounded pilots more frequently than he had changed his shoes,’ Himmeth had continued to recall.

  ‘On the flip side was Sagat’s undeniable (and positively endearing) quality of always being upfront at the point of a decision. Of being able to see, judge and decide rapidly what we needed to do next. I personally believe that this trait of his had a major role to play in our winning this war so swiftly. And this was not the first time he was pulling off such a caper; Sagat had a penchant for rapid manoeuvres. Commissioned in the 3rd Gorkha Rifles, of which he commanded two battalions, Sagat Singh had also commanded India’s first and only Parachute Brigade, the 50th. It was men from this brigade that, led by him, had not only played a pivotal role in the liberation of Goa, but also been the first to enter Panjim on 19 December 1961,’ Himmeth had said.

  I pondered over all this for a moment. How much of Himmeth’s sentiment was personal, and how much professional? Did it matter? After all, perception is reality? So, what is reality?

  Shrugging, I returned to Colonel Pyarelal’s not
es of Himmeth’s reminiscences of that aerial recon.

  Luckily, we all managed to return to Brahmanbaria intact. After some deliberations, General Sagat decided to go firm on Raipur as the landing place.

  General Sagat Singh – Visiting the troops at the front line

  A little later, Brigadier Mishra gave me the orders; 4 Guards would again be leading the charge. I was thrilled at the confidence shown in us by the top brass. However, I must confess, having seen the mighty Meghna, I was happy that Sagat had given us choppers and not expected us to swim across it. He could easily have done so. I don’t think the General knew the word ‘impossible’!

  I hastened to reach my HQ. Still not fully sure why, but I knew that something momentous was going down. Perhaps I did not fully realize the impact our heliborne operation was going to have on the outcome of the war. Neither I am sure, did the Pakistanis, else they would have fought us tooth and nail when we landed.

  ‘The Old Man was with the Brigade Commander in the stadium when the battalion reached Brahmanbaria at about 1300 hours. Himmeth was all charged up and beaming when he told us that the unit would be heli-landed across the Meghna in a few hours,’ Glucose gave a boyish grin when he said that. ‘I don’t think he realized that none of us had had even a few hours of sleep ever since we had crossed the border eight days ago. Or that our ranks had been sorely depleted due to casualties. However, strangely enough, none of us objected to that either. Primarily because we had seen Himmeth slog through everything shoulder to shoulder with us, and we were all aware that the Old Man never asked us to do anything he himself was not ready for,’ He continued.