Notion Press

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First Published by Notion Press 2016 Copyright © Madanjit Singh Ahluwalia 2016 All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 978-1-945497-75-9

This book has been published with all efforts taken to make the material error-free after the consent of the author. However, the author and the publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover image: Indian Navy Contents

Acknowledgements xiii Introduction xv

1. INS Khukri 1 2. Comments 25 3. Rebellion in East Pakistan 26 4. Pakistani Naval Submarine Ghazi 40 5. The Landings at Cox’s Bazaar 55 6. Kissa Enterprise Ka 65 7. Task Force Alfa 75 8. The Missile Boat Attacks on Karachi 78 9. Pakistan in 1971 110 10. Major Ian Cardozo, SM, 4/5 Gurkha Rifles, Reports for Duty 120

Conclusion 141 Those Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice 143

INS Khukri

I reported on board Indian Naval Ship Khukri at Mumbai on 16 May, 1971. She was made fast to the caisson gate of the Cruiser Graving dock, inside the naval dockyard. A caisson gate is an awkward spot to berth a frigate. She had been put there since there was a shortage of alongside berths. Vessels that had been damaged, when INS Ranjit’s port manoeuvering valve blew in March 1971, still remained alongside, undergoing repairs. In addition, the dockyard was urgently attending to the needs of different vessels, trying to ensure the highest state of operational efficiency for a maximum number of units. Clouds of war were forming over our subcontinent. East Pakistan was in grim turmoil. Lakhs of its inhabitants had poured across the border and sought refuge in India from the Pakistani Army and razakars. A number of machinery spaces and compartments on the Khukri were cordoned off or tightly secured. Empty spaces marked the locations where equipment and machinery had been removed for repair. In other compartments, electrical consoles and machinery lay partially dismantled, their expensive electronic and hydraulic components exposed. The shore command staff and dockyard staff held regular meetings with their counterparts on the Western Fleet vessels. Since the dockyard was stretched so thin, at these meetings the more difficult repairs were identified and the machinery and boats then landed ashore. Most repair items, however, were earmarked for the ship’s staff to repair and replace. Some items were marked for repair on board with dockyard assistance. The crews of the fleet ships- engine room, electrical, gunnery, torpedo and anti- submarine, communication, navigation, supply and secretariat- slogged away, each in their own part-of-ship. Soon after I joined my vessel, I noted that there was a considerable amount of activity at the jetties on the western edge of the tidal basin. A squadron of sleek new missile boats had been berthed there. These were the fruits of Defense Minister Shri Y B Chavan’s and then Rear Admiral Nanda’s visits to the Soviet Union. They had just been inducted into the 2 Torpedoed at Sea

Navy. Officers who had trained on these craft in the Soviet Union were determined to extract all that they could get from them. In Soviet naval doctrine, they were intended for the defense of Soviet harbours, to be used when the enemy’s vessels came within missile range of a harbour mouth or some other important position. They were ‘point defense’ weapons. The Indian Navy, however, had different plans for them. About three weeks after I had joined, Captain Mahendra Nath Mulla took command of the Fourteenth Frigate squadron comprising INS Khukri, INS Kirpan and INS Kuthar. Khukri was the squadron leader. The squadron had awaited Captain Mulla’s arrival, knowing quite well what to expect. The Captain was known for being a stern taskmaster- he drove himself hard and he expected his subordinates to do their best. However, this attitude did not set him apart in a highly professional navy, where most captains were like him. He was known then, also, for being a down- to-earth person- preferring always to call a spade a spade. He spoke his mind eloquently and freely, and made sure that everyone knew where he stood on a chosen issue. For this, he was held in high regard by the officers and men of the fleet. He was well-known, also, for his love of shiayree- Hindustani poetry- and could regale an audience late into the night. He had read extensively. He was proud that he came from a family of distinguished jurists and lawyers, and took a keen interest in the canons of law and their application in a naval court of law. Captain Mulla was highly sought after by naval officers who were facing a court-martial, to act as their defense counsel. I never had the opportunity to observe him in court but he must have appeared formidable to the witnesses that he cross-examined. He was well-built, had a deep voice, and stood over six feet tall. The repairs and maintenance continued for the next couple of weeks. Machinery that had been landed ashore was brought back, installed and tested. Finally we were ready! In the second week of June we sailed out of Mumbai with other units of the Western Fleet. I was the Foc’sle (forward part of ship) Officer and stood in the eyes (the forward most portion) of the vessel as we left harbour. A heavy, undulating swell- the distinguishing mark of the South-West monsoon at sea- waited for us about Bombay Floating Light. For a week, with other surface units, we carried out combined anti-submarine exercises Rebellion in East Pakistan

Emblematic of the difficulties that sprang to the fore in Pakistan, within a few years of its formation, is the career of Mohammad Ataul Ghani Osmany. On successful completion of his training at the Military Academy in Dehra Dun, he was commissioned a second lieutenant into the British Indian Army in 1940. When the subcontinent attained independence in 1947, he was a lieutenant colonel. He chose to join the Pakistani Army, like most officers from East Bengal. He was promoted to Colonel in 1956. When he retired in 1967, he was still a colonel. One does not have to look far for the roadblock that ended his advancement. In October, 1951, he had taken over command of 1st East Bengal Regiment, stationed then in Jessore. He worked long and hard at his command and moulded his men into one of the most effective units of the Pakistani army. The standards of excellence he established resulted in the 1st East Bengal winning seventeen gallantry awards in the 1965 war with India, the most of any unit. He chose also to rally his men with Bengali marching songs. He selected “Chal Chal Chal” by Kazi Nazrul Islam, “Gram Chara oi ranga matir path” by Rabindranath Tagore, and “Dhano Dhaney Pushpa Bhora” by Dwijendralal Ray. He introduced Guru Shodoy Dutt’s Brotochari nritto, a vigorous fusion of martial fervour and rhythmed dance. This very ready acceptance of Hindu culture forms by a Pakistani military commander and their elevation to the stuff from which regimental esprit de corps is formed- it was too much for the Punjabi generals. To them, all units in Pakistan’s army had to draw their inspiration and strength solely from the deeds of Aurangzeb, Alauddin Khilji and Mohammed bin Tughlak. Those twentieth century generals paid no attention to the fact that the capital cities of these rulers were not inside Pakistan. Neither were those men, then or now, representative of the worshippers of Islam in their entirety. There were, and are, a large number of Muslims who preached and practiced tolerance and respect for other religions. In any case, it is difficult to make bonafide Pakistani national heroes out of men whose lives and careers occurred in localities outside Pakistan. The Punjabi generals, Madanjit Singh Ahluwalia 27 however, saw things differently. They were stuck in a mindset shaped by distant events and remote times. Mohammad Osmany was destined, then, to remain a colonel in the Pakistani Army. There were many other reasons for East Pakistan’s dissatisfaction. It contributed handsomely to the nation’s treasury with its exports of jute and tea. However, most of the foreign exchange earned was allocated to West Pakistan. Even though most of the tea, paper, textiles, and sugar consumed within Pakistan came from East Pakistan, at Budget time it received less than a third of the development funds allocated to agriculture and industry. Only fifteen percent of Central Government employees came from the Bengali population. East Pakistan’s share in armed forces enrollment hovered at five percent. In 1948, the Pakistani government declared Urdu to be the national language. This ignited the Bhasha Andolan, Language Movement, in the East. Agitations and demonstrations followed on a regular basis. On 21 February, 1952, students leading a demonstration in Dhaka University were shot dead. Widespread civil unrest followed. It took four years for the Pakistani government in Pakistan to relent and grant an official status to the Bengali language. During that time the feeling that East Pakistan’s distinctive Bengali identity was under siege took root. In 1962, the Swadhin Bangla was formed. It was a secretive organization committed to a free Bangla nation. In its ranks were Serajul Alam, Abdur Razzak and Kazi Arif Ahmed. In November 1970, East Pakistan was ravaged by tropical cyclone Bhola. The relief efforts of the Pakistani government, based in the West, came in for heavy criticism. The tardy response reinforced the sense of step- motherly treatment felt by most Bengalis. Elections to the National Assembly followed shortly. The Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, won a majority. Trailing far behind was the People’s Party, based in West Pakistan. Independents and smaller parties held a fifth of the seats. The result was unambiguous. The Awami League, based in East Pakistan, had secured the votes necessary to form the next government. This new government would administer and rule the entire country of Pakistan. Outwardly, President Yahya Khan made a show of acceptance of the election result and announced that the National Pakistani Naval Submarine Ghazi

On the night of 3 December, 1971, as thousands stayed up in Visakhapatnam to hear the Pradhan Mantri’s response to Pakistan’s sudden attack on India, there was a large explosion out to seaward. The naval authorities ashore, in Eastern Naval Command Headquarters, documented the explosion. They had no idea, however, of what might have caused it. Without giving any indication of its fate to those who were guarding Visakhapatnam vigilantly, as also the Pakistani Navy’s wireless operators in Karachi who were anxiously awaiting a message from her, PNS Ghazi had just sunk to the bottom of the Bay of Bengal. TheGhazi’s daring and able commander, Commander Zafar Muhammad Khan, had successfully maneuvered her into the required attack position off the harbour’s mouth. He had been drawn there with the high hope that the aircraft carrier Vikrant, India’s most formidable warship, would emerge sooner or later inside Visakhapatnam’s buoyed channel, to be impaled on the cross-hairs of his attack periscope. Commander Khan was unaware that Admiral Krishnan and his team had duped Pakistan’s naval command into thinking that the Vikrant was in Visakhapatnam harbour. His submarine had been lured there. The Indian Navy’s plan was to ensure that Ghazi was kept as far away from its aircraft carrier as was possible. In this, the Navy was eminently successful. The sinking of theGhazi was probably the result of the poor material state of the vessel. It has been reported that the Pakistani Navy’s Director of Submarines, citing maintenance problems, was reluctant to order the submarine into the Bay of Bengal. There also exists the possibility that Ghazi’s sinking was caused by the Indian Navy’s vigorous and unrelenting use of underwater grenades (two pounds of explosive ) and depth-charges in the defense of its harbours and harbour-mouths. There is certainly not even one chance in a crore that the grenades might have directly caused the Ghazi to sink. However, there exists the chance that a grenade, if it exploded right next to the submarine’s casing, might have damaged some critical equipment or machinery. A depth-charge was capable of doing a lot more damage. The Missile Boat Attacks on Karachi

The Indian Navy carried out two attacks on Karachi harbour during the 1971 war. The first was on the night of 4 December and the second on the night of 8 December. It sank two enemy warships, heavily damaged one more and set ablaze, twice, the oil depot at Keamari, vital to Pakistan’s war machine. Two merchant vessels in the zone of hostilities were sunk and two sustained heavy damage. After the first attack the Pakistani Navy ordered its warships to seek safety inside Karachi’s inner harbour. After the second attack it ordered its warships to offload significant amounts of ammunition in order to reduce the size of any explosion that might result from a direct missile hit. This second order was resented by the majority of its personnel. The Pakistan Navy also brought into service enthusiastic civilian volunteers in small private aircraft to patrol the approaches to Karachi. Professional navies constantly study the weapons available to their rivals. They then conduct war games to arrive at the best method to counter the threat posed by those specific weapons. This is done on a continuing basis, day in-day out, year in-year out. After Pakistan acquired small submersible attack craft, the Indian Navy proceeded, through a lengthy series of vigorous drills, to establish procedures to counter them. The Pakistani Navy, similarly, had established procedures and plans to deal with the weapons available to the Indian Navy. In none of their plans did they envisage a missile attack on their ports. They knew that India possessed missile boats but expected these to be used solely in the defense of India’s ports. They simply did not expect to see sleek, pugnacious missile boats off Karachi or to have an encounter on the high seas in 1971 with an Indian fleet that had somehow added missiles to its arsenal. It took quite a few days for it to register that those “bright lights” were not aircraft, nor bombs or shells that had been dropped by enemy aircraft. The Indian Navy had made a highly imaginative use, totally unexpected, of the diminutive missile boats it had just acquired. Perhaps, in doing so, it exceeded the highest expectations that the Russian manufacturers had of their weapons. Madanjit Singh Ahluwalia 79

Commodore Vijay Jerath, Vir Chakra, who was a Lieutenant Commander when he led Vinash into action off Karachi in 1971, relates in his book how Russian spy satellites took photographs of Pakistan’s coast on 8 December 1971 as they passed overhead, which they did routinely. Two days later, the Palkovnic (Colonel)analyzing the photographs was surprised to see a familiar-looking Russian missile boat almost inside Pakistan’s main harbour! He realized what had happened and took his photographs to the Glavkom’s (Russian Chief of Naval Staff) office. Admiral Gorshkov,(whose full title was ‘Admiral of the Heroic Fleet of the Soviet Union’), had, some years ago, supervised the design of those missile boats on the very table that the Colonel was now displaying his photographs. “Glavkom had a look, jumped with joy, kissed and hugged the Palkovnic in the traditional Russian style. He was happily singing ‘My great Indian friends have achieved the impossible.’’’!¹

Pakistan’s Near-Acquisition of Missile Boats In September 1965, Indonesia had quickly loaned two Russian missile boats to Pakistan, to reinforce it in its then ongoing war with India. Shortly after the 1965 war was over, the US government suspended all military and economic aid to Pakistan and India. Russia, sensing an opening to the two nations, offered its weapons for sale. Pakistan asked it for six submarines, eight missile boats, twelve motor torpedo boats, maritime reconnaissance aircraft, mines and torpedoes. In July of 1968, Moscow offered to supply it with six missile boats. A Pakistani delegation was sent to make a detailed evaluation of the vessels. It concluded that the missile boats were too small to be effective during the monsoon months. The Pakistani officers asked if Russia could build larger missile boats for them or if it could fit missiles on the larger warships that Pakistan already had in service. Russia advised them that neither option was feasible. It offered, once again, its existing missile boats, as they were. The Pakistani Navy reasoned that since the distance from Karachi to Mumbai was beyond the operating range of these little ships, it was pointless to acquire them. Also niggling at the Pakistani Navy’s evaluation team was the thought that once the Navy acquired missile boats, funds for larger warships would dry up. The army leadership that controlled Pakistan’s entire purse strings (a situation detrimental to any nation!) might then declare that the Major Ian Cardozo, SM, 4/5 Gurkha Rifles, Reports for Duty

“They came to present their lives…” Spain 1937, WH Auden

This is a remarkable story. It is the story of Major General Ian Cardozo, AVSM, SM. Since he served in the 4th battalion of the 5 Gurkha Rifles, it also becomes their story. Before proceeding further, the author wishes to express his view that all men and women in white owe a debt of gratitude to General Cardozo for his book: “The Sinking of INS Khukri.” The general was requested to write the book by Shri Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books. An army officer, he took on the task of finding out all that he could about an important event that had occurred in a sister service. Prior to this, there must have been a limited interaction with the Navy. There would have been the study of naval campaigns during military geography and military strategy classes in the National Defense Academy, cursory discussions with his naval course- mates there, and a short, intense exposure to the fleet during Staff College. In the event, he has given us a well-researched book and an excellent account. The author first heard about him in the summer of 2010. He (the author) had moved to USA in 1988. Preoccupied with his new career as a realtor, he failed to maintain contact with his erstwhile colleagues and friends. It was Commander R S Pathania from Dharamshala then, who mentioned in an e-mail that an army officer had written a book about the Khukri. He also described in vivid detail how General Cardozo had lost his leg in the 1971 war and how, later, he had come to command a brigade. One can be certain that General Cardozo’s actions and achievements have passed into his regiment’s history and its folklore, reinforcing the traditions of valour and determination that it is so well- known for. This is an effort to draw attention to his exploits one more time. Madanjit Singh Ahluwalia 121

Towards the end of November, 1971, then Major Cardozo was busy attending classes at the military Staff College in the Nilgiris. He was suddenly ordered back to his battalion. The Fourth battalion of the Fifth Gurkha Rifles was stationed on the border with East Pakistan. Cross- border firing incidents were rising. The possibility of a wider conflict could no longer be ruled out. He was permitted to proceed to Delhi, in a short diversion, in order to drop off his wife, Priscilla, and their three sons. The family arrived in Delhi in the first week of December. Early the next morning Major Cardozo was at the airport to catch the first flight to Assam. He found out that all flights to Assam had been cancelled. A slow- moving civilian aircraft would be an easy target for Pakistani warplanes. Major Cardozo immediately took a taxi to the railway station. When they got there, the train was leaving the platform. He ran alongside, jumped aboard and pulled the chain. He explained, hopefully to an understanding train guard, that he was an army officer who had to report immediately for duty on India’s eastern border. With his luggage on board, the train resumed its journey. He disembarked the next night at Dharmanagar. His battalion was in the midst of a fierce battle at Sylhet. The battalion’s rear base was not far off now. The battalion’s bania was at the station. He told Major Cardozo that their unit had taken very heavy casualties and a number of wounded were at the hospital. He suggested that he should visit them on his way to the base. Major Cardozo spent a little time with the wounded and then jumped into a jeep along with Major Rattan Kaul of the same unit. The latter had been wounded in the battle for Gazipur but was hurriedly rejoining his Gurkhas. They drove off and reached the rear base at 0300 that night. To understand the state of the unit he was joining, it is necessary to describe the two battles that the battalion had just finished fighting- Atgram and Gazipur. The author has drawn on the accounts given by Lieutenant Colonel Arun Bhimrao Harolikar, Maha Vir Chakra (later Brigadier), the commanding officer of the unit, and Major Rattan Kaul (later Brigadier), company commander, D company. Atgram, a rural bus-stop, was situated in the eastern tip of the Karimganj salient (area). It lay on the route from India to Sylhet, an important city in Enjoyed reading this sample?

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