Pitu gotra contd brahmins of the Indian armed forces 29524 30524
BRAHMIN IN INDIAN ARMED FORCES
India's first Param Vir Chakra winner Major Som Nath Sharma, the hero of
1947 war
New Delhi: India has seen many wars in the past century. Indian soldiers
were part of World War 1 & 2 before Independence. India has fought wars
with Pakistan 4 times since the partition and
India has fought wars with Pakistan 4 times since the partition and once
with China and during these wars we lost a lot of good men.
The achievements of some soldiers deserve a special mention.
One such solider was Major Som Nath Sharma who was the first recipient of
the Param Vir Chakra, the highest Indian gallantry award.
Coincidently, he was the son in law of Savitri Khanolkar, who designed this
medal for Indian Army which is equivalent to the Victoria Cross of Britain.
Major Som Nath Sharma was born on 31 January 1923 in a Brahmin family at
Dadh, Kangra Himachal Pradesh India.
He came from a well-known military family, his father, Major General Amar
Nath Sharma, was also a military officer (retired as Director, Medical
Services (Army) as were his brothers Lt. General Surindar Nath Sharma
(retired as Engineer-in-chief) and General Vishwa Nath Sharma (retired as
Chief of Army Staff, 1988–1990), and his sister Major Kamla Tewari (Medical
Doctor).
He was commissioned into the 8th Battalion, 19th Hyderabad Regiment (later
4th Battalion, Kumaon Regiment) of the Indian Army (then British Indian
Army) on 22 February 1942.
He also saw combat during the second World War in the Arakan Operations.
Som Nath Sharma's company was airlifted to Srinagar on 31 October 1947.
His right hand was in a plaster cast as a result of injuries sustained in
the hockey field previously but he insisted on being with his company in
combat and was given permission to go.
During this operation Major Som Nath Sharma's D company of 4th battalion
(Kumaon regiment) was ordered to go on a fighting patrol to Badgam village
in Kashmir valley.
He and his men were surrounded by the enemy from three sides and his
company sustained heavy casualties because they were outnumbered by the
enemy.
He realized that if he and his men left that post then it would be easy for
the enemy to capture Srinagar airport and Srinagar city.
He then told his boys to fight till last the blood was spilt. They were
outnumbered seven to one by the enemy, but he and his company were not
ready to surrender and he kept on urging his men to fight bravely. Major
Sharma soon realized that heavy casualties affected firing power.
So although his right hand was in plaster, he took upon himself the task of
filling the magazines and issuing them to men and he himself took charge of
the light machine guns.
While he was busy fighting the enemy, a mortar shell exploded on the
ammunition near him and killed him, his last voice message to brigade HQ
was, “the enemies were just 50 yards from us and that we are heavily
outnumbered and we shall not withdraw an inch but we will fight to our last
man and last round”.
The leadership and courage which he showed resulted in the enemy being
delayed for six hours, thus buying time to get the reinforcements.
For his leadership and the bravery which he showed during the war, he
received India's first Param Vir Chakra (posthumous).
*Brave family of Brahmins served the armed forces*
K Rajaram IRS 29524 30524
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II Operation Trident,1971: How Indian Navy Pulled Off One Of Its
Greatest Victories
The audacious mission commemorated by India’s Navy Day, Operation Trident
also proved to be a crucial turning point in the Indo-Pak War of 1971.
India has a rich history of naval warfare. In fact, Indian ships have made
their presence felt since the time of Rajendra Chola’s 10th-century naval
expedition to Southeast Asia and Maratha Admiral Kanhoji Angre’s
18th-century naval battles against the British, the Dutch and the
Portuguese.
This tradition of remarkable military exploits has continued even
post-independence, with the Indian Navy playing a key role in at least four
major military operations after 1947. There are several stories and
anecdotes in the annals of the Indian Navy that illustrate why it has
earned the reputation of a force to be reckoned with.
But the most celebrated among them is the story of the audacious naval
operation commemorated by India’s Navy Day, Operation Trident.
Here’s the fascinating story of the mission that proved to be a turning
point in the 1971 Indo-Pak war.
In 1968, war clouds were already gathering on the horizon when the Indian
Navy decided to acquire the Osa-I missile boats from the Soviet Union. Osa
translates to ‘wasp’ in Russian and these boats did have a powerful sting
thanks to their deadly ship-to-ship Styx missiles (that could blow the
biggest enemy cruisers out of the water) and Range-out homing radars (that
could out-range any naval radar of that era).
Thus, the fast-moving and stealthy missile boats could look deep and strike
deep. However, they had one crucial downside — designed primarily for
coastal defence, they had a short range. Nonetheless, Indian Navy acquired
eight Osa-Is, established its Missile Boats Squadron, and flew crew members
to Russia for eight-month-long raining in the freezing Siberian winter.
In early 1971, the boats were finally shipped to India. Since there were no
heavy cranes in Mumbai, the boats were offloaded in Kolkata and towed along
the coast to Mumbai.
This was the genesis of a brilliant idea in the minds of India’s naval
commanders that would go on to play a pivotal role in Operation Trident —
if these boats could be towed from Kolkata to Mumbai, couldn’t their short
range feature be overcome by towing them from Mumbai to Karachi?
An Osa-I missile boat This audacious strategy would soon come to
fruition. As dusk fell on December 3, 1971, at 5.45 PM, the Pakistan Air
Force attacked six Indian airfields. The same night, IAF Canberra aircrafts
struck Pakistani airfields as ground battles immediately commenced in
nearly every sector.
The Indo-Pak War of 1971 had begun and it was time for Indian Navy’s
“Killer Squadron” to join the battle.
On the night of December 3, a group of Osa-I missile boats — INS Nipat,
INS Nirghat and INS Veer (individually under the commands of Lt. Cdrs. BN
Kavina, IJ Sharma and OP Mehta and as a squadron under Cdr. BB Yadav) set
sail from Mumbai harbour. The next day, on December 4, two Petya class
Frigates — the INS Katchall (under Cdr. KN Zadu) and *INS Kiltan (under
Commodore. Gopal Rao*) rendezvoused with the missile boats to form the
Trident team.
Sailing westward and then northwards, the Osa-Is were successfully towed to
reach the Karachi harbour (the stronghold of the Pakistani Navy) by night.
>From there, the “wasps” proceeded in an arrowhead formation, changing
course frequently with radar inputs from INS Kiltan to avoid enemy detection
Interestingly, the ship crews communicated in Russian, making the
transmissions between the attacking vessels difficult to intercept for
enemy ears!
At 2243 hours, the Rangout radar on INS Nirghat picked up a big target —
PNS Khaiber, a destroyer of Pak Navy. This was soon followed by the
detection of two more targets, PNS Shah Jehan and merchant vessel Venus
Challenger (carrying ammunition for the Pakistani Army).
Without any delay, the missile boat squadron homed onto the targets with
devastating precision and launched their Styx missiles in quick succession.
Never realising what had hit their ships, the baffled Pakistani Navy
assumed it was aircraft fire (IAF aircrafts had been strafing Pakistan’s
Kemari oil tanks on the same day in an independent operation) and tried in
vain to engage the Styx missiles with their anti-craft guns.
In fact, PNS Khyber even transmitted a mayday signal saying it had been hit
by enemy aircraft before it broke into two and sank.
By this time, the Indian squadron had fixed their sight on the fuel storage
facilities on the shore.
Stretched to their endurance limits and virtually unprotected against air
strikes, the three small missile boats launched their final missiles
(setting the whole harbour complex on fire) before turning around and
returning full speed to Bombay.
Interestingly, while the Indian ships were retreating, the prevailing
confusion led to the Pakistan Air Force scoring a self-goal by hitting its
own frigate ship, PNS Zulfiqar (that it assumed to be an enemy boat)!
On December 7, 1971, the Killer Squadron sailed into Bombay to a heroes’
welcome — in 90 minutes, it had fired six missiles, sunk three front-line
enemy vessels and destroyed the oil storage facility at the Karachi
harbour, without a single Indian casualty.
Not content to rest on the laurels coming their way after the resounding
success of Operation Trident, the Indian Navy repeated the feat just four
days *later in Operation Python* — sinking another three ships of the
Pakistani Navy and setting the oil stores on fire for the second time.
By destroying its oil and ammunition supplies (and choking off resupply
routes), these decisive victories drastically cut down Pakistan’s ability
to continue engaging with the Indian forces. In fact, there was an
effective blockade of the Karachi port without India having really declared
one.
More importantly, it proved to be an important turning point of the 1971
war, which would eventually lead to the liberation of Bangladesh. Such
was Operation
Trident’s unprecedented success that it made the world sit up and take note
of the Indian Navy – the daring mission was part of the first item on US
President Richard Nixon’s morning brief by the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) the next day.
For their audacious planning, brilliant execution and outstanding bravery, *all
the three missile boat commanders were awarded the Vir Chakra while the man
who led the “Killer Squadron”, Commander (later Commodore BB Yadav) was
honoured with the Mahavir Chakra*. In a fitting tribute to these courageous
men who pulled off one of the great sea-faring victories in Indian naval
history, December 4 has also been celebrated as Navy Day ever since.
Commodore Gopal Rao@ G Rao was a brahmin
Commodore Gopal Rao -- man who brought Pakistan to its knees in 1971
Indo-Pak war
Ex-Commander recalls valour of attack’s mastermind Commodore Gopal Rao
CHENNAI: 50 years ago, the Indian Navy displayed its supremacy on the South
Asia Seas (SAS) region with razing of Karachi Port and henceforth December
4 is celebrated as Navy Day to commemorate Operation Trident, which was
launched by the Indian Navy during the 1971 war.
Masterminded by Madurai-born Commodore Kasargod Patnashetti Gopal Rao, who
is also an alumnus of Presidency College Chennai, India turned the tide and
left the Indian Air Force who flew over Karachi Port exclaiming, ‘It is on
fire already.’ {My junior batch)
Recalling the night, Commander Gurbhachan Singh said he was then serving as
petty officer in the engine room of INS Kiltan, one of the two Arnala Class
anti-submarine corvettes which was marking targets. The targets were bombed
by three missile boats – INS Veer, INS Nipat and INS Nirghat, Vidyut-class
missile boat. The entire operation was masterminded by Commodore Gopal Rao,
whose vessel which was on the East coast was moved by Admiral SM Nanda to
the West to launch the attack.
Gurbachan recalled the speech of Commodore Rao, which said*, “This is not
the time to worry about the future but to concentrate on the task at hand.
Because even if one person does not perform his duty properly, every one of
us will go down with the ship. Therefore, overcome your fear of dying and
let us destroy the enemy.”*
“We assembled at Diu Harbor in the day and sailed at night along the
Saurashtra and Kutch coasts. When we opened up towards Karachi, the first
ship which detected us was PNS Khyber, a destroyer,” recalled Gurbachan.
“Two other vessels – PNS Jehangir, another destroyer, and PNS Muhafiz, a
minesweeper – were also trailing us. We reversed and Commander Gopal Rao
ordered us to fire at Khyber. The missile struck the rear and within 30
minutes it sank, at 22.40 hours. Same was the fate of PNS Jahangir. Sinking
MV Venus Challenger, which was carrying arms and ammunition for Pakistan
from the United States was monumental. It impacted Pakistan badly as they
were fell short of arms. Then we sank PNS Muhafiz at 11.20 pm,” he recalled.
Gurbachan later became squadron engineer of Petya III-class vessels. A 1971
Naval War hero and Maha Veer Chakra (MVC) recipient, India’s second
highest military decoration, Commodore Rao who passed away on August this
year, was honoured by the then Tamil Nadu Governor during the Commemoration
of Golden Jubilee of 1971 War Victory on the Arrival of ‘Swarnim Vijay
Mashal’
His daughter Tara Rao recalls that Commodore Rao*, one of the Goud Saraswat
Brahmins, *became a native of TN in the late 19th century. Rao joined the
Indian Navy in 1950 and had rubbed shoulders with cricketer Salim Durrani
during a match played with the royal team of Jamnagar in Gujarat, recalls
Tara.(!!!)
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Operation Python
India Indian Navy
Freighter Gulf Star sunk
MV SS Harmatttan sunk
Karachi harbour damaged
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
Operation Python, a follow-up to Operation Trident, was a code name of a
naval attack launched on West Pakistan's port city of Karachi by the Indian
Navy during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. After the first attack during
Operation Trident on Karachi port, Pakistan stepped up aerial surveillance
of its coast and the presence of large Indian Navy ships gave the
impression that another attack was being planned. Pakistan warships
attempted to outsmart the Indian Navy by mingling with merchant shipping.
To counter these moves, Operation Python was launched on the night on 8/9
December 1971.
Karachi housed the headquarters of the Pakistani Navy and almost the entire
fleet was based at Karachi Harbour. Karachi was also the hub of Pakistan's
maritime trade, meaning that a blockade would be disastrous for Pakistan’s
economy. The defence of Karachi harbour was therefore paramount to the
Pakistani High Command and it was heavily defended against any airstrikes
or naval strikes. Karachi received some of the best defences Pakistan had
to offer as well as cover from strike aircraft based at two airfields in
the area. The Indian fleet lay 250 miles from Karachi during the day,
outside the range of Pakistani aircraft, and most of these aircraft did not
possess night-bombing capability. The Pakistani Navy had launched submarine
operations to gather intelligence on Indian naval efforts. Even so, with
multiple intels provided by the submarines, the Navy had failed to divert
the naval attacks, due to misleading intelligence and communications.
Operation Trident was an enormous success with no damage to any of the
ships of the Indian Naval Task Group which returned safely. The success of
this operation prompted another successful attack on the Pakistani coast,
named Operation Python.
The Pakistani Navy had continued its submarine operations in the region,
even after the first missile attack. On 6 December, naval intelligence
learned the second major formation was moving close to Karachi, in an intel
passed regularly by her submarines deployed in the region. To counter this
threat, Chief of Naval Staff Vice-Admiral Muzaffar Hassan met with Chief of
Air Staff Air Marshal Abdul Rahim Khan in which an airstrike group was
formed. Following Operation Python on the evening of 8 December at about
1800 hrs. The Chief of Air Staff of PAF was contacted by direct telephone
and asked for the strike from the air. The Chief of Naval Staff of Pakistan
Navy also had a word with him to emphasise the urgency.
On the night of 8 December 1971, in rough seas, a small strike group
consisting of missile boat INS Vinash and two multipurpose frigates, INS
Talwar and INS Trishul, approached Karachi. INS Vinash fired four SS-N-2B
Styx missiles. The first missile struck the fuel tanks at the Keamari Oil
Farm. Another missile hit and sank a Panamian fuel tanker the SS Gulf Star.
The third and fourth missiles hit the Pakistani Navy fleet tanker PNS Dacca
and the British ship SS Harmattan. The Tanker PNS Dacca was damaged beyond
repair while the Merchant Vessel SS Harmattan sank. One Pakistani ship was
captured off the Makran coast
*Between Operations Trident and Python, and the Indian Air Force attacks on
Karachi's fuel and ammunition depots, more than 50 percent of the total
fuel requirement of the Karachi zone was reported to have been blown up*.
The result was a crippling economic blow to Pakistan. The damage was
estimated at worth $3 billion, with most of the oil reserves and
ammunition, warehouses and workshops had been destroyed and PAF was also
hit.
Python was another successful operation by the Indian Navy. The Pakistani
fuel reserves for the sector were destroyed and the flames could be seen
even from miles away. India had established complete control over the oil
route from the Persian Gulf to Pakistani ports. Shipping traffic to and
from Karachi, Pakistan's only major port at that time, ceased. The
Pakistani Navy's main ships were either destroyed or forced to remain in
port. A partial naval blockade was imposed by the Indian Navy on the port
of Karachi.
The rescue efforts were immediately coordinated by Rear-Admiral Patrick
Julian Simpson (later 3-star Vice-Admiral) who kept morale high among the
officers. For this, he conferred with Sitara-e-Jurat. Apart from the
obsolescence of its weapons, the lack of adequate air support inhibited the
success of its operations. The Pakistan Navy's has surface force's human
and economic casualties. Due to heavy funding for the Pakistani Army's
weapons and production, the neglect of the Navy over several decades came
through clearly in the 1971 war.
--------------------------------------------------
IV A general like none other: Krishnaswami Sunderji
He was the army commander who planned Operation Bluestar.
As army chief he planned Operation Brass-tacks which rattled the Pakistan
army.
General K Sunderji was brilliant, ambitious and controversial
Secure the Siachen Glacier!
Born: April 30, 1928
Deputy Chief of Army Staff: 1981-82
General officer commanding-in-chief, Western Command: 1983-86
Vice chief of army staff: 1985-86
Army chief: 1986-88
Married (one son, one daughter)
Died: New Delhi, February 8, 1999
Krishnaswami Sunderji was India's most brilliant, ambitious and
controversial chief of army staff who, during a little over two years in
office, committed the army to a disastrous peace-keeping campaign in Sri
Lanka and, on at least two occasions, brought India close to war with
Pakistan and China.
Known as the 'thinking general', the whisky-sipping Sundarji also raised
the mechanised infantry regiment and was responsible for reorganising the
army's functioning and laborious equipment procurement policies.
But Sundarji was vilified for committing the expeditionary Indian Peace
Keeping Force, the IPKF, to Sri Lanka to disarm Tamil Tiger rebels fighting
for independence following a bilateral treaty between the two neighbours in
1987.
Armed with little or no intelligence regarding the rebels, the Indian Army
walked into a virtual trap laid by the highly committed Tigers in the north
and east of the island.
It took the IPKF over two years to extricate itself from Sri Lanka having
failed in its mission, but only after suffering an unusually high casualty
rate and covering itself with ignominy.
The irrepressible Sundarji also launched Operation Brasstacks, India's
largest-ever military exercise in the late 1980s, in northern and western
India, seriously raising tensions with Pakistan who feared an attack under
the guise of peacetime manoeuvres.
Brasstacks was aimed at cutting the southern Pakistani province of Sindh in
two, to make it easy for India to thrust into Pakistan's heartland of
Punjab.
Sundarji also planned a covert, albeit cynical, winter offensive against
Pakistan occupied Kashmir in which he was willing to take an exceptionally
high casualty rate in snowbound, inhospitable terrain at heights of over
14,000 feet to resolve the Kashmir dispute over which the nuclear-capable
neighbours have fought two of their three wars since Independence in 1947.
*He achieved the near impossible task of ferrying tanks to a height of
nearly 13,000 feet for the bold operation but, at the last minute, was
ordered to call it off by the perspicacious Rajiv Gandhi.*
Fighting also escalated during Sundarji's tenure as army chief along
the 20,000-feet-high
Siachen glacier, the world's highest battle ground, claimed by both India
and Pakistan, where hundreds of soldiers have died since the early 1980s in
cross-border firing and from exposure to temperatures that average 30
degrees Celsius below freezing.
Nearly two Indian soldiers die every day on Siachen as the posts they
occupy are higher and colder than those held by Pakistan.
The confrontation over Siachen is a financial burden for both sides,
totalling around $2m a day.
India's outlay, however, is higher as everything is flown in by helicopter.
According to official estimates, one chapatti (unleavened bread), staple
food for soldiers, costs over 12 rupees or 80 times its normal cost.
Sundarji also raised the ante with China -- with whom India fought a
disastrous war in 1962 over a territorial dispute that remains unresolved
-- during two exercises, Operation Checker Board and the follow-on
Operation Falcon, along the eastern front in the late 1980s.
He strongly advocated India becoming a nuclear weapon State, frequently
detailing in newspapers and at seminars the exact number of missiles it
would need to build an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to deal with
Pakistan and China.
In 1984, as head of the Western Command, Sundarji planned Operation
Bluestar to flush out armed Sikh separatists hiding in the Golden Temple in
Amritsar.
The disastrously executed operation in which over 500 people including
around 80 soldiers and scores of women and children died, ended after 72
hours of fierce fighting when tanks were finally employed.
Operation Woderose, the mop-up exercise that followed to apprehend
terrorists across Punjab state, alienated the entire Sikh population.
It led eventually to the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi
by her two Sikh bodyguards in October 1984 followed by the anti-Sikh pogrom
in Delhi and other north Indian cities in which over 5,000 people -- mainly
Sikhs -- were murdered {Here my friend Lt col led across the firing windows
of the Amritsar Golden temple, with whizzing bullets and then climbed up
and captured the belligerents with a lot of arms and ammunitions, in one
day. Lt Col Venkatraman Iyer C V Both of got the orders to join Pallavaraam
OTS; my mother cried and blocked me; of course, my headlines were different
in civil services}
He was a major player in the import of 410 howitzers from Sweden in the
mid-1980s in which kickbacks of over $200m were allegedly paid to Indian
officials and politicians.
*Born into a high-caste Brahmin family in 1928, Sundarji graduated from
Madras Christian College and joined the British-Indian army in 1945, two
years before Independence.*
He was commissioned into the prestigious *Mahar infantry* regiment a year
later and posted to the NWFP (now in Pakistan) to quell restive Pathan
tribesmen forever at war with the colonial administration.
Thereafter he was posted to the disputed, northern Kashmir state of which
Pakistan forcibly occupied a third in 1947 before it was halted by the
Indian Army.
He attended the Defence Services Staff College at Wellington in 1959 and
after a series of command and staff postings was part of the United Nations
armed contingent to the Congo in the early sixties.
As chief of staff of the Katanga command combating rebels, he was mentioned
in dispatches for gallantry.
On returning home in 1963, Sundarji took command of an infantry battalion
and participated in the second war with Pakistan in 1965, again over
Kashmir.
A tenure as instructor at the staff college, Wellington, was followed by
the US army command and general staff course at Fort Leavenworth.
He graduated from the National Defence College in Delhi in 1971 and was
posted as brigadier, General Staff, of a corps involved in the 1971
operations against the Pakistani army in East Pakistan that broke away to
become Bangladesh.
*In 1976 Sundarji became the first infantry officer to command an armoured
division.*
During his three-year tenure, he realised his ambition of raising the
desperately needed mechanised infantry regiment and was a forceful member
of the committee reorganising the army before being promoted to lieutenant
general and becoming deputy chief of army staff.
After two years as general officer commanding-in-chief Western Command
during which he planned Operation Bluestar, Sundarji became vice-chief of
army staff, then chief in 1986.
*Till he retired 26 months later he did more than any army chief before or
after.*
Criticised by many for his naked ambition and aggression, Sunderji’s simple
answer *was 'I have to aim for the moon.'******
*After retirement he completed his master's in defence studies at Madras
University and remained in the limelight by admitting that he had been
pressurised to opt for the Swedish howitzer by the government.*
*In his 1993 book, Blind Men Of Hindoostan* -- Indo-Pak Nuclear War, he
wrote a *fictional account of a nuclear war between the two neighbours that
came chillingly close to reality.*
An engaging and charming conversationalist, Krishnaswami Sundarji was a
keen gardener and a wild-life *enthusiast who lived under 'Z'*, the highest
category of security, surrounded by army commandos for his involvement in
Operation Bluestar and in Sri Lanka. {Last Word: *****Obituaries Of 100
Indians by Rahul Bedi, with the kind permission of the publishers, Roli
Books.} K RAJARAM IRS 29524 30524
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