1965 – A Western Sunrise -Indias War with Pakistan byShiv Kunal Verma Reviewed by Major Agha H Amin(Retired)1965 -A Western Sunrise -Indias War with Pakistan by Shiv Kunal VermaReviewed by Major Agha H Amin (Retired)• September 2021• DOI:• 10.13140/RG.2.2.21404.00645• Project:• MILITARY HISTORY• AghaHAminThis is a very interesting new addition to books on 1965 war.The writer gives very interesting background details to eachrelevant person or subject , which did not interest this scribeas a military reviewer.The authors assertion on page-43 that 6 Infantry brigade wasan independent brigade is not correct as this brigade was apart of 8 Division.On page.99 the writers assertion that 19 Baluch (SpecialServices Group or SSG) was formed with 7/10 Baluch asnucleus is TOTALLY INCORRECT . 7/10 wasrenumbered 15 Baluch while 17/10 Baluch was laterrenumbered 19 Baluch or the SSG.On page.106 and 107 the authors undue praise of thenBrigadier Harbaksh Singh is highly disputable as per bothPakistani and Indian accounts.Pakistani official history published in 1970 thus stated thaton reaching Tithwal which was defended by a weak infantrycompany Brigadier Harbaksh Singh ordered a two day haltand thus lost a golden chance to change history and possiblythreaten Muzaffarabad. In these two days Pakistan Armyreinforced Tithwal with a brigade.Colonel Achutan Singh of Indian Army in a recent articlepublished in Indian Defence Review analysed in detailHarbaksh Singhs incompetent siting of Indian defences ofthey Chunj position as a result of which Indian Army lostthey key Chunj ridge and was pushed on defensive atTithwal and driven out of Pir Sahaba Ridge.The authors assertion on page. 123 that Brigadier Masterswas spotted by an aircraft and artillery fire ordered isdisputable. The Pakistani accounts stated that his O groupwas spotted by a fighting patrol of 1 Punjab and the 4 CorpsArtillery Brigade carried out a massive brigade level artilleryconcentration.This was no ordinary affairs as Brigadier Masters liquidationby artillery fire was carried out by 60 Pakistani artillery gunscommanded by Pakistan Army’s best gunner Brigadier AmjadAli Chaudhry.The authors assertions on page.126 about 16/10 Baluch inwhich later general Bakshi was commissioned are inaccurateand fallacious. This battalion was never allotted to Pakistanand was disbanded in March 1946 .The authors claims on page.127 about Indian 163 Brigadeadvancing towards Muzaffarabad are totally misinformed ,false and exaggerated.He states that“The brigade was poised to advance towards Muzaffarabadwhich was a mere 30 km away, when operations were haltedby Army HQ following the United Nations resolution.”First – Tithwal is not 30 km from Muzaffarabad but 30 mileswhich comes to about 50 km .The road hardly existed in1948 and was a very difficult jeepable track.Second- On 31sth December 1948 when ceasefire wasabout to take place the area had snow and advance wasvery difficult.Third- Indian Army had no plan to advance from Tithwal asis clearly proven by Indian official accounts in December1948.Fourth – Indian Army lost an excellent opportunity toadvance from Tithwal to Muzaffarabad on 23rd May 1948because of Brigadier Harbaksh Singh’s fatal blunder ofordering two days halt.Fifth- Starting from May 1948 Indian Army and PakistanArmy had nearly equal strength at Tithwal , hence it wasimpossible to advance for both sides.The advice to military historians of both India and Pakistanis not to make such wild assertions.On Page.152 , the author makes a totally ludicrous and falseclaim that the main gun range of Indian AMX 13 tank was500 Yards.One of the most reputed books in the world states thefollowing about AMX 13s armament:--“The gun adopted for the AMX13 Mle 51 was the Canon de75 S.A. Mle 50 (usually shortened to Cn 75 Mle 50 or CN75-50). This French design employing a shortened version ofthe barrel of the wartime German 75mm KwK 42 L-70 gunwith a new chamber and breech. The weapon had a muzzlevelocity of 1000 m/s, an effective range of 1100 metres andcould penetrate 175mm of armour at 1000m. It could firearmour piercing and high explosive rounds. This weaponwas perfected at the Atelier de Bourges under the directionof Ingénieur Général Maurice Carougeau. Over 2600 of theCN 75-50 guns were manufactured by the late 1950s. Thecoaxial armament was the venerable 7.5mm MAC31machine gun fed with 150 round drums, a reliable weapon ofprewar vintage. The CN 75-50 gun was also designed to fitthe M4 Sherman turret with minimum modification. Thisoption was undertaken for Israeli orders in 1954–1955.”11 Page-42- THE AMX 13 LIGHT TANK RARE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM WARTIME ARCHIVES M PROBINSON, PETER LAU AND GUY GIBEAU-Pen and Sword Publishers -London -England-2018.Even Indian armoured corps historian admitted that AMX 13tanks in Chamb could engage Pakistan Army Patton tanks atbattle ranges.What the author missed in Chamb was Pakistan Army wasdumbly led as far as 12 Division’s armour was concerned . Adumb armour plan was thrust on my regiment 11 Cavalrywhose armour was divided in two parts rather thanconcentrated as a punch !This dumb employment of 11 Cavalry (FF) by headquarters12 Division led to heavy losses and 11 Cavalry lost 19including a major .Admitted that Indian armour was massively outnumberednumerically and overwhelmingly inferior technically , butwhat rescued Indian Army was not Major Bhaksar Roy, asmistakenly thought but Pakistani dumbness , in badlyemploying armour on the first day of the battle of Chamb !THE BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION IS WHERE WAS BHAKSARROYS MARVELLOUS TACTICAL SKILLS WHEN 11 CAVALRYSMAJOR RAJA IQBAL REACHED CHAMB ABOUT 0830 HOURSON 1ST SEPTEMBER 1965 MORNING !Ironically there was no second day of battle for MajorGeneral Akhtar Hussain Malik who was removed from thecommand of Operation Grand Slam .The harsh part of Operation Grand Slam was that MajorGeneral Akhtar Hussain Malik could have crossed the TawiRiver on the first day of battle and imposed a MASSIVEDISLOCATION on Indians ! But he failed because of bademployment of armour .Even the Pakistani official historian Major General ShaukatRiza noted that “The Indians had only covering troops on theborder outposts” . However here petty personal rivalry andjealously overwhelmed Shaukat Riza who was intenselyprofessional jealous of his brother artillery officer BrigadierAmjad Ali Khan Chaudhry !So Shaukat blamed poor artillery fire plan for failure ofoperation Grand Slam on 1st September 1965 , instead ofmost incompetent and inept handling of tanks byheadquarters 12 Division. Thus Shaukat stated “thedistribution of our artillery fire enabled them to delay ourcrossing of Munawar Tawi on 1st September 1965”.2Also it was politically inconvenient to critique AkhtarHussain Malik regarding as an icon . So Shaukat found anexcellently convenient scape goat in Brigadier Amjad AliChaudhry.2 Page-123-THE PAKISTAN ARMY- WAR -1965- Army Education Press-General Headquarters-Rawalpindi1984.Later Lieutenant General Mahmood unjustly scapegoatedBrigadier Azmat Hayat Malik for failure of Grand Slam on 2ndSeptember 1965 whereas the greatest failure of OperationGrand Slam ,not being able to cross Tawi had alreadyoccurred on 1st September 1965.11 Cavalry (FF) regimental historian , Colonel Sardar YahyaEffendi whose history titled Punjab Cavalry is full of majorfactual and analytical mistakes , instead of having theintellectual honesty of analysing HQ 12 Divisions failures inhandling armour , instead snidely blamed Lieutenant ColonelAziz for 1st Septembers failures , because he was an outsiderand had joined 11 Cavalry on posting from 19 Lancers !Effendi’s snide remarks include stating that Mian Raza Shahwas sent on his death ride and that Lieutenant Colonel Azizwas a suspicious man.His books caliber can be gauged from the fact that hefallaciously claimed that 11 Cavalry fought WW 2 with onlyPunjabi Muslim and Sikh squadron whereas a thirdHindustani Muslim/Ranghar Squadron was raised in 1942 toreplace a Dogra Squadron given to Central India Horse toreplace Sikh squadron that had rebelled at Bombay.My father recollected Risaldar Shabbir father of MajorKanwar Javed Shabbir from our village in Lyallpur since 1898specially visiting his father at Delhi , where he was anassistant secretary in Ministry of Defence , to pursue theraising of Ranghar/Hindustani squadron about 1941-42.Effendi also inserted a painting of an alleged Punjabi muslimof 1st Punjab Cavalry whereas 1st Punjab Cavalry never hadPunjabi Muslims as per all records and army lists etc from itsraising in 1849 till merger with 3rd Punjab Cavalry (which hada single Punjabi Muslim troop).Effendi failed to admit that a lieutenant colonel commandinga tank regiment in the slavish Indo Pak armies , in an infantrydivision was heavily wet nursed by his divisional commanderand infantry brigade commanders and had little say inplanning .Headquarters 12 Division officers had no clue aboutemployment of armour and in the shoddy Pakistan Armystyle , two tank regiments were placed under command ofthis division who had the vaguest idea of what to do withthem in actual war !Thus 11 Cavalry suffered higher fatal casualties in percentageas compared to all infantry units of 12 Division in OperationGrand Slam.The author conveniently ignores massive Pakistani higherlevel incompetence like commander 102 Brigade Zafar AliKhan who wasted whole day in attacking Burjeal despite thefact that he was told to bypass it.The author also ignores the fact that field of fire wasextremely limited in Chamb and this helped AMX 13 who hadsix main gun rounds in a two magazines each which couldbe fired in seconds. Further M 36 B 2 tank destroyer thatBhaksar encountered was a massively inferior tank.All this still does not justify Pakistani higher commandinterference.Brigadier Z.A Khan in his book distributed by Pakistan Armyto all officers about 1998-99 states that General Musa Khanordered change of commands as he did not find conditionssatisfactory when he visited 12 Divisions tacticalheadquarters on 2nd September 1965.3ZA Khan described low caliber of tank regiment commanderson page.160 of his book that both 13 Lancers CO LieutenantColonel Sher and Major Saeed Azhar failed to report that theywere just 4 kilometres from Akhnur .4The writer makes unacceptable chronological mistakes likehe incorrectly that Pakistani 1st Armoured Division offensivestarted on 9th September on page.304 whereas it started on8th September morning.5The writer blames the GOC of Pakistan’s 1st ArmouredDivision . However I interviewed the leading tank squadroncommander then major Sami who presented an entirelydifferent picture as below :---63 Page-159- THE WAY IT WAS – Brigadier Z.A Khan – Dynavis Publishers -Karachi -1998.4 Page-160-Ibid.5 Pages-230 and 231- Shaukat Riza-Op cit.6 Podcast interview by the author with Lt Col Samiuddin Ahmad leading tank squadron commander of 24 Cavalry in1965 war-- 1st Armoured Division Leading Armoured Regiments Leading Squadron Commanderdescribes Battles of Assal Uttar-Part 1" by Military history . ⚓ <a href="https://anchor.fm/omnibusdubitandum/episodes/1st-Armoured-Division-Leading-Armoured-Regiments-Leading-SquadronCommander-describes-Battles-of-Assal-Uttar-Part-1-e3itg4" rel="noreferrer nofollow">anchor.fm/omnibusdubitandum/episodes/1st-Armoured-Divisio...</a>• As per Sami his commanding officer 24 CavalryLieutenant Colonel Ali Imam collapsed before the actualoperations started during the orders group . Saminarrated that off and on he regained consciousness butwas not operationally fit. Later on after the war a storywas invented that he was shell shocked during actualoperations.• Sami described 6 Lancers as demoralized while withinPakistani territory when their Squadron CommanderMajor Utra was drowned in canal once his tankoverturned and fell inside the canal.This was at a timewhen the war had not started.• Sami described commanding officer of engineerbattalion Lt Col Altaf and GSO 2 Intelligence Feroz Alamas adviser of Major General Nasir as main advisors of theGOC , and off course knew nothing about employmentof tanks.• Sami narrated that the whole idea of dividing one tankregiment EACH on two highly divergent axis wasunsound and this plan was prepared by Sahibzada YaqubAli Khan .• Sami also noted that Sahibzada Yaqub did not have themoral courage to insist that he be sent to 1st ArmouredDivision where Sahibzada’s armour attack plan wasbeing executed.• Sami described Indian infantry having fled on 8thSeptember 1965 but regained resolution on 9thSeptember as there was only one tank squadron of Samiattacking on first day of the attack on 8th September1965.• Brigadier Z.A Khan who I interviewed in 2002 describedthat 90 % of Pakistan’s 1st Armoured Divisionscommanders including GOC , brigade commanders andtank regiment commanders were in state ofcollapse/nervous breakdown.However our author has not consulted these views althoughI interviewed ZA Khan in 2002 and his interview was widelyavailable on the web. Sami I interviewed in early 2019 and hisinterview was also available on the web.The book is very interesting for the layman reader but somuch has already been written about 1965 war that anotherbook , unless based on radical and extensive research andreinterpretation does not add much to the story.The fact remains that :--• Both armies were total failure in attack . A difficult formof war. If Pakistani armoured division failed at AssalUttar , Indian armoured division was total failure atChawinda.• Indians and Pakistanis , the entire sub continent couldnot win a single major battle against the British EastIndia Company barring Chillianwallah which was also adraw.• The power of defence had massively increased since1945 and breakthrough in Punjab with limited fields offire, boggy terrain and above all mediocre indo pakcommanders was not possible.• In all four major cases , Chamb , Lahore , Khem Karan andChawinda both Indian and Pakistan Army were totalfailures in attack .The writer did not send me a book with maps so I am unableto comment on his maps.The writer who is not known to me asked me to review thebook . I took the pain of reading the book and want tocommend him for writing a good book .But the million dollar question remains how to rationalize orwhitewash , Indo Pak mediocrity ?Thus my conclusion on Indo Pak armies as reached below inAugust 1999:--CONCLUSION.The Pakistan Army in 1965 hadthe potential keeping in view itsequipment, particularly tanks andartillery,vis a vis the state of IndianArmour and Artillery to inflict adecisive defeat on India.Poor Military leadership at thehigher level in the final reckoningstands out as the principal cause offailure of the Pakistan Army toinflict a decisive military defeat onIndia.Ayub Khan was directlyresponsible for the leadershipfailure of the PakistanArmy.Conversely it was superiorequipment and in particular tanksand artillery apart from the BRB inthe Ravi-Sutlej Corridor whichenabled Pakistan to contain theIndians despite their considerablenumerical superiority in infantry.Valour , Morale, Motivationplayed a part,but we mustremember that valour alone did notsave the Poles from being overrunby the Russians and Germansrepeatedly during the period fromlate 18th Century till 1939!Valour did not save the Serbiansfrom being over run by theGerman-Austrian¬Bulgarian forcein WW One.The tragedy of thePakistan Army was that it failed toachieve even 50 % of what it wascapable of achieving and onlybecause of Qualitative reasons.The definite edge over equipmentwas lost after 1965 and in 1971Pakistan was saved largely becauseof the fact that Indian superiorityin infantry coupled with superiorequipment was divided betweenthe Eastern and WesternFronts.The year 1965 was crucial andProvidence gave an opportunity toPakistan to achieve somethingmilitarily.The Seeds of defeat were sowedlong before partition and the sealof mediocrity was laid once theAyub-Musa duo headed the armyduring the period 1951-1965!The Indian Army was handicappedbecause of an indifferent politicalleadership.Racially both the armieswere largely similar and only foolscan think that one was inherentlybraver than the other!Long ago Hobbes had rightly said;"Nature hath made men so equal,inthe faculties of the body andmind;as that though there be foundone man sometimes manifestlystronger in body or quicker ofmind than another; yet when all isreckoned together,the differencebetween man is not soconsiderable,as that one man canthereupon claim to himself anybenefit to which another may notpretend as well as he " . 126The Pakistanis failed to do as wellas they potentially could in 1965,keeping in view the on groundtangible realities,because in termsof intangible qualities ,by virtue ofa common historicalexperience;they were asqualitatively mediocre as theIndians!My service in Pakistan Army from1981 to 1994,and an intense studyof Sub Continental Militaryhistory, has reinforced thisconviction that I first developed asa student of Forman ChristianCollege Lahore during the period1977-1978!The rest is Fiction!END NOTES126 Page-140-Great Traditions inEthics-An IntroductionEthel.M.Albert,Thedore.C.Deniseand Sheldon.P.PeterfreundAmerican Book Company-SanFrancisco-1975.