The Fateful Para-Commando Assault - 1965 War

[Zulfiqar]

How on the earth did they escape, being 60-100 miles deep in Indian territory and separated by a series of canals and rivers.

"SSG tareekh ke aaine main" has a good a story on one of the evasion and escape story.

I bought the book more than a decade ago. It was in Urdu.

Gave it as a gift to a guard who was an ex-SSG soldier.

He also had his own personal story. During the 80's he infiltrated India (upon orders from the army/MI). He was supposed to handover some documents to a pakistani spy there. The guy did not show up. The SSG soldier then took up a temp cleaning job there and waited many days there.

Finally, the other guy came. He handed over the items and exfiltrated back.

He even had some kind of employee card with him as well when he told the story to my colleague.

I did not see that card but I heard the story first hand and had seen his retirement/discharge documents from SSG.

 

[Signalian]

"SSG tareekh ke aaine main" has a good a story on one of the evasion and escape story.

I bought the book more than a decade ago. It was in Urdu.

Gave it as a gift to a guard who was an ex-SSG soldier.

He also had his own personal story. During the 80's he infiltrated India (upon orders from the army/MI). He was supposed to handover some documents to a pakistani spy there. The guy did not show up. The SSG soldier then took up a temp cleaning job there and waited many days there.

Finally, the other guy came. He handed over the items and exfiltrated back.

He even had some kind of employee card with him as well when he told the story to my colleague.

I did not see that card but I heard the story first hand and had seen his retirement/discharge documents from SSG.

These are the kind of the BEL Ops of SSG about which i have pointing out on PDF. Such happened a lot in past but now SSG has become COIN oriented. I have been told many such Ops and stories which were pure BEL, conducted 70's,80's, 90's.

Such stories included even marrying Indian women as cover, not just taking up jobs.

 

[Cuirassier]

India's gains in Sindh were far more than Pakistan's gains in Rajasthan. Gadra was main railway statiostation near border.

During 1965 war 1 in 5 JCOs were promoted to officer under emergency commision that is why in official casualty list you will find that nearly 100 officers were JCOs promtored to ECO.

Official book by Western commander Gen Harbaksh Singh showed the following casualties in JK and Punjab.
XV corps: August :1194 KIA & MIA
September: 215 KIA & MIA

I corps Sialkot: 557 KIA & MIA
XI corps: 579 KIA & MIA

In Rajasthan:
Southern command: 124 KIA.

Also almost entire Gibraltar force ended up being killed or captured
5000 figure was downplayed number given by Pakistan.
The figire of total 6917 pakistani casualties was given in PAF backed 1965 war history.

Lol mate, a covert operation doesn't involve these many men, your numbers are inflated. As all Indian claims are.
5,000 fighters were involved in Gibraltar, go take a look on the forces, and their setups. Each force was comprised of company sized forces.

Most of the forces managed to retreat back when they couldn't garner support by the locals, but the Ghaznavi Force which had swelled to 2,000 with other elements of locals and Nusrat Force, only retreated back after ceasefire.

Majority losses for India occured in the Ravi Sutlej corridor, where they employed their most forces and where Pakistani defences were very strong.

The fact is that Pakistani forces have always been of better quality at tactical level, be it 65 or 71. Thus despite size difference they have inflicted higher losses. Even in 1971 India lost more men despite total superiority in one threatre. Kargil same thing happened.

Not even neutral sources support this 6917 figure, neither does the official Indian report, which claims 5,800.

I won't budge further, but then again if you wish to continue it's upto you.

 

[Sinnerman108]

Magnificient men. Why have we not made a movie about this. This reads like a WW2 daring mission but doomed to fail. As typified by the general conduct of most Pak/India wars poor [that is saying it mildly] planning meant the mission is was going to fail from the word 'go'.

What an utter sh!t show - incredibly poor planning and management. I suggest everyone read this article. I wonder how much things have improved recently? It has been 50 years since then, so you'd hope we'd be better prepared for conflict, especially since we spent the last 15 years in a state of conflict.

Apart from this suicide mission, SSG was pretty good in 1965 unlike what most people assume. They conducted a devastating raid on Drass Cantt, in which Brigadier TM was also involved, blew up the Pashkayum Bridge, and were part of the famous Ghaznavi Force which controlled some 500km2 in Rajauri till ceasefire.

Paratrooping into dense enemy concentrations BEL was a brave thing but I guess the GHQ like many other instances was too unrealistic. Most successful paradrops have occured when friendly forces had air superiority, and linkup forces on ground. You're right in describing this as a sh!tshow.

Heliborne Air Assaults are more realistic in today's environment considering the tight surveillance systems and air defences, and the Black Storks are pretty darn good at it.

Either hand over staff college to the turks.
OR send our staffers to Tukey.

There isn't any other immediate solution.

 

[313ghazi]

Either hand over staff college to the turks.
OR send our staffers to Tukey.

There isn't any other immediate solution.

The solution is modernisation of the mentality of the armed forces, particularly the curriculum within army schools and colleges. These people need to be trained in a military specific version of project management.

There needs to be a clean break away from the colonialist methods of blind lemming like obedience and a a shift towards encouraging intellectual discourse and not weighting the validity of viewpoints on rank alone.

You are right, perhaps we need to learn from non colonised minds to break the chains.

They also need to have accountability. Soldiers were parachuted out without wire cutters and with 60 year old maps. Who was Court martialed for this? If not why not?

Mate, you dont knw what u are talking about.

What bit do you disagree with? Do you think sending out troops with 60 year old maps and without wire cutters was the right thing to do?

Or perhaps sending then in without viable extraction plans was a good idea?

The more I read about our armed forces, the more the veneer of professionalism wears thin. If your benchmark is the Pakistani politicians its not much to go by.

I didn't write the article, it's written by former members of the armed forces, quoting other members.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Either hand over staff college to the turks.
OR send our staffers to Tukey.

There isn't any other immediate solution.

Agreed. At least 2/3rds of the course should be completed in Turkey.

You are right, perhaps we need to learn from non colonised minds to break the chains.

The little bit of what we have is thanks to 'colonised minds'. The PA is direct legacy of the Raj. The problem is not Western legacy [the Turkish military is heavily influenced by German/Prussian tradition] but that some aspects of 'desi' thinking creeps into the officer training. The particular one noted is too much closed minds, not enough free thinking which comes from 'desi' mindset that officers bring from wider society.

To improve the army we need to 'westoxify' it more and purge it of 'desi' mindset. This is exactly what the Turks did. Read about the 'Young Turks' etc. The Turkish military that is probably the most potent force in Europe/Mid East region is bastion of western thinking and idolises Kemal Ataturk.

Raj

Did it ever occur to you why we got bum ripped first by Sikhs Raj and then the British when we were in clear majority in the Indus region? I mean they were all 100% desi then were they not? There was no colonial slaves like me around then? All it took was few English to enslave us. Ask them to try to do it today? They can't because we now have something that we did not before the Angrez came. The army ~ which bizzarely is product of te British Raj.

 

[Sine Nomine]

Point 5353, the dominating feature, was taken during that war and remains under our control.

Shove that point.

 

[Zulfiqar]

These are the kind of the BEL Ops of SSG about which i have pointing out on PDF. Such happened a lot in past but now SSG has become COIN oriented. I have been told many such Ops and stories which were pure BEL, conducted 70's,80's, 90's.

Such stories included even marrying Indian women as cover, not just taking up jobs.

Such BEL ops are a lot harder now due to use of technology by the enemy on the eastern side and computerization of identity documents. However, they still do happen.

SSG is not just involved in COIN nowadays.They still focus on the previous roles.

An acquaintance of mine who is now in SSG has been to KSA twice for FID/ exercises.

In one of his assignments he was also responsible for checking out the security of strategic sites somewhat similar to US red cell.

Old unconventional warfare roles and assignments are still there.

 

[313ghazi]

Agreed. At least 2/3rds of the course should be completed in Turkey.

The little bit of what we have is thanks to 'colonised minds'. The PA is direct legacy of the Raj. The problem is not Western legacy [the Turkish military is heavily influenced by German/Prussian tradition] but that some aspects of 'desi' thinking creeps into the officer training. The particular one noted is too much closed minds, not enough free thinking which comes from 'desi' mindset that officers bring from wider society.

To improve the army we need to 'westoxify' it more and purge it of 'desi' mindset. This is exactly what the Turks did. Read about the 'Young Turks' etc. The Turkish military that is probably the most potent force in Europe/Mid East region is bastion of western thinking and idolises Kemal Ataturk.

Did it ever occur to you why we got bum ripped first by Sikhs Raj and then the British when we were in clear majority in the Indus region? I am mean they were all 100% desi then were they not? There was no colonial slaves like me around then? All it took was few English to enslave us. Ask them to try to do it today? They can't because we now have something that we did not before the Angrez came. The army ~ which bizzarely is product of te British Raj.

What you call a desi mindset, I call a colonised mindset. This is not the same as a modern Western mindset and we shouldn't confuse the two.

The colonised mindset is the one where the officer class is considered the gentry and the regular troops as plebs. It was useful for occupying forces, it's a hindrance to us.

Of course this mindset perseveres because it is compatible with the desi mindset and the culture "oh Teri ke aukat?!"

Also finally I agree credit should be given where it is due. The British Army was a very efficient and professional service and those values can still be seen in our armed forces. Its not fit to pin all that is bad on them and claim all that is good to be from us.

 

[Mav3rick]

It is strange that all of you have missed the point. The point being that Kashmiris sided with India instead of siding with Pakistan and actually captured Pakistani Paratroopers to hand them over to the Indian Military/Police. We were under the impression that we would be supported in Jammu Kashmir and it was a major failure of intelligence on that account.

 

[Hamza913]

It is Pakistan who started the war by invading Kashmir.

No, that was part of the pre-war build-up, just like skirmishes that also occurred in 1965 prior to the 6th of September. The war started when India attacked the IB.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

The colonised mindset is the one where the officer class is considered the gentry and the regular troops as plebs. It was useful for occupying forces, it's a hindrance to us.

The class differantiation exists in all societies and even in communist states. However the class divide was far greater in South Asia then Europe. British history is marked by the fact that as far back as Magna Carta the plebs demanded rights.

Pakistan society and in particular South Asia is marked by having extreme social stratification with the caste system being the greatest example of 'plebs' being placed into servitude. The Dalits even today have to prostrate in front of higher born. The point being is South Asia has a history of having some the worst social, cultural, economical discrimination against groups you might call 'plebs'.

We can see that rulers in South Asia like Moghuls lived it in luxury and built palaces or wasted money on vanity like Taj Mahal but failed to do anything for those who they ruled over. In fact the fact that most of the population in South Asia lived in economioc servitude under the absolute, repressive rulers was the reason why foreigners could walk in and conquer entire continent.

So for you to think that the British brought class differantiation to a sub-continent that was seeped in millenia old caste system ignores some major realities. And if you bring Islam into it please note it's equality was merely overlaid on the desi caste system which still holds some influence in many parts of Pakistan.

No, that was part of the pre-war build-up, just like skirmishes that also occurred in 1965 prior to the 6th of September. The war started when India attacked the IB.

Seriously? Sorry but your on very slippery ground my friend.

 

[Hamza913]

Seriously? Sorry but your on very slippery ground my friend.

No, I'm not. The war started when India attacked the IB on the 6th of September. If you want to include incidents that occurred before that, then why stop at Gibraltar? What about the Rann of Kutch? Better yet, why not take it back to partition in the first place? Or better yet, let's take it back to what Raja Dahir did.

This game of including pre-war escalation can take us back to as far as any party would like to declare it goes.

 

[dexter]

It is strange that all of you have missed the point. The point being that Kashmiris sided with India instead of siding with Pakistan and actually captured Pakistani Paratroopers to hand them over to the Indian Military/Police. We were under the impression that we would be supported in Jammu Kashmir and it was a major failure of intelligence on that account.

And now their children are paying the price for this decision. They wanted the safety of their family by not supporting those mujahideens but we all know what happened later, how Kashmiris are treated in IOK and supressed by indian govt for demanding their freedom.

 

[313ghazi]

The class differantiation exists in all societies and even in communist states. However the class divide was far greater in South Asia then Europe. British history is marked by the fact that as far back as Magna Carta the plebs demanded rights.

Pakistan society and in particular South Asia is marked by having extreme social stratification with the caste system being the greatest example of 'plebs' being placed into servitude. The Dalits even today have to prostrate in front of higher born. The point being is South Asia has a history of having some the worst social, cultural, economical discrimination against groups you might call 'plebs'.

We can see that rulers in South Asia like Moghuls lived it in luxury and built palaces or wasted money on vanity like Taj Mahal but failed to do anything for those who they ruled over. In fact the fact that most of the population in South Asia lived in economioc servitude under the absolute, repressive rulers was the reason why foreigners could walk in and conquer entire continent.

So for you to think that the British brought class differantiation to a sub-continent that was seeped in millenia old caste system ignores some major realities. And if you bring Islam into it please note it's equality was merely overlaid on the desi caste system which still holds some influence in many parts of Pakistan.

Seriously? Sorry but your on very slippery ground my friend.

I'm not denying there isn't or wasn't social discrimination in our society. However you cannot deny that the British Imperial army had that difference between the officer class and the rest of the forces by design. It was intended to keep the control away from the natives who served for a salary.

The British army which has given birth to our current army in the modern era, deliberately had that setup, our stupids adopted it post independence because it suits our own social discrimination which we've had long before being colonised and will have long after being colonised.

It's almost like you're trying to deny that point altogether.