Part IV: Across Borders
The Battles of Attrition
With the rigour of Newtonian physics, every action in Indo-Pakistan civil and military relations has an equal and opposite reaction.1Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 219.
– SHUJA NAWAZ
THE DESERT AND EASTERN FRONTS
There can be no better name for these two fronts than the ‘reluctant fronts’ as both India and Pakistan had their hands full in the J&K and Punjab sectors. Beyond mere posturing, both countries did not have the resources and numbers to derive benefit from any sustained military action on these fronts. During the early decades after Independence, the Sind province of Pakistan and India’s border areas of Gujarat and Rajasthan comprised mainly of underdeveloped desert and semi-desert terrain that was fit only for armour and mechanized warfare. With most of the armour facing off in Punjab, both armies were left with little to manoeuvre and India’s limited offensive in Rajasthan was more a response to Pakistan’s Kutch foray rather than a serious ‘third front’.
The action in the desert revolved around the road and railway line that ran from Barmer in Rajasthan to the town of Hyderabad in Sind. While the Indian Army’s 11 Infantry Division was commanded by Major General N.C. Rawlley of Walong fame, Pakistan’s 8 Division was responsible for defences in the area. Both divisions had limited armour (approximately two squadrons each), which resulted in the limited ability of forces to move only on prepared roads and tracks. While Indian forces made some advance beyond Gadra Road village towards Sakarbu in Pakistani territory, the Pakistanis almost overran an Indian post at Munna Bao, attempting to capture it till the end and hold on to it as bargaining territory after the ceasefire. While the PAF was very active with their Sabres and Canberras, using them effectively to blunt the Indian advance, the IAF had no resources worth the name in Jodhpur to provide close air support, and had to rely on Canberra bombers from Jamnagar to carry out interdiction missions. The advance of 11 Division advance was limited to a few miles into Pak territory – no sizable gains worth highlighting were made by either side.2For a detailed chapter on the limited operations in Rajasthan/Sind sector called Operation Barrel by India, see S.N. Prasad (chief editor) and U.P. Thapliyal (general editor), The India-Pakistan War of 1965: A History (Dehradun and Delhi: Natraj Publishers, 2011), p. 223–38.
The two main opposing airbases in the southern sector were Jamnagar in Gujarat and Mauripur near Karachi in Sind. Jodhpur on the Indian side was a large training base and the IAF did not consider it necessary to locate any strike or air defence aircraft there since it was not anticipated that any large-scale ground offensive would be planned in the area. While Jamnagar had a large force of Canberra bombers and Vampires, Mauripur airbase (now PAF base Masroor) had a squadron of Canberra bombers and a squadron of Sabres. Both were used extensively in countering India’s offensive in Gadra Road; particularly impactful here too were strafing missions by the Sabres. To put things in the correct perspective, strafing missions demand close coordination between a forward air controller on the ground and the pilot. This is possible only if there is compatible communication between the two and a clear understanding of issues like FLOT, aircraft performance, presence of enemy air defence guns, etc. As in other sectors, this was the qualitative difference between PAF and the IAF when it came to carrying out close air support. In retrospect, the IAF could have relocated some fighter assets from the east to Jodhpur and added some teeth to Rawlley’s operations?
A tragic incident involving the shooting down of an eight-seater Beechcraft twin-engine executive jet with the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat on board by Sabres of the PAF has attracted attention in recent years; particularly in forums that are actively involved in the India–Pakistan peace process.3Shobhan Saxena, ‘War and Grief,’ The Times of India, 21 August 2011. From a military perspective, the Indian jet was shot down in Indian territory near the coastal town of Dwarka on 19 September 1965. The jet was piloted by Jehangir Engineer, a retired IAF officer and one of the four Engineer brothers of the IAF, one of whom was Aspy Engineer, who was the previous COAS. With the war raging across the western front and knowing the risks of flying without adequate radar and air defence cover, it is surprising how the sortie was undertaken at all. From a PAF perspective, the two countries were at war and having scrambled two Sabre jets from Mauripur under control of the highly effective Badin air defence GCI radar, which was later destroyed by IAF Canberras, it is only an ethical issue that remained when Flying Officer Q. A. Hussain, the Sabre pilot, was faced with a situation and an order to shoot down a civilian aircraft. He has gone on record almost forty-five years later, deeply regretting the incident.4Ibid. Such are the tragedies brought on by war!
The eastern front was more an aimless aerial battle with ill-defined military and strategic objectives. Eastern Command of the Indian Army under Lieutenant General Manekshaw was tied down with the China front and combating insurgency in Nagaland. India’s operational appreciation on opening a fourth front with Pakistan was based on two critical factors. First was the China factor that looked at a possible intervention by China should India aim to attack East Pakistan. The second factor was lack of popular Bengali support for any Indian military action in East Pakistan and no tangible gains from an advance into monsoon-affected terrain. It is not widely known that a series of aggressive but ill-directed IAF Canberra and Hunter strikes on the night of 6 September and the early hours of 7 September against PAF airfields like Chittagong, Kurmitola and other bases precipitated a ferocious response from No 14 Squadron, PAF, against Kalaikunda, Central Air Command’s pivotal base in West Bengal. Shockingly, the IAF had such poor intelligence about the location of the only Sabre squadron in East Pakistan that it attacked every base in East Pakistan except Tejgaon, the airbase outside Dacca (now Dhaka) where 14 Squadron, PAF, had a detachment of twelve Sabres.5P.V.S. Jagan Mohan and Samir Chopra, The India-Pakistan Air War of 1965 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2009), p. 178.
In the absence of any combat air patrol to oppose enemy strikes, and aircraft being parked in the open at air force station Kalaikunda, the IAF lost eight aircraft (four Canberras and four Vampires) to two Sabre strikes on 7 September. However, the IAF’s moment of glory in the east unfolded over Kalaikunda in an aerial battle the same morning as a young IAF ace with 14 Squadron of the IAF, Flight Lieutenant Alfred Cooke, in a Hunter, shot down two Sabres of 14 Squadron PAF. In an epic dogfight witnessed by hundreds of awe-struck students that pitted the two ‘fourteens’ over the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Cooke and his No. 2, Flying Officer Mamgain,weaved trails across the sky as they turned and yo-yoed with the four Sabres, getting the better of them. Two Sabres were clearly shot down by Cooke and a third probably limped back to Tezgaon with serious battle damage. Cooke would go on to immigrate to Australia in 1968 and returned to his squadron forty-seven years later to present his Vir Chakra to the squadron at an emotionally charged function at Ambala in September 2015. The air war in the east meandered for another two weeks without any major successes on either side. What it did provide was some battle inoculation for both air forces!
NAVAL DILEMMA
What of the Indian and Pakistan navies? After the initial fanfare with which both navies equipped themselves in the 1950s with refurbished British cruisers, destroyers and frigates, much to the delight of the languishing British economy, the focus shifted away from the maritime domain as India grappled with a triumphant China and a militarily resurgent Pakistan. The acquisition of eight new frigates6The frigates were the INS Brahmaputra, Beas, Betwa, Khukri, Kuthar, Kripan, Talwar and Trishul. and an aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant (earlier the HMS Hercules), along with its complement of Sea Hawks and Alizes, by India between 1958 and 1961 spurred Pakistan to acquire a suitable deterrent in the form of the first submarine in the subcontinent, the PNS Ghazi. A Tench Class diesel submarine in service with the US Navy since 1944, it was inducted with much fanfare in 1963. Armed with twenty-eight torpedoes, it was a significant deterrent against the much larger Indian Navy during the conflict.7Air Marshal Asghar Khan (retd), The First Round Indo-Pakistan War 1965 (Ghaziabad: Vikas Publishing House, 1975), p. 33. At the strategic level, both the Indian and Pakistani navies grappled with the stepmotherly treatment meted out by the land-centric and army-dominated military leadership of the two countries. Both Field Marshal Ayub Khan and General J.N. Chaudhuri did not factor in their respective navies in any battle plans that were discussed before the 1965 war. Ayub Khan in particular was rather disdainful of the navy and condescending about the PAF, an issue much discussed by Air Marshal Asghar Khan in his interesting little book.8Ibid., p. 4.
Though much larger in size and packing a greater punch as compared to the Pakistan Navy, much of the Indian Navy’s numerical advantage was offset by a large number of ships that were under refit during the time. Adding to India’s woes was the fact that its ‘game changer’, the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, too was undergoing a refit. This put paid to any prospects of exercising sea control in the Arabian Sea and threatening the key Pakistani port of Karachi. Having to defend a coastline of over 5,500 km and contend with a possible threat to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands from Indonesia, a close ally of Pakistan at the time,9Admiral S.N. Kohli, We Dared: Maritime Operations in the 1971 Indo-Pak War (New Delhi: Lancer, 1989), p. 1–3. (This is from the Prologue highlighting the frustration of the Indian Navy at not being able to participate effectively in the 1965 war). Vice Admiral Samson, India’s chief of naval staff, had no clear directives from the Government of India regarding the employment of the navy besides that it was to ‘defend territorial waters and the island territories of India and not venture beyond a distance of 200 miles from Bombay and north of Porbandar along the west coast of India’. It is believed that when he met the defence minister and the prime minister, they categorically told him that they did not envisage an offensive role for the Indian Navy despite his asserting that even without the aircraft carrier, the Indian Navy had the wherewithal to blockade Karachi.10From a presentation delivered by Vice Admiral Anup Singh on the role of the Indian Navy in the 1965 war held at Vivekananda Foundation on 11 September 2015. The Pakistan Navy too had no clarity from Ayub Khan, and much of the initiative exercised by the Pakistan Navy can be attributed to their fleet commander.
As the two navies waited for orders to engage in battle, a look at how they matched up would be in order. With the INS Vikrant out of the fray and being almost evenly matched as far as cruisers and destroyers were concerned, India’s main advantage lay in the punch and firepower of its frigates. Pakistan, on the other hand, had a major game changer in the form of Ghazi.11Ibid. As events in Kutch unfolded, the Indian fleet under Rear Admiral Samson was given orders after much coaxing to sail for the Kathiawar coast. However, it was apparent that as the war progressed, both India and Pakistan had no stomach for a full-fledged naval battle. While the Sea Hawks and Alizes were moved around between Jamnagar and Bombay,12S.N. Prasad (chief editor) and U.P. Thapliyal (general editor), The India-Pakistan War of 1965: A History (Dehradun and Delhi: Natraj Publishers, 2011), p. 278–79. the Indian fleet was mainly involved in minesweeping and frigate action to keep PNS Ghazi away.
The Pakistan Navy, however, did launch an ineffective attack on the Indian port of Dwarka13Ibid., p. 275. Also see Air Marshal Asghar Khan (retd), The First Round Indo-Pakistan War 1965 (Ghaziabad: Vikas Publishing House, 1975), p. 34. on 7 September with its cruiser PNS Babar, five destroyers and a frigate14Vice Admiral Mihir Roy, War in the Indian Ocean (New Delhi: Lancer Publishers, 1995), p. 84–85. disguised as merchant ships. Even though the Indian Navy frigate, INS Talwar, which was on station at Okha, a few miles south of Dwarka, was alerted of a possible attack after intercepting heavy communication traffic between the Pakistan Navy ships, it did not give battle because of instructions which prevented it from heading north towards Dwarka. According to Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Admiral Ahsan was responsible for the capture of hundreds of Indian fishing boats around the Chittagong coast of East Pakistan.15Air Marshal Asghar Khan (retd), The First Round Indo-Pakistan War 1965 (Ghaziabad: Vikas Publishing House, 1975), p. 33. However, these claims are highly dubious and not backed by much documented evidence even in newspaper reports of the time. Towards the end of the war, Indian Navy frigates are said to have engaged PNS Ghazi and may have damaged it.16S.N. Prasad (chief editor) and U.P. Thapliyal (general editor), The India-Pakistan War of 1965: A History (Dehradun and Delhi: Natraj Publishers, 2011), p. 278. No confirmation is available from Pakistan to this claim. As a contrary claim, the Pakistan Navy claimed that the submarine fired torpedoes at an Indian frigate, INS Brahmaputra and sank it. These claims were rubbished by India soon after the war when foreign naval attaches were invited on board the INS Brahmaputra in Bombay.17Vice Admiral G.M. Hiranandani, Transition to Triumph: Indian Navy 1965–1975 (New Delhi: Lancer Publishers, 2000), p. 39–40. In a rather emotional pitch, Admiral S.N. Kohli in his book We Dared wrote about the frustration of the Indian Navy having to fight with one hand tied behind its back.18Admiral S.N. Kohli, We Dared: Maritime Operations in the 1971 Indo-Pak War (New Delhi: Lancer, 1989), p. 1–2. He goes on to add:
The Pakistani naval raid left the officers and the men of the Indian Navy infuriated and somewhat humiliated. I vowed to myself that if ever there was another round involving naval forces and if I was in any kind of position of responsibility, I would go to the farthest extremes to teach the enemy a lesson.19Ibid.
PEACE AT A COST
Strategic Revival
With the failure of Operation Gibraltar, Ayub Khan realized early in the war that his war objectives were not going to be met. He very astutely despatched Bhutto and Air Marshal Asghar Khan to make a dash to China and some Islamic countries like Indonesia and Turkey to ascertain the extent of help that would be forthcoming in case of a crunch. India, on the other hand, concentrated on fighting the war, led by their deceptively resolute prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, and a gutsy defence minister, Y.B. Chavan. India did not engage in much diplomacy during the early days of the war except in managing pressure from the UN Security Council, which was urging it to declare a unilateral ceasefire from as early as 11 September onwards. U Thant, the Secretary General of the UN, visited both Pakistan and India soon after they went to war and acted as a key interlocutor, cajoling both warring nations to finally declare a much anticipated ceasefire on 23 September.
Both nations agreed to pull back by 26 February 1966 to positions on ground prior to that which were held as on 5 August 1965. While India had captured approximately 700 sq. km of Pak territory in the Sialkot and central Lahore sector, apart from the Haji Pir Pass and key heights in the Kishenganga bulge of the Tithwal sector, Pakistan had managed to seize around 400 sq. km of Indian territory, primarily in the area south-east of Lahore, around Khem Karan and in the Chhamb area. Despite being given the flexibility by the defence minister to extend operations for a few more days, Chaudhuri, India’s COAS, endorsed the decision to accept the ceasefire as he felt that the stalemate on the ground did not support the possibilities of making any major gains.20R.D. Pradhan, Debacle to Revival: Y.B. Chavan as Defence Minister, 1962–65 (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999), p. 283–88. Also see Air Vice Marshal A.K. Tiwary, Indian Air Force in Wars (New Delhi: Lancer, 2012), p. 109. The argument that the Pakistan Army was desperately short of ammunition and had stocks that would last only for a few days21Gohar Ayub Khan, ‘The Kashmiris didn’t back Pakistan in 1965,’ The Tribune, 3 June 2005, at
Over the years, many Indian military analysts and commentators have felt that the Indian government squandered an excellent opportunity in 1965 to hold on to Haji Pir Pass and the Tithwal heights. They argue that India should have only agreed to a ceasefire if the pre-August 1965 positions only related to those areas across the international border that were in opposing hands. Since Haji Pir Pass and the Tithwal heights were in territory claimed by India (POK), these should not have been part of the ceasefire negotiations, they argue. The Indian negotiators, I suspect, would have considered this option, but dropped it as it would have been a non-starter from the word go and would have jeopardized any chances of a ceasefire. Having deployed the bulk of its forces in the sectors where a stalemate existed, India may not have been able to sustain a renewed offensive in Kashmir. Unfortunately, the focus had shifted to the plains because of the obsession of both countries with Punjab!
At the end of it all, the armour from both sides started withdrawing on 24 September after both countries had suffered heavily during the conflict.23Key features of the ceasefire agreement are available in R.D. Pradhan, Debacle to Revival: Y.B. Chavan as Defence Minister, 1962–65 (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999), p. 255–57. The formal ceasefire agreement known as the Tashkent Agreement was signed on 10 January 1966 by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and President Ayub Khan. Sadly, Prime Minister Shastri passed away in Tashkent on 11 January 1966 after a massive heart attack and did not live to see the implementation of the agreement.
SOME GROUND COVERED – LESSONS LEARNT
One of the significant takeaways from the 1965 conflict is the change in the manner in which military analysts looked at the India–Pakistan military balance with respect to the calibre of military leadership and fighting abilities of the two countries. Chastened after they received a bloody nose in J&K and the Lahore and Sialkot sectors, and surprised by the stiff resistance offered by India in Chhamb and the fightback by the IAF’s fighter and bomber pilots after a reactive initial response, Pakistan’s strategic establishment no longer looked down on India’s military. As Stephen Cohen again puts it very interestingly: ‘There is a more realistic assessment of India as a military foe; no longer do Pakistani officers boast that one Muslim is worth five or ten Hindus.’24Ibid.
Strategic Lessons
At the strategic level, India emerged from the conflict as a responsible and restrained power which had brushed aside transgressions in Kutch, and resorted to military force only in the face of serious provocations in Kashmir. Its political leadership under Lal Bahadur Shastri, with Y.B. Chavan at the helm of the defence ministry, was stable and not given to any flights of fancy with regard to India’s actual preparedness and ability to take the war into Pakistan. However, to be objective, it is clear that the Indian government was excessively cautious during the early days of the war and procrastinated on many decisions, including the use of the air force and navy, by still subscribing to the rather diffident Nehruvian policy of ‘minimum use of force to further state policy’.
Just look at the military situation that panned out in the Rann of Kutch in the early summer of 1965. In a tremendously risky military operation, Ayub Khan decided to test India’s willingness to go to war by sending in almost a division worth of infantry supported by more than a regiment of tanks without any air support in terrain that had no natural cover at all. Notwithstanding their obsolescence, the Indian Air Force station at Jamnagar had Vampire jet trainers based there with decent ground attack capability – they could fire guns, rockets and bombs with deadly accuracy. With the Rann well within their radius of action, air strikes on Pakistani Patton tanks were well within the realm of possibility and legitimacy. All that was required was for the IAF to position a forward air controller amidst one of the defended localities from where he could direct fire. The IAF could also have called upon Canberra bombers from Pune or Hunters and Mysteres from elsewhere to move to Jamnagar and carry out strikes on Pakistani positions. All that was required was an understanding that Pakistan’s intrusion was an act of war and that air power could be used as an effective tool of deterrence! Instead, India chose to bank on the good offices of Harold Wilson, the British prime minister, to broker a ceasefire and allowed Ayub Khan to validate his operational concepts and prepare for the ensuing confrontation in Kashmir and Chhamb. If India had responded fiercely with air power also thrown in, Ayub might have thought twice before launching Operation Gibraltar and Operation Grand Slam. Military decisiveness on India’s part in Kutch may well have prevented the expansion of conflict, thereby expanding and validating its doctrine of deterrence.
Pakistan, on the other hand, emerged as a state that was willing to resort to military brinkmanship as a tool of state policy. Taken in by his wily but impatient foreign minister, Bhutto, and elements of the Pakistan Army who wanted to finish what they started in 1947,25Also see Farzana Sheikh, ‘Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: In Pursuit of an Asian Pakistan,’ in Ramachandra Guha, ed., Makers of Modern Asia (Cambridge: The Belknapp Press, 2014), p. 281. Ayub Khan underestimated India’s resolve in every domain – be it diplomatic, political or military. Ayub’s biggest mistake, however, was his inability to orchestrate the insurrection in Kashmir. Bhutto also misled Ayub into believing that Marshal Chen Yi, the Chinese defence minister, had assured him of China’s intervention in the conflict should Pakistan be pushed into a corner militarily by India. In reality, Chen Yi had given no such assurance and beyond some sabre rattling in Sikkim towards the third week of September, China had no intention of getting embroiled in a conflict where it would directly be seen as an aggressor.
Operational Takeaways
Operation Gibraltar was a disaster as far as Pakistan was concerned. It was not backed by adequate intelligence regarding the extent of popular support for the rebellion, and turned out to be a damp squib despite the ambitious plan and multiple thrust lines. Comfortable in the mountains of Kashmir, where he had cut his teeth as a battalion and brigade commander, Harbaksh Singh was in his element orchestrating the tough battles at Kargil, Haji Pir Pass and Tithwal as the commander of Western Army Command. Had Chhamb been better protected, he could have driven home the advantage further in these areas. It was, however, not to be as his attention was diverted to the other sectors of Chhamb, Lahore and Sialkot. In one of the most objective books written on the history of the Pakistan Army, Crossed Swords, Shuja Nawaz argues that middle-level Indian commanders had supposedly anticipated Pakistan’s Chhamb offensive to the smallest details as early as 1956 and even developed scenarios for deployment of Pakistani armour in the Infantry School at Mhow. However, the Indian Army’s senior leadership was not interested!26Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 209–10. The conduct of these battles at the operational level do not make for very happy reading on both sides; the fog of war took its toll on divisional and corps commanders and very few brilliant operational moves were made. To be fair to the generals, the terrain in Punjab and near- parity in forces left little room for imaginative generalship. While caution may have been a bonus at the political level, it proved to be the undoing at Chawinda for the Indians and at Khem Karan for the Pakistanis.
When the IAF rushed into action over Chhamb on the evening of 1 September, the chief of air staff, while agreeing without hesitation to go to the army’s support, pointed out that in attacks launched without adequate preparation, losses must be accepted and that pilots may make mistakes between friend and foe.27R.D. Pradhan, Debacle to Revival: Y.B. Chavan as Defence Minister, 1962–65 (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999), p. 258. There was visible lack of synergy between the army and air force notwithstanding assertions from senior air force leadership that ‘the IAF was more or less ready for ground support and waiting for a signal the whole day’.28Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal, My Years with the IAF (New Delhi: Lancer, 1986), p. 127. In actuality, IAF squadrons may have been armed and ready to go into battle, provided they had some kind of situational awareness, which it was the army’s job to provide them with. This was completely absent, and beyond knowing that there was a battle raging in Chhamb, the station commander at air force station Pathankot had no idea of the disposition and movement of enemy forces, and issues like FLOT and the extent of PAF activity in the region. Even if the brigade commander was busy in the tactical battle, why couldn’t the divisional commander or the corps commander coordinate air support through the existing mechanisms?
There also seemed to be a lack of understanding within India’s strategic establishment that air power could have been used as an offensive tool to complement the XI Corps offensive in the Lahore sector in the early- morning hours of 6 September. By attacking the airfields from where the PAF could get its fighters airborne to support the defensive operations in Lahore, the IAF may well have facilitated 15 Division’s advance towards Lahore. Instead, the IAF held back inexplicably, only to be hit in strength by the PAF that evening.
In an offensive battle, however, particularly in the plains, the most effective way of employing air power is not only to continuously remain in contact battle, but to ensure that the defender is not able to build his force ratios to sustain his defensive operations. This is done by interdicting his follow-on forces and reserves, and is possible only if a joint appreciation has been done prior to the battle. Since General Musa had not shared his plans with Air Vice Marshal Nur Khan, who had strangely replaced Asghar Khan as the chief of air staff barely months before the war, the PAF had no plans for interdicting any forces that India was bringing in to reinforce the Chhamb brigade. It thus lost a golden opportunity to deplete the Indian Army’s combat potential and revealed deep cracks in army–air force synergy. The IAF, on the other hand, ventured relatively deep into enemy territory with its Mysteres and Hunters on ‘search and strike’ interdiction missions against railway sidings, trains and armoured concentrations, albeit with limited success, given the complete absence of intelligence. Punching a hole in the myth that the PAF outperformed the IAF in the execution of close air support missions, one of the major reasons for the inability of the Pakistan Army to drive home the advantage in Chhamb – apart from the tough response from Harbaksh Singh – was poor army–air force coordination. It was a poor understanding on the part of Ayub and Musa about the effectiveness of air power that allowed India to recoil. Had Ayub allowed the PAF the freedom to conduct interdiction and airfield strike missions along with the army offensive, India would have been completely surprised. Instead, by deploying the PAF only over the tactical battle area and in air defence roles, the IAF gained vital time to relocate its forces at forward bases in the few days before the PAF commenced its counter-campaign in air on 6 September.
Though Pakistan moved its armour from one sector to another with relative freedom throughout the war, a few decisive strikes by Hunters, Mysteres and Canberras in the Khem Karan sector showed that though the IAF did not have sufficient intelligence to interdict these movements, when they did get an opportunity to do so, they struck decisively. A few well-directed strikes severely impeded the combat potential of 1 Armoured Division of Pakistan as it moved from Kasur in the Lahore sector to the Sialkot sector between 11 and 13 September. The much hyped Patton tanks and Sabre jets performed suboptimally and it was as early as 18 September 1965 that Romesh Thapar, a noted Indian journalist and commentator, wrote about it as well as the battle resilience of the two armies in the Economic and Political Weekly:
The experts claim that the Pakistan Army is either over-mechanised (muscle-bound!) or it doesn’t know how best to exploit its undoubted advantage in armour and the fire-power superiority provided by its self-propelled guns. Much the same kind of theorising can be done about the failure of the Sabre jets … even in combat with the Bangalore manufactured Gnats. While the progress of the battles has pushed much of this discussion into the realm of history, the question of the ‘staying power’ of the two armies remains very relevant.29Romesh Thapar, ‘A Fight to the Finish?’ Economic and Political Weekly, 18 September 1965, available at [www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/1965\_17/38/a\_fight\_to\_the\_finish.pdf](http://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/1965_17/38/a_fight_to_the_finish.pdf) (accessed 4 July 2015).
In terms of operational focus, both air forces were trying out modern concepts of air power for the first time and the lessons learned by the USAF in Korea seem to have been passed down when the Sabres and Starfighters were inducted into the PAF. PAF counter-operations in air were initially effective against IAF bases only because of poor aircraft dispersal procedures – more than half of the IAF’s losses were on the ground. After a few initial setbacks, Air Marshal Arjan Singh, Chief of Air Staff of the IAF, remained cool and inspirational throughout the war. He was, however, handicapped and tied down by India’s reactive strategy. A positive takeaway for the IAF was the emergence of good squadron- level leadership and combat skills. Squadrons like 23 Squadron (Gnats), 1, 31 and 8 Squadrons (Mysteres) and 7, 20, 27 and 14 Squadrons (Hunters) matched the PAF with some excellent tactical innovations. The IAF’s Canberra bomber squadrons too acquitted themselves better than their PAF counterparts with their daring strikes deep inside Pakistani territory.
The IAF lost thirty-six aircraft on the ground with a further seventeen damaged; it lost seventeen aircraft in aerial combat and eleven to ground fire. The PAF lost far fewer aircraft (IAF figures indicate ten, while PAF claims no more than three) on the ground to IAF strikes. However, their losses in the air during combat and to ground fire were greater than the Indian losses at eighteen and twenty-five respectively. In sortie generation rates too, the IAF fared better than their adversaries. The IAF flew a total of 3,927 sorties as against 2015 flown by the PAF.30Air Vice Marshal A.K. Tiwary, Indian Air Force in Wars (New Delhi: Lancer, 2012), p. 127. Considering the 1:1.5 ratio in strength, the IAF fared better. In the overall context then, if one discounts the losses suffered by the IAF on the ground and factors in the higher number of sorties flown, the attrition rate suffered by the IAF was significantly lower than the PAF figure.31Attrition rate is the number of aircraft lost per 100 sorties and is arrived at by multiplying the number of aircraft lost by 100 and dividing the product by the number of sorties flown. Based on reasonably accurate statistics, Jasjit Singh, India’s foremost air power historian and strategist, puts the attrition rates for the IAF and PAF at 1.50 and 1.82 respectively. These figures are official Indian ones and have naturally been contested by analysts from Pakistan, but it is not something to lose sleep over! Among the other positives for the IAF was that it was able to operationally try out a Russian fighter aircraft (MiG-21) for the first time even though it was not able to impact operations in any way after being touted as the IAF’s much awaited counter to the PAF’s F-104 Starfighter.
Leadership
Much has been written about the lack of inter-services synergy during the build-up to the war, precipitated in no small measure by the overbearing personality of General J.N. Chaudhuri, the COAS. His frequent differences of opinion with Lieutenant General Harbaksh Singh, the commander of the Western Army Command, severely hampered decision making at critical times before and during the war and even though Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh (then air marshal and chief of air staff) has never openly criticized his much older Indian Army counterpart, his successor, Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal, is quite critical of his overbearing fellow Bengali. He writes about Chaudhuri: ‘Gen Chaudhuri looked upon the Air Force as rather young and inexperienced – fit for his avuncular interest but not to be taken too seriously.’32Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal, My Years with the IAF (New Delhi: Lancer, 1986), p. 159.
Going on to highlight the lack of joint operational planning before the 1965 war, Lal, who was the Vice Chief of Air Staff during the 1965 war, adds:33Interview with Group Captain Manna Murdheshwar (retd). The eighty-three-year-old veteran of the 1965 war recounts that Lal was almost in tears when he addressed officers in the Base Operations Room during a visit to Pathankot in the first week of the war.
Chaudhuri later said that the Chad Bet incursion in Kutch had given him a clear indication of Pak’s intention in Kashmir. If so, he did little to alert the other two service chiefs about the danger ahead. He only discussed the issue with the Prime Minister and Defence Minister. Sometime later the Air Chief was informed through informal meetings from which the Naval Chief was excluded. To ensure this, the general applied the ‘need to know’ yardstick so thoroughly that the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the joint intelligence and planning staff were completely bypassed. He ignored the basic concepts of higher defence organisation and displayed what may be called the ‘Supremo Syndrome’.
To be fair to Chaudhuri, however, the fog of war, overall national strategy of restraint and lack of adequate actionable intelligence severely hampered his naturally flamboyant style of leadership, and it is only fair to give him adequate credit for reviving the Indian Army’s elan and reputation after the debacle of 1962.
His Pakistani counterpart, General Mohammed Musa, was shackled by the duo of Ayub Khan and Bhutto and did not inspire much; nor did most of his corps commanders. The army–air force synergy was only marginally better in Pakistan with Air Marshals Asghar Khan and Nur Khan being kept out of the decision-making loop till the last moment. Though Air Marshal Nur Khan was an able deputy to Asghar Khan for years, it is perplexing that he replaced Asghar Khan as the chief of the PAF at a time when war clouds were looming on the horizon. The only reason for this change could have been power politics in Pakistan that saw the combination of Ayub Khan, Musa and Bhutto becoming increasingly apprehensive about Asghar Khan’s aggressive articulation of war-fighting strategies and criticism at being left out of the various operational planning processes that were under way for the Kutch and Kashmir operations. Asghar’s absence was sorely felt by the PAF when the IAF got its act together. In the realm of aerial strategy, the PAF was confused whether its primary aim was to take the air battle into enemy territory and destroy the IAF’s combat potential with a series of swift and surgical strikes on IAF bases, or whether it was to defend Pakistan’s skies and prevent the IAF from denting the Pakistan Army’s combat capability. As it turned out, after an initial spell of intense offensive action, the PAF chose the latter option and went into what the IAF has called since as ‘combat preservation mode’.
Brilliant and tough as he was, Harbaksh Singh managed to orchestrate the anti-infiltration campaign in J&K, direct the defensive battle in Chhamb, and inspire the revival of 4 Mountain Division at Assal Uttar. He was the aggressive face of the Indian Army! Of Harbaksh’s operational commanders, Major General Gurbaksh Singh, divisional commander of 4 Mountain Division, stood tall as one of the few field commanders who managed to stay cool under battle stress and counter-attack during the battle of Assal Uttar. There were too many ifs during the war for any military historian to take home any lasting lessons. If the Indian Army had defended Chhamb in greater strength and called for air support in the morning, would they have been able to beat back the initial Pak offensive? Had the IAF been allowed to adopt a more proactive operational strategy and had there been greater inter-service synergy, would India then have taken the initiative and launched their twin assaults in Lahore and Sialkot a few days earlier and achieved better surprise? Was Lahore a city too far and what would have happened if its main thrust was only in the Sialkot sector? Would Pakistan then have gone in for an offensive in Khem Karan or switched its 1 Armoured Division to Sialkot to support 6 Armoured Division.
At unit, regimental and squadron level both the Indians and the Pakistanis fought equally well! Desmond Hayde leading 3 Jat and Tarapore leading the Poona Horse were as good and inspirational as Nissar Ahmad Khan of 25 Cavalry. Rafique, Haider and Alam in their Sabres were matched by Keelor, Patney, Ghandhi, Rathore, Gautam and Cooke in their Gnats, Mysteres, Canberras and Hunters. India and Pakistan had fought the first major war after WW II involving skirmishes, bruising mountain battles, intense air battles and pitched infantry and tank battles with near parity in military capability.
The only major operational question asked of the Indian Navy despite the restrictions imposed by the government would be why a routine maintenance34Admiral S.N. Kohli, We Dared: Maritime Operations in the 1971 Indo-Pak War (New Delhi: Lancer, 1989), p. 2. of INS Vikrant could not have been postponed considering the simmering tension, thereby ensuring that the Navy’s punch remained intact. Notwithstanding the indignation expressed by the Indian Navy’s senior leadership of the time at being shackled so, Vice Admiral Pasricha was candid enough to admit that the navy was hardly in ‘ship shape’ and would have been hard-pressed to either enforce a blockade of Karachi or carry out a coordinated attack on it.35Interview with Vice Admiral Pasricha. When one adds the neglect of the navy during the post-1962 years, it is only natural that the service feels sore about the war even today.
Though Ramachandra Guha succinctly says: ‘In truth, the war must be considered a draw,’36Ramachandra Guha, India after Gandhi (London: Pan Macmillan, 2007), p. 399. the overall result has to be seen in the context of how military victories are benchmarked in modern warfare. Victory through annihilation of the enemy was restricted to the Middle Ages and ended after the two great wars of the twentieth century, WW I and WW II. Since then, the genre of conventional conflict has mainly seen limited wars in which results are analysed after considering the protagonists’ strategic objectives. Looking at the result from that prism, despite a few tactical losses for the Indian Army and the IAF, India took the honours at the operational and strategic levels as none of Pakistan’s initial objectives were met – its frustration would show in the years ahead! After years of propounding the myth of victory, fifty years after the conflict, even Pakistani historians like Akbar S. Zaidi and others admit that the existing discourse in Pakistan has been distorted.37‘We lost terribly in 1965 war, says Pak historian,’ The Times of India, New Delhi, 6 September 2015, p. 13. Though many in the Indian Army believe that its ethos of Naam, Namak aur Nishan owes its origin to the legacy of a colonial past, there are others who assert that a fresh, secular and multicultural ethos emerged after the 1947–48 and 1965 conflicts with Pakistan. Geoffrey Blainey’s wisdom on why wars begin and end hold true for the India–Pakistan war of 1965. In a pithy two-liner he captures the essence of the strategic mindset of the two countries:
‘Wars usually end when the fighting nations agree on their relative strength, and wars usually begin when fighting nations disagree on their relative strength.’38Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: The Free Press, 1988), p. 122.
[The Liberation of Bangladesh, 1971](part0002.html#IN_Part4-3)