India China Conflict 1962: Recollections of Chief Signal Officer

Dear Lakshman

I am grateful to you for letting me go through the Signals Story. It is an excellent personal account by a Brigade Signals Officer, who performed his duties unfailingly, under extreme difficulties of inhospitable terrain and weather conditions, shortages of equipment or high altitude clothing.

You have penned so tellingly the entire gamut of emotions as the leader of your men and, one separated from one's family often without news or contact for long intervals. Your intrinsic qualities of leadership and the personal example you set throughout those difficult days, was a major factor for survival of your men, considering that the paralysed higher headquarters could give no succour of any kind, and in fact failed you, and 7 Bde completely.

When placed in similar circumstances we (in the Services) all feel the things you have felt and penned so aptly, but seldom written down. At least I have not come across any. For me reading your story has been a unique and a rewarding experience.

It also fulfils the crying need for educating our country's babudom (politico-bureaucratic) mindset, which believes (mistakenly of course) that those who don the uniform have chosen voluntarily, to suffer (uncalled for) hardship and to die. I once came across such an attitude, and had to remind the 'babu' in no uncertain terms that we are there to see that the enemy suffers and dies and thus ensure continued safety of the likes of him– we accept only the attendant risks. The risks that can be reduced by loosening of purse strings at the appropriate time.

It is also my (1962) experience that often good signal communications, for some, was an unmitigated nuisance since the user commander could be asked for a decision or such like. So he was 'always gone forward' without the rover set. I once even asked one such commander as to where was his Rover WAS. He replied he did not need one.

Those days I personally (from Tezpur) closed down the VHF (ANT/ARC) link at Sela, as everyone of any consequence had vanished. The same happened at Darrang (4 Div HQ) and Bomdilla (48 Bde HQ). Sodhi (who had taken KK's place) contacted me to know what he should do now that Anant Pathania and his GSO1 Manohar were nowhere to be seen. I authorised him to make his own way as best as practical. Lakhanpal, the 48 Bde Signals Officer, contacted me and presented a similar situation and I had to authorise the 'pull-out' and a move back by certain 'bounds'. He was intercepted by the Chinese at the second bound and was obliged to hide till nightfall in a nearby stream. A week later he turned up looking famished and under-weight, but in good heart.

At the Henderson Brook's Committee later on, of course Signals were the favourite whipping boy. I however had taken good care, to provide convincing proof to the contrary in every case. Even our DD Sigs (Chakerburty) had turned up at Tezpur 'to know what went wrong'. I directed him to the BGS, who directed him back to me, saying 'nothing went wrong, and, to remember PS gave us signal comns while we were retreating'. A mere officer in Signals like him, as against a Signals Officer, cannot be expected to comprehend such subtleties.

My wife, Harbans, also has liked your book. We expect to be in Delhi for two weeks from about 20 Feb and would love to meet you. Shall let you know actual dates and contact you on arrival.

Brigadier PS GILL (Retd)
January 30th, 2002

Signal Communications India- China conflict 1962: CSO IV Corps

HQ Eastern Command Lucknow
After my meeting with Lt Gen EG Pettengell at Dehradun I reckon that Kaul having taken charge of the affairs and with direct access to the Defence Minister had absolved the Eastern Command of all responsibility. Things were normal at Lucknow in so far as Signals were concerned, General Pettengell would have definitely recalled had there been any anxiety or incident regarding message traffic between 7 Brigade and New Delhi.

Army HQ New Delhi
Lt Col CUK Nair was the Commanding Officer of the Signal Regiment at Army HQ, the last link in the Signals chain that started from Dhola, at the Tri Junction in NEFA, a chain formed by Runners from Dhola to Ziminthung, carrying the Top Secret, Exclusive For, hand written messages from Kaul to the Nehru or Menon as the case may be, to be enciphered for transmission to Tezpur by Morse code on the wireless link. I did have the privilege of having a look at one of these messages, but it was of no interest to me at that time nor do I recollect any thing of it now, I only had a cursory look at it and it hardly registered, I had my own problems to sort out rather than worry about higher conduct of war and national policies and priorities to bother about. At Tezpur the messages were re-enciphered in machine cipher for transmission to Army HQ on the direct link established from 4 Corps. As soon the operator at the Cipher Office at Army HQ Signal Centre at New Delhi decoded to the words 'Exclusive For' he would stop and handover further deciphering to the Duty Cipher officer. On deciphering the Signal Officer on duty would personally carry and deliver the message to the addressee, the PM or the DM as the case maybe. Day or night, the messages were marked FLASH, the highest priority for clearance, even then it took three days for the first message to reach Delhi. On delivery the CO would be informed who possibly may have also informed the Director Signals Maj Gen Batra the next day of the receipt and successful delivery of the message. Col Nair, unfortunately developed bleeding ulcers and had to be rushed to the Military Hospital due to an allergic reaction to Aspirin the "on" medicine in maximum demand by officers those days.

Brig Lakshman Singh, VSM (Retd)

We Thank Brig Lakshman Singh for giving us all the episodes on India China Conflict which are really extracts from his book and also sharing his personal and gripping experiences with us. Our Politicians Dilemma as of today:
Left faction of India’s Communists (Karat supporting UPA) had been repeating what Mao Zedhong said to Ajoy Ghosh: “That Tibet, Sikkim, Bhutan, and NEFA are provinces peopled by the same race, that China had a historic right to these territories, that the McMahon line was not valid, and that the Indian government’s raising of 'the bogey of Chinese aggression' had resulted from its realisation that Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and India would be deeply affected by the social and economic revolution in Tibet”.

India China Conflict 1962. The Big Picture Perceived by Signal Officer

IV Corps Signals at TEZPUR
As Sparrow of 7 Brigade I had no idea as to what was happening at the twice- removed Corps HQ in so far as Signals were concerned. Even later I could find nothing that could help me complete the big picture of Signals during Op Leghorn. However, I was lucky in that, during one of my visits to USI (United Services Institute) at New Delhi, Col VK Singh provided me with the address and Telephone No of Brig PS Gill the then CSO 4 Corps at Pune from his records. Brig Gill has been more than kind to provide material from his personal papers, which could not have been found anywhere else.

Biji Kaul's DHOLA- NAMKA CHU adventure of 1962 as told by Brig PS Gill the then CSO IV Corps.

Forward Policy
The genesis lay in Biji Kaul's forward policy (AR posts, assisted by regular army officers such as Mahabir, were to be Tactically sited right up to the MacMohan Line to remain there throughout the year), and the notion that 'possession is nine- tenth of the law.' Of course Nehru was taken in by his 'novel' approach. Additionally Biji had convinced himself that his destiny was heading for really great things. (Retirement of Chaudhary, next in line to be the Chief, had been announced). Of course he had not bothered himself about the severe restrictions imposed by terrain, extremes of weather condition nor distances from rail/ road head, nor even the inaccuracies in the available maps.

IB assessment parallels recent CIA assessment of Iraq
In September/ October 1962, barring Thapar, Sen and Kaul, everyone was certain that an ill- equipped unready 7 Brigade (seven days from the road head) was being assigned an untenable role. Assurances by Mullick of the IB were taken as the Gospel truth- Chinese will never attack.

Misadventure not heeded
Umrao's reasoned pleadings against any such venture were not heeded– to this effect he had put his signatures to two really telling appreciations of the situation for Eastern command and the AHQ. Also a clash of personalities (Sen/ Umrao) surfaced. Sen went about assuring anyone willing to listen that Umrao was the sole obstacle i.e. but for him Dhola could be secured/ cleared easily. Sitting in Lucknow, how he came to this conclusion remains a mystery.

Birth of IV Corps
Result: Biji's Kaul's IV Corps was born at midnight of 3rd Oct 62. I was awakened and summoned to Kaul's residence around 1 AM that night to be told by him personally, I had been selected to be his CSO. Lack of seniority, the basis of moving me from Shillong in May to Sigs Dte as DD Tels (the very job I had held as GSO1 Tels from 1953 to 1957) was given the go-by. Some 10 hours later (4th October) I accompanied him to Tezpur, in a Viscount of the Presidential flight. En-route, quite naturally, I quizzed him regarding the role, area of responsibility of IV Corps and the troops allocation. He had no satisfactory answer but kept on repeating ap nahin samjhen –ge. I was left with the impression that he was going to Tezpur more to instil some urgency into the Dhola affair/ action.

Hastily formed team
I had never worked with Kaul. I was picked because I had known the NEFA region as CSO XXXIII Corps, since handed over to MBK Nair. Kaul left for LUMPU on 05 Oct. I was to organize and set up the new Corps HQ. Kaul had asked me to send the BGS and the CE to join him 'at the front' on arrival. My good friend "Bhaiya" Rajwade who had been CE XXXIII Corps along with me and was shunted to the CME, also for lack of seniority, was brought in on 6th October as the CE. KK Singh of the Armoured Corps another good friend joined on the seventh as BGS. Both were sent on to join Kaul.

Kaul's Political clout paid dividends
I soon realised what a clout Kaul wielded. DG P&T Nanjappa of the ICS, would call me twice a day to ascertain what he could do for IV Corps and so also other worthies at Army HQ. In no time there were direct telephone and tele-printer lines connecting Tezpur to Delhi. Nanjappa also gave me (on attachment) a P&T Dept LO – IK Gupta, a very capable and efficient officer. As for SDS Indian Airlines instituted a daily Viscount flight Delhi-Tezpur-Delhi – a sort of daily Air Courier. Delhi planners in their keenness to fulfil Kaul's bidding failed to instruct the Courier aircraft to make a stop at Lucknow – ie Eastcom HQ which nominally was controlling IV Corps. I put this right in time.

Porter based supply chain
In the fortnight prior to the Chinese attack of Twentieth October there was very little that IV Corps could do for 7 Bde. I visited Zimithang (TAC HQ 4 Div) and met Ram Singh who despite the various odds had the situation under control. I was certainly appalled by the difficult terrain conditions and the extremely precarious porter- based supply line forward to Namka Chu. Recovery of air dropped supplies was as low as 30 per cent- most of it falling into deep ravines. Two seater Bell Helicopter, which could carry very little, was the only efficient means of getting around.

We lost Ram Singh a very fine officer. He had been our Adjutant in 1950 in 26(2AB) DIV SIGS at Jammu while I was the 2IC and KK was OC 1 Coy.

Brig Lakshman Singh, VSM (Retd)

The "Traditional China" includes all of South East Asia! Thus, the lessons and implications of the 1962 China- India Border War could be relevant to us for decades or for centuries to come.....

For serious study visit: The China- India Border War (1962) in depth