John Hislop's reminiscences of the Jat Regiment- 1933 to 1947

Review for the Sandhurst Foundation
ln the summer of 1956, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck opened the R.M.A Sandhurst's Indian Army Memorial Room with its fine stained glass commemorative windows. Before a large gathering of forrner lndian Army officers, with one of whom I was staying as a guest, "the Auk" gave a message which few present will ever have forgotten, a message telling us to look back on the lndian Army with pride for its splendid achievements, but that its era was now over, history, and nostalgia would serve no purpose.

John Hislop's reminiscences, edited by his daughter Penny Kocher, follow "the Auk's" counsel excellently. After passing out from Sandhurst in 1933 Hislop served in lndia with the 9th Jat Regiment and in staff appointments until the end of British rule in 1947. His various chapters cover service in the golden years before 1939, operations on the North-West Frontier and in Burma in the Second World War, and the turmoil of the final two years before independence.

Readers will leam much interesting detail about operations in Waziristan and Baluchistan before the outbreak of war, tactics needed for protection on long marches - an officer in charge of a flanking picquet might find himself moving over thirty miles per day over mountainous ground for several consecutive days, and all the problems of food supply and water. ln 1942-43, as protection as much because of anxiety over a possible German invasion via a defeated Soviet Union as of local insurgents, the equivalent of five divisions were engaged in operations in the North-West Frontier provinces. Hislop was then moved to the even more dfficult conditions of Burma, fighting the Japanese in the unfamiliar conditions of sticky heat, only a few roads and these very poor, rain, lush jungle and leeches.

Perhaps most interesting of all, though, is the author's description of how the lndian Army actually worked; the Jat Regiment battalions, for example, were structured around two companies of Hindu Jats, one company of Punjabi Moslems and one company of Musulman Rajputs, a mix requiring not only good purely military leadership to ensure the respect of all but sensitivity for different cultures and beliefs. Hislop's long service revealed many examples of good leadership. Sadly there were also examples of bad command by others; lessons for officers in any army at any time.

A valuable addition to the history of the lndian Army, written with pride and no nostalgia.
Dr Anthony Clayton, Academic Staff RMA Sandhurst 1965-1993
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A Soldier's Story- John Hislop, Indian Army officer of The Jat Regiment
More about the life of John Hislop click here

Memoir of Lt Col John Hislop of IX Jat Regiment

Readers may be interested to know that in 1992 my father wrote an 180,000 word memoir of his time as an officer in the IX Jat Regiment from 1934-1947. He wrote it by hand in hard-to-read, tiny, backward sloping writing in 8 exercise books. A year later he was dead and I found the books tied up with string in a drawer of his desk. I could not read it at first, as it was too painful to hear his voice as I read the words he had written. But over the years I got it typed up, cut out the repetition and moved it on from the stream of anecdotal stories to a readable version, and I am hoping to get it published sometime in the summer of this year.

For someone who was not a writer he wrote a surprisingly readable account of his life as an Indian army officer. And what a life, it has been a revelation to me, as from knowing virtually nothing about these matters, I have become familiar with aspects of the pre- Independence Indian army, the war in Malaya and the fall of Singapore, fighting in Burma, and, most important of all, I have learnt a great deal about my father. I have also learnt that people nowadays have almost no understanding of the pre- Independence Indian army, especially those younger than me, and perhaps it is an age and generational thing, so the memoir now contains a number of explanations written by me about the composition of the Indian army and other aspects of India and the time.

For those of you interested in reading this memoir I can tell that he served in the following places: Landi Kotal; Shagai Fort; Ambala, Chaman; Hyderabad, Sind; Fort Sandeman; Hyderbadad, Deccan; Malaya; Jullunder; Waziristan; Burma and Delhi HQ. And you can get an idea of what the memoir might be like from a website I designed a couple of years ago www.bn9.co.uk/hislop/index.htm

When the memoir is published I shall either amend that website or design another one with details of how you can get copies of the book.
With best wishes to all readers of Report My Signal Blog.

Mrs Penny Kocher
Daughter of Lt Col John Archibald Hislop
24 Feb 2008
Memoir of Lt Col John Hislop of IX Jat Regiment