It is worth noting that there were only four Hunter aircraft at Jaisalmer, and of them just two were serviceable. The station was reinforced only after 7 December. The HF-24s and Gnats operating from Uttarlai with limited endurance could not create a favourable air situation to enable sizable movements in 11 Infantry Division sector by day. At one stage, when the leading troops had outstripped their maintenance backing and clamoured for food and water to be airdropped, this could not be done because of aerial interference.
Pilots faced other difficulties in the featureless desert, where targets and bomb lines could not be picked up at high speeds. Ground forward controllers could not see beyond the next sand dune. Slow-moving, fixed-wing aircraft acted as airborne controllers. As war demands increased, experience showed that close interdiction paid greater dividends than strike on points in contact where recognizing a target in a short period of endurance was very limited.
Bewoor failed to ensure in joint planning that a favourable air situation prevailed over his operations. This appears to have been a great lapse, for otherwise it is inexplicable that 12 Infantry Division should have only four aircraft on 5 December to support the impending offensive
Bewoor failed to ensure in joint planning that a favourable air situation prevailed over his operations. This appears to have been a great lapse, for otherwise it is inexplicable that 12 Infantry Division should have only four aircraft on 5 December to support the impending offensive and 11 Infantry Division should operate against heavy interference. Pooling air resources, as in the case of ground forces, could have created the necessary superiority to achieve a favourable air situation. To eradicate the shortcomings in close air support, experience indicated the following remedial action:
- Airborne forward air controllers operating from helicopters or slow-moving, fixed-wing aircraft are needed. These have long been used by foreign armies.
- Bomb lines in a featureless desert are not recognizable and need to be indicated as a matter of routine. The ground controller can and should indicate them by simple transmission, and anything beyond the line of flight is the enemy.
- The vast desert tract can be subdivided for surveillance into small rearranged portions with a code number. In such a simple transmission a pilot would look for movement only in that particular area.
- The mere fact that we did not know of the thrust towards Longenwala till it actually made contact shows that our tactical air reconnaissance is faulty. Reconnaissance should cover the entire front and not particular areas as happened in this case. And instead of fixed frequency at dawn and dusk it should be carried out throughout the day, covering predetermined sectors in a staggered periodicity so as to cover the entire area in one day. The enemy could evade detection from fixed dawn and dusk reconnaissance by freezing all movement at those timings.
“¦our territorial gains were about 12,200 square miles. This figure might be impressive as propaganda to be fed to the gullible on the home front, woefully ignorant of military affairs, but it certainly made no impact on Pakistans political negotiators for a postwar settlement.
Para-commandos were employed for various tasks directly under Headquarters Southern Command. The commando group in para role was not used because the 12 Infantry Division offensive was cancelled. The other groups, mounted on Jonga-type four-wheel-drive jeeps, were used from time to time. Initially, two groups were infiltrated to raid Chachro and Umarkot. They managed to raid Chachro at night and were diverted towards Virawah because of the reported opposition at Umarkot. They raided Virawah at night, after which they were pulled back to Jodhpur for want of subsequent tasks in command planning. As an afterthought the commandos were inducted into the Kutch sector to raid Bad in and other sensitive targets in the vicinity. But reconnaissance proved the impracticability of these tasks, and an ambush was laid later west of Islamkot with some success.
Were these raids of any tactical or strategical value? Apparently not. The troops ordered to capture Chachro encountered stiff opposition when they contacted the town 24 hours after the commando raid. It was well after 48 hours that our troops entered Virawah after a fresh fight. These raids should have been coordinated to coincide with the capture of Chachro and Virawah so that the task of capturing these objectives could be simplified. The roadblock west of Islamkot was of such a short duration that it made no impact whatever as far as interrupting the build-up in the battle zone of Umarkot-Nayachor was concerned. But for the ambush of a Pakistani vehicle and the capture of some prisoners and equipment it made no impact on the 11 Infantry Division battle. The results achieved were not commensurate with the effort involved.
Overall, the commando groups in Southern Command were under employed. Bewoor had no concept of using commandos and fumbled from task to task. In the context of a short war, the strategic and tactical tasks of commandos should have a direct bearing on waging war in the region. They should aim at short-range interdiction so as to isolate the battle zone and prevent reinforcement and destruction of war material dumps in the forward area so that the enemy’s capacity to wage war is directly weakened. Preplanning should go into the minutest details so that no time is lost in war to assess the feasibility of certain tasks as happened in this case. In fact, the commandos spent more time on moving to and fro waiting for the tasks at Jodhpur and Bhuj than in Pakistani territory on the tasks. In the end, they achieved very little.
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To sum up the achievements of the war in the Rajasthan sector, it is claimed that the Pakistanis were not permitted to occupy even an inch of Indian territory. Viewed in the light of the overall Pakistani operational plans, it would be seen that apart from their offensive in the Jaisalmer sector Pakistan had no plans to grab territory in the region. The logistic difficulties of supporting widespread encroachments across the desert belt forbade such an attempt. So, as a result of lack of effort on the part of Pakistan to defend all its share of the desert sands, it many be said that Bewoor defended our territory.
It is a pity that even after his poor performance in that war our government selected Bewoor to be the next Chief of Army Staff. His tenure of office retarded the progress of the fast-emerging military strength of India.
The second claim was that our territorial gains were about 12,200 square miles. This figure might be impressive as propaganda to be fed to the gullible on the home front, woefully ignorant of military affairs, but it certainly made no impact on Pakistan’s political negotiators for a postwar settlement. The captured area consisted of miles of waterless sands, which in terms of productivity made no dent on Pakistan’s economy and political prestige.
On the other hand, it caused much political embarrassment to India in the negotiations for the return to Pakistan of Hindu refugees who where in camps in Rajasthan and Gujarat. The area was sparsely populated by nomads, very few of whom moved into Pakistan. As such, there was no refugee pressure on Pakistan from this region as well as from Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir to come to terms with India.
The list is forbidding on the debit side. Among them was failure to trap the Pakistani offensive columns in the Longenwala sub-sector, because of the sluggish manoeuvres which let the opportunity to make the most of the Pakistani mistake slip by. The failure of Bewoor’s troops to participate in the battle already won by the Air Force by inept, frontal and painfully slow pursuit will never be forgiven by posterity, at least in the annals of military history. Failure to press the attack after contact with Nayachor defences and the hopelessly long wait at the gates of Nayachor for our administration to catch up will always be remembered for lack of imagination in planning and lack of urge to go ahead in execution.
In short, the very concept of Bewoor’s plans, his outmoded thinking, and inability to handle a fast-developing situation speak poorly of him and his commanders in the field. It is a pity that even after his poor performance in that war our government selected Bewoor to be the next Chief of Army Staff. His tenure of office retarded the progress of the fast-emerging military strength of India. It is a sad commentary on our system of promotion that officers like Bewoor are picked for posts calling for outstanding leadership. It is sadder still that such leadership perpetuates itself.
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It’s apparent that the author has limited inputs about the Laungewala battle. As a consequence his conclusions too suffer from want of facts.