Indian Defence Review

Guerrilla Warfare in The Riverine Delta: Guerrilla warfare came into vogue during the Napoleonic wars. This type of warfare should not to be confused with the guerrilla tactics employed by regular armies in the world wars such as General Wingate’s Chindits who operated behind enemy lines in Japanese-occupied Burma. In the present context, guerrillas could be described as ‘free citizens who took up arms to liberate their country’.

Similar organizations have been in vogue in Africa, Latin America and South-East Asia with varying degrees of success a~ witnessed in Mozambique, Angola, Kenya, Uganda, Chile, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Brussels Conference of 1874 accorded such guerrilla outfits the status of regular soldiers which was again incorporated in the Hague Regulations of 1899 provided they had a commander, carried weapons overtly and put on uniforms.

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In the riverine environment of East Pakistan, the waterborne guerrilla will be referred to as ‘frogmen’ to differentiate them from the land-based Mukti Bahini force with both operating under the legendary leader Colonel M.A.G. Osmani. A bachelor who was considered as the father of the East Bengal Regiment, he likened himself to General Charles de Gaulle of France during the period of German occupation.

“¦whose only aim was to take revenge on the West Pakistan forces for killing and raping their kith and kin and literally driving out millions of their citizens from out of their homes and across the borders to “˜HINDU INDIA.

The frogmen were more akin to the Vietminh guerrillas who emphasized the need for protecting the local population by attacking, exhausting and then forcing the enemy on to the defensive. And like Giap, Nasution and Guevaro, the East Bengal guerrillas were a combination of both rural and urban proletariats whose only aim was to take revenge on the West Pakistan forces for killing and raping their kith and kin and literally driving out millions of their citizens from out of their homes and across the borders to ‘HINDU INDIA’. Hence, it will be of interest to analyse the winning tactics of the riverine guerrillas for attaining their objectives during the 1971 conflict in East Pakistan. Their saga of courage. determination and sacrifice still remains largely untold and unsung even after a quarter century.

East Bengal had historically provided the necessary ingredients to generate national uprising. As far back as 1830, Titu Mian, a Fairzini leader, led a revolt of Muslim peasantry in Bengal. Later, during the partition of Bengal, British goods were boycotted and ‘Vande Mataram’ heralded a patriotic resistance which was spearheaded by Surendra Nath Banerjee, the Editor of the English daily Bengali. He was arrested in Barisal which further fed the fires for the uprising against the partition of Bengal.

Similarly, with the arrest of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman on 25 March 1971 at Dacca the liberation of Bangladesh was set in motion with the formation of the Mukti Fauj which later became the Mukti Bahini (freedom fighters). These freedom fighters were broadly divided in four categories.

The Mukti Bahini or Mukti Fauj as earlier labelled were at the beginning badly mauled but soon changed their tactics “˜to hit and run raids as they had little capacity to capture or hold territory.

1. The Niamit Bahini comprising initially of the East Bengal Regiment, East Pakistan Rifles and civil police. They were expanded by thousands of Bengali youths joining this freedom movement. They wore uniforms and were generally led by the former Bengali Army and police officers. Initially, they sought to take on the Pakistan Army which has been expanded to four divisions and equipped with heavy weapons, artillery and tanks. These regular Pakistan forces in turn were assisted by Razakars. They were mainly local Biharis termed as Mujahids (armed with shotguns) or Ansaris (armed with lathis). The Mukti Bahini or Mukti Fauj as earlier labelled were at the beginning badly mauled but soon changed their tactics ‘to hit and run raids’ as they had little capacity to capture or hold territory. The prime targets of the freedom fighters were refineries, military dumps, vital communication centres and border posts.
2. Gona Bahini irregular forces targeted bridges, railway tracks and power houses.
3. Bicchus (scorpions) was a girls’ brigade which collected    intelligence, acted as couriers and damaged installations.
4. Mukti Bahini frogmen, who mainly operated in the riverine areas with the aim of neutralizing the main seaports of Chittagong, Chalna, Mongla and Khulna to prevent supplies being brought into the Eastern segment of Pakistan for bolstering the Army of occupation. They sought to stop the traditional exports of jute, tea, coir, etc. which earned badly needed foreign exchange for Pakistan’s military dictators. The third aim was to disrupt the inland waterway systems as also the river ports of Naryangunj, Daudkhandi, Chandpur and Barisal which were the main arteries of communication in estuarine Bengal. And lastly to prevent the West Pakistani forces from escaping by sea.

They were completely devoted to their objectives and on achieving independence were content to slip back to their everyday way of life without fuss or fanfare.

The Mukti Bahini frogmen were tough. both mentally and physically and had all the characteristics which the Vietnamese schoolmaster; General Giap had itemized as the ingredients for successful guerrilla campaign, viz. courage, endurance and aggressiveness. Above all, their burning desire for revenge overcame all obstacles as they were glad to lay down their lives for their beloved ‘Sonar Bangia’. Moreover, these frogmen had little political or post-insurrection ambitions unlike guerrilla forces of other nations. They were completely devoted to their objectives and on achieving independence were content to slip back to their everyday way of life without fuss or fanfare. These remarkable estuarine operations were but a brief interlude in their young lives.

The advent of frogmen

The task of the frogmen was to keep the Pakistan forces unbalanced by striking at vital communication and military installations. The waterborne guerrillas targeted the major seaports of Chittagong on the Kharnaphuli river and Chalna/Mongla/Khulna on the Pussur river. These ports were the main inlets for military hardware and oil particularly for the PAF units consisting of 18 Sabres, 2 C-130, 2 Foker Friendship and 8 helicopters as also for the tanks, trucks and other military vehicles.

Only four Brooke Marine patrol craft and two seaward defence vessels remained in East Pakistan. But, in addition, several river craft were fitted with small arms for patrol duties.

These initial targets were later extended to the vital inland waterway system which in turn forced the Army to deploy considerable fighting forces for extensive policing and internal security duties in ports and inland waterway system. Moreover, attacks on shipping increased war risk and insurance rates which in turn discouraged foreign shipping from bringing supplies to beleaguered East Pakistan. At this juncture, Naval Headquarters at Karachi recalled the destroyer, PNS Jehangir and the tanker Dacca thus leaving the defences of Chittagong and Chain a wide open. Only four Brooke Marine patrol craft and two seaward defence vessels remained in East Pakistan. But, in addition, several river craft were fitted with small arms for patrol duties.

The land-based freedom fighters continued with hit and run raids. The Mukti Bahini frogmen, on the other hand, planned coordinated attacks every month with the main incredible being surprise, secrecy, originality, rapidity, audacity and decep Hence, the frogmen had perforce to train for a longer before delivering heavy blows which sank or damaged 100,000 tons of shipping (a casualty figure from Lovu S Register of shipping) which no Navy had ever achieved in any ocean and in such a short period. The frogmen operated in a terrain of their own knowledge, very much like the Mekong delta in Vietnam and were likened to Mao’s metaphor of being ‘fish which must live in the sea and its water must be warm enough to facilitate its proliferation’.

The frogmen chosen for each target, generally belonged to that particular area and hence were familiar with the terrain, people and estuarine characteristics. The West Pakistan forces on the other hand were akin to stranded whale in this East Bengal environment.

They carried minimum arms and hence were able to merge in the locale near their targets until D-Day for the coordinated strikes which were dependent on tides and the phases of the moon. No sophisticated underwater breathing systems such as schnorkels or scuba-diving sets were used. Instead they utilized bamboo and papaya reeds for breathing when floating down stream just below the surface. Their apparel continued to be lungis and banians. Bengalis living abroad such as Doctors Momen and Zafrullah bought fins, wrist compasses and goggles from sports stores and had them smuggled into the country. They also set up medical outposts for the freedom fighters who only asked for more explosives to attack their targets. Local support was their sine qua non for not only obtaining intelligence but also to infiltrate into heavily guarded areas. The frogmen chosen for each target, generally belonged to that particular area and hence were familiar with the terrain, people and estuarine characteristics. The West Pakistan forces on the other hand were akin to stranded whale in this East Bengal environment.

The nucleus and habitat of frogmen

The nucleus of the riverine frogmen were initially built round the hard core of Bengali sailors who had deserted the third Pakistani Daphne class submarine Mangro which commissioned in France on 5 August 1970. They were Chief Petty Officer Rehmat, aged 35 years, a services footballer with a family of two children resident of Khulna, Petty Officer Musharaf from Faridpur with seven children residing in Dacca, and Petty Officer Amin from Com ilia with four children. Tnese intrepid sailors escaped from the submarine in France and proceeded to Spain from where they found their way to East Bengal. They were joined by able seamen Abdul from Dacca, Mechanic Mohamed from Noakhali, Radio Operator Choudhry from Chittagong, able seamen Badiul from Rangpur and Electrical Mechanic Aquib from Tangail. These eight submariners were reinforced by a dozen sailors who had been dismissed after the Agartala Conspiracy Case. In addition, three merchant seamen, who were all Hindus from Dacca, Khulna and Chittagong elected to merge with this group. Hence, these two dozen seamen formed the nucleus of the Mukti Bahini frogmen.

The few Hindus circumcised themselves as they felt they had a better chance of survival, if captured.

But the majority who joined later were young students mostly from Iqbal Hall and Jaganath Hall of Dacca University with others from Chittagong, Sylhet and Khulna. These young men had the stamina and swimming prowess to extract the maximum advantage from the fast flowing rivers of East Bengal. They were required to swim a dozen miles in complete darkness, breathing through a reed while manoeuvring neutrally buoyant limpet mines in murky waters and then swim away before the explosion, a daunting task even for a trained commando of the James Bond type. This called for men with extraordinary mental and physical endurance which fortunately the youth of East Bengal possessed in ample measure. Therefore, while initially the leadership rested on naval personnel, it was soon taken over by the highly motivated educated youth. They provided the leadership and courage as also the improvisation and ingenuity which became the cutting edge for their sledgehammer blows on the West Pakistan armed forces in East Bengal.

Chittagong provided 130 such frogmen while Chalna/Khulna region came up with 100 volunteers. 40 frogmen were recruited from Naryanganj and 30 from Chandpur and Daudkhandi. They had the raw courage and physical stamina to undertake such a task which is normally entrusted to highly trained Special Service Groups such as marine commandos or Seals as they are called in the developed navies. The majority of these volunteers were Muslims. The few Hindus circumcised themselves as they felt they had a better chance of survival, if captured. The Bengali naval officers continued under ‘mess’ or ‘house arrest’, mostly in Karachi. One Lieutenant who was on leave in East Pakistan and a Commander (E) who managed to escape in November 1971 were the only naval officers in the Mukti Bahini. Hence, the mantle of leadership fell on the young and physically tough educated youth from the delta region of East Pakistan.

Organizational structure of frogmen

The Mukti Bahini frogmen were grouped in four task forces located at Chittagong, Chalna/Khulna, Naryanganj and Daudkhandi/Chandpur. Each sector was in turn allotted four task units generally comprising personnel who hailed from that sector.

This unsung and untold saga of the Bangladesh frogmen is an incredible story and arouses both admiration and amazement for the amount of damage they inflicted on the enemy with such sparse tools in their inventory.

A task unit in turn comprised 10 task elements. And each task element had three frogmen armed with one neutrally buoyant limpet mine (later increased to two), one grenade as also a knife, swimming fins and a wrist compass. In addition, a task unit was allotted a loaded rifle. This unsung and untold saga of the Bangladesh frogmen is an incredible story and arouses both admiration and amazement for the amount of damage they inflicted on the enemy with such sparse tools in their inventory. The achievement of the Bangladesh frogmen is sinking or damaging over 100,000 tons of shipping remains unparalleled in the liberation history of littorals in the ‘Ocean of Destiny’.

In order to obtain maximum success, the first coordinated attack by 176 frogmen was on the dark night of 15/16 August 1971 against Chittagong, Chalna/Khulna and the river ports of Narayanganj, Chandpur and Barisal. Surprise was the key factor as security was taken for granted.

The attack on major seaports

The attack on the major port of Chittagong was led by a former submariner and a medical student who belonged to the port city and hence were familiar with the geography as also the details of the ships in harbour. Three groups sauntered into the port in pairs in broad daylight with the limpet mines and fins hidden in baskets of jackfruit which they carried on their heads nonchalantly and carried out a reconnaissance in daylight. Targets were then visually assigned to each pair. The group then walked upstream in the dark and waited for the designated H-hour which was just after midnight to coincide with the beginning of the ebb tide as also a change in shift in the dock labour.

On reaching their assigned targets, they held on to wooden spars under the jetty in order to synchronize attacks for creating maximum confusion and thereby escape to safety.

They rolled up their lungis like in a vaudeville show, and put on their swimming fins (discarded in later operations as it compromised the anonymity of the frogmen who were anyway excellent swimmers). Watches were synchronized and they entered the cold murky waters well upstream at precalculated intervals. With a bamboo reed in their mouth acting as a breathing snorkel, they floated downstream with the ebb current keeping as low as possible in the water. On reaching their assigned targets, they held on to wooden spars under the jetty in order to synchronize attacks for creating maximum confusion and thereby escape to safety.

When H-hour approached, Choudhry and Alam took a deep breath and swam to the middle of the vessel and attached the limpet mines with magnets to the port side of the hull adjacent to the engine room and just below the water line. The explosion would then flood ~he engine room, thus disrupting the power supply which would render the pumps unserviceable. The other pair of Aminullah and Momen likewise attached the limpets to the starboard side of the freighter. Then both pairs swam downstream past the docks and escaped inland by the time the soluble plugs dissolved in about 30 to 40 minutes thus activating the limpet charges.All hell broke loose when explosives rent the air and the Pakistani freighters Al Abbas and Ohramzd settled on the bottom. Similar attacks were carried out on two coasters, one tug, one ferry boat and two harbour crafts. Searchlights were immediately switched on and trigger happy sentries stirred from their somnolence promptly emptied their carbines at every shadow and showered hand grenades on the flowing waters of Karnaphuli river. Ullah, Sheikh, Khusru and Mondal penetrated the security barriers at Chalna on the same night and attached four limpet mines to the 7000-ton Somalian freighter SS Lightning which grounded on the silt of Pussur river.

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One collier and three coasters at Chandpur were also attacked by the task element led by an ex-naval frogman. In addition, three river steamers, six mechanized barges, two motor launches and four pantoons were destroyed at Khulna, Narayanganj and Daudkhandi. The leaders of this unit were the former naval sailor Rehman and a young student, Siddiqui.

No sooner had he gulped down his tea and in the process scalded his tongue, than he thanked his hosts and jumped ashore a minute before explosions blew up the steamer.

Major Khalid Musharraf (later Major General Musharraf) was the Sector Commander of the guerrilla force operating in the Sylhet-Comilla area which had earlier destroyed bridges, roads and railways and thereby seriously disrupted communications from Dacca to Sylhet. Major Zia-ur-Rahman (later President of Bangladesh) was the Sector Commander of the Chittagong-Noakhali region. Major Shafiullah commanded the Mymensingh-Tangail segment. Captain Dutta was holed up in Sylhet. Major Usman was responsible for the Kustia-Jessore seotor and Major Jalil was in charge of Khulna sector. Major Shaukat Ali had his base in the Chittagong hill tracts. Kader Siddiqui or ‘Tiger Siddiqui’ as he came to be known, was the leader of Kader Bahini in the Tangail area.

One amusing incident, if it can be called that, was at Khulna. A frogman who was fixing limpet explosives to a river steamer was detected and challenged. He mumbled that he was a fisherman who had accidentally lost his foothold and was therefore swimming to the bank. He was pulled up on board and in spite of his protestations was given a hot cup of tea in the tradition of seafarers. No sooner had he gulped down his tea and in the process scalded his tongue, than he thanked his hosts and jumped ashore a minute before explosions blew up the steamer.

Attack on Hardinge Bridge, 30 August 1971

While the heat was in the Southern riverine ports and waterways, a group of frogmen transited North to Rajshahi to attack the Hardinge Bridge over which the vital railway link from Kushtia crossed the Padma river midway between Rajshahi and Pabna. This deep penetration group of 13 frogmen reached Rajshahi and then went down the mighty river to Sardah and thence to Charghat and rested at Dadupur Char.

The boat jerked to a stop and the bow momentarily dipped below the waterline because of the strong tide. The bowman panicked and jettisoned the entire chain cable and the boat was carried downstream and secured with difficulty for the night.

Mohamad Quayum, Hussain Kader and Wahid-ul-Islam who belonged to this area managed to, hijack a country boat in which they hid 8 frogmen with 21 Herrick charges. A motor boat towed the craft to Raita Point which was half a mile upstream from the bridge. The country boat thereafter cast off and headed for the centre pillar which they reached undetected at 0100 on the night of 30 August 1971. Two frogmen who were to swim to the opposite pillars of the bridge to secure the craft failed to do so in view of the strong tides. The anchor was therefore dropped directly under the span of the bridge. The boat jerked to a stop and the bow momentarily dipped below the waterline because of the strong tide. The bowman panicked and jettisoned the entire chain cable and the boat was carried downstream and secured with difficulty for the night.

A second attempt was made on the following night at about 10 p.m. The boat hugged the banks and turned round and once again aimed for the centre span notwithstanding the strong current they had witnessed on the previous night. The efforts of six men to secure the boat to the pillar again failed and this attempt was similarly aborted.

On the third occasion when the operation was seemingly successful as they now aimed for the pillar closest to the bank, sentries from the bridge fired at the boat. The frogmen jumped overboard and swam downstream. Meanwhile a Razakar Camp nearby was alerted and both Kadir and Wahid were captured and not seen thereafter. The remaining frogmen hid in the nearby sugarcane fields and reached Bajumera by midnight. Thereafter they damaged the Arani Bridge on the railway route from Abdulpur to Nandangachi and then returned to their estuarine sanctuary. One frogman however elected to remain back retaining his grenade and rifle.

“¦a Razakar Camp nearby was alerted and both Kadir and Wahid were captured and not seen thereafter. The remaining frogmen hid in the nearby sugarcane fields and reached Bajumera by midnight.

The failure to press home the attack on the Hardinge Bridge was in a way due to the inherent feeling that this historic and vital link over the river Padma was national property which perforce had to play an even more important part in the reconstruction of Bangladesh after liberation. In a way, this feeling was reflected when the strike aircraft from Vikrant were briefed during their sorties, not to attack static port facilities such as warehouses, cranes, wharves and other infrastructure which were necessary for operating the port after liberation. The war planes from Vikrant were instead strictly instructed to concentrate only on ships, patrol craft and river traffic in order to prevent the Pakistani forces from fleeing by sea as the Indian Army was closing in on Dacca. This was a different approach to that of the Alliance Forces during the Kuwait operations about two decades later when communication, power and water facilities were selectively destroyed. As a postscript no Pakistani craft escaped other than the gunboat PNS Rajshahi which hugged the coast and reached Penang and was later put on board a freighter and transported to Karachi after the surrender. The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander Sikander Hayat, was deservedly awarded the Sitara-i-Jurat.

After each operation, half a dozen frogmen preferred to stay back with their families or were persuaded to join the Mukti Bahini who coveted their explosives as also the leadership qualities of the educated youth. It was perhaps this familiarity with firearms which were retained after the surrender, albeit due to the unsettled conditions, that was one of the reasons for the cult of assassinations which followed in Bangladesh.

The foreign press

In the August annihilation, a total of 16,000 tons of shipping were sunk and another 14,000 tons damaged by the frogmen. This created a stir not only in maritime and insurance circles but also evoked admiration for the so-called non-martial Bengali race for their valour, dedication and selfless sacrifice for their beloved Sonar Bangia. The Dacca correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, Claire Holingworth, holed out in the Intercontinental Hotel at Dacca reported these sinkings which were subsequently confirmed by Lloyd’s Casualty Lists (Lloyd’s Register of shipping casualty return for the period ended December 1971). She described the operations as ‘brilliant’ by adding a column in the Sunday Telegraph on 1 August 1971 that the Pakistan Army destroyed the Christian villages of Loodaria, Nalchota and Lakipara near Dacca. Their crime was the derailment of a train running from Tangi to Arikhold.

Sydney H. Schanberg of the New York Times reported that the Army controlled only five miles of territory on either bank of the Karnalphuli river. He added that the insurgents continued to harass the river traffic, disrupt military movements and prevented the raw jute from reaching the mills. Similarly, the tea estates were badly crippled and Islamabad had to import two million pounds of tea for their own consumption.

The underwater attacks by Mukti Bahini frogmen had serious repercussions on foreign shipping lines who increased their war-risk insurance from five shillings to one pound sterling as also an additional 20 per cent “˜risk pay for the crew.

Murray Sayles of the Sunday Times wrote on 11 July 1971 that the launches of the civil administration which were utilized for food distribution, flood control and other similar requirements were commandeered by the Army and fitted out with machine guns for patrolling the rivers. A small boat belonging to the Pakistan River Service was sunk by a Pakistani gunboat in the centre of the town in full view of hundreds of onlookers for failure to respond with alacrity to the challenge of the gunboat.

Collecting intelligence

Some of these debrief reports were collected in a novel manner. Room boys from the Intercontinental Hotel were encouraged to serve tea to Pakistani military top brass during the daily briefings at Military Headquarters in curfew-bound Dacca. The information they brought back was analysed by the foreign journalists who were mostly cooped up in the Intercontinental Hotel. Uncensored reports were then smuggled to Bangkok via the crew of international flights who had permanent reservations in the Hotel. These reports were then transmitted to Washington, London, Paris and other capitals of the world. Some journalists, particularly veterans such as Claire Holingworth, who in spite of being in her sixties and a member of the weaker sex or perhaps because of both, conveniently cycled to the outskirts of the city and saw for herself the damage caused by the Mukti Bahini as also the harsh reprisals of the martial law authorities who annihilated fishing villages and destroyed their noakas (boats).

Indeed the agony in the seas adjacent to both segments of Pakistan was of a more painful affliction of “˜sea-blindness as lucidly and straightforwardly pointed out in the Official Story of the Pakistan Navy published by Naval Headquarters, Islamabad in 1991.

The underwater attacks by Mukti Bahini frogmen had serious repercussions on foreign shipping lines who increased their war-risk insurance from five shillings to one pound sterling as also an additional 20 per cent ‘risk pay’ for the crew. Further, 1000 dollars per day was paid to each ship which dared to remain in port for a period of more than one week as risk money. Even so, foreign shippers shied away from East Pakistan ports in spite of tight security measures being enforced by the martial law administrators.

The traditional exports from East Pakistan such as jute. tea and coir lay piled up at the Chalna and Chittagong ports. The President of the World Bank. Robert McNamara. who had been assured that the situation in East Pakistan was well under control, was persuaded by Dr Samar Sen, the Indian Director in the World Bank, to see for himself the produce piled up on the quayside with hardly any shipping being available in the heavily guarded ports.

Commodore, Commanding East Pakistan, whose incessant signals for more officers and so also riverine craft fell on deaf ears, as East Pakistan was still too remote to affect the routine staff work in Naval Headquarters at Karachi. The latter continued to believe that the ‘turmoil in the East would soon subside’. Paradoxically the hot topic in the Pakistan Navy was instead new uniforms for sailors, the enlarging of training for foreign navies, commencement of a Junior Staff Course, manning the survey branch, promotions and appointments and requests for a bigger share of the defence budget. And all this time, East Pakistan continued to be on fire.

The Pakistan Navy inevitably drifted into supporting the Army’s role in their Eastern wing which had not been visualized in any of the detailed threat papers circulated by the Joint Chief of Staff. Indeed the agony in the seas adjacent to both segments of Pakistan was of a more painful affliction of ‘sea-blindness’ as lucidly and straightforwardly pointed out in the Official Story of the Pakistan Navy published by Naval Headquarters, Islamabad in 1991.

The reaction of Naval Headquarters, Karachi

Vice Admiral Muzaffar Hassan, C-in-C Pakistan Navy, visited China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt for obtaining more vessels and maintenance assistance for the neglected Pakistan Navy which overnight had become a much-needed partner for the Pakistan Army left high and dry in the riverine delta of East Bengal. All available river craft were requisitioned. The two fast patrol craft which were transferred by the Royal Saudi Navy and commissioned as PN ships Sadaqat and Rifaqat but were nonetheless retained in Karachi. It will be seen in a later section that the only role played by the gunboat Sadaqat was to rescue survivors from Khaibar and Muhafiz after the missile attack off Karachi. Hence, the hard-pressed Pakistan Navy placed panic orders for boats on the Khulna and Narayanganj shipyards.

The DCNS (T) flew to East Pakistan to hasten the construction of landing craft at Khulna shipyard as also a river patrol boat (PBR) whose trials had been completed in August 1971. The work on a floating dock was also accelerated. Captain Niazi who had just returned from France was sent to procure engines for these craft from China and Europe. But all along this mirage of rallying the national will was torpedoed by the halting of production of the steel mill, the departure of foreign technicians due to civil disturbances and substantial desertion of Bengali clerical staff, workers, lascars, MT drivers and labour force in defence establishments. COMCEP had about 500 West Pakistanis and 300 East Pakistanis. The Flag Officer East Pakistan, Rear Admiral Shariff on taking over from COMCEP suggested the transfer of all East Pakistanis to Karachi and replacing them by West Pakistan complements. The striking factor was that while hitherto the Navy had relied on the Army for food, transport and logistics, the situation was now reversed with the land forces in East Pakistan having to depend entirely on naval logistics.

Inland waterways transport were armed with a variety of Oerilokns, machine guns, 40 mm Bofors and Chinese 14.5 mm guns which were later standardized to the 12 7 mm gun for which sufficient ammunition was available. Further, anti-frogmen measures such as grenades dropped from specially fabricated bombettes attached to light aircraft, harbour patrols, flood-lighting the jetties and heavily guarding installations with West Pakistani forces were more strictly enforced. Nonetheless, the flow of logistics continued to be disrupted. Night navigation was suspended and rationing introduced in the rice bowl of the nation. The frogmen remorselessly kept up their coordinated attacks at great personal risk notwithstanding the loss of eight personnel captured or killed in the August attacks. They tightened the noose which was unparalleled in the history of maritime warfare – frogmen versus a well-organized naval force! The London Times aptly summed it up as ‘fantastic’.

Continued…: Untold Heroism of Mukti Bahini Frogmen: Prelude to Liberation – III