During the voyage I received no news about the NEF A incident, because on the few occasions I could persuade a naval officer to tune in his set to the AIR news bulletin, there was nothing on border incidents.
Military Operations Directorate was in a state of con fusion, its normally confident and cool deportment clearly fumed. From what I could gather it had suddenly found, itself relegated from its normal dynamic functioning to a role of silent proxy. The directorate was now merely relaying orders on behalf of the officiating CGS, or handling telephone and signal messages from, Command and lower HQs .to the CGS secretariat. Lieutenant Colonel Pritpal Singh of MO-I section told me that as a result of the Dhola crisis 7 Infantry Brigade had been peremptorily ordered to move from Towang and concentrate post-haste at the bottom of Thag-la ridge, with the task of chasing the Chinese up the mountain and across the watershed.
He could not show me any minuting, records of meetings or other documents to indicate how or by whom such an incredible decision had come to be taken. MO Directorate had merely been ordered to issue the necessary signals; it was not consulted in the process. I clearly remember being shown an operational signal authorised by the COAS, addressed to all formations down the chain, ordering the capture of Thag-la by 19 September! I could scarcely believe my eyes.
Pritpal told me that the decision to mount an attack on the Thag-la ridge appeared to have been taken at the Defence Minister’s conference three or four days previously, on the advice of Lieutenant General Sen, GQC-in-C East. I could only presume that ‘Bogey’ Sen had given this advice after consulting Umrao Singh, the Corps Commander in Shillong, but there was nothing on record in MO files. After 8 September, we had simply dropped out of the running.
It was’ difficult for me to believe that Niranjan, with all the logistical difficulties he had encountered in maintaining one weak brigade in a defensive role in Towang, could have agreed to 7 Brigade moving into the attack in the uninhabited desolation of the Bhutan frontier – where even footpaths were difficult to find – against a stronger and better armed enemy. How could an infantry brigade with all its impedimenta of battle move out on a man-pack basis to mount an attack across an unknown, mountainous tract? And what of Towang? Who would take over its defence which was 7 Brigade’s main task?
| Editor’s Pick |
These questions and a number of dire doubts and anxieties kept crowding into my mind. Pritpal could not enlighten me about any of them, and Jogi was at the Minister’s conference all morning. I do not recollect how I whiled away the hours. My thoughts were in turmoil, reflecting on the desperate unreality of the task that had been given to 7 Brigade. I tried to conjure up, from memory of the air reconnaissance over Towang plateau, a mental picture of the bleak and forsaken heights that towered above the Nyamjang-chu on the west.
I even remember consulting Lieutenant Colonel Bailey’s old book, No Passport to Tibet, to see if the author had included a reference to the area of Thag-la or the Namka valley. He had, but it was of no help. Captain Morshead’s sketch showed Thag-la ridge, and also the Namka-chu, running roughly north to south, whereas our small-scale map showed them going north-east to south-west!
It was not until the early afternoon that I was at last able to catch Jogi in his office. My memory of -that meeting could well be biased, as much by retrospective recrimination as by emotional distortion. (I had at last realised, not without both chagrin and alarm, that Jogi, had done exactly what my wife had suspected he would do: set about eliminating the DMO from the General Staff chain in order to consolidate his seizure of the operational network.) Therefore, in order to preserve objectivity in my recollection of that meeting with Jogi, I shall begin the account by first quoting from a report written nearer the time, my Summary of Events and Policies:
Army Headquarters involvement in the day-to-day operations was necessitated because of the need to direct the build-up of the necessary logistical support, which at that time was beyond the capacity of Eastern Command”¦
I arrived back at Headquarters on 16 September 1962. Broadly, the situation at that time was as follows: According to the reports of Intelligence Bureau personnel deployed on the Towang border, there were only 50-60 Chinese located in the vicinity of Tsedong [Dhola] and about two companies between the Namka-chu and Thag-la. Having destroyed the bridges in the vicinity of Tsedong, the Chinese had withdrawn to the north bank of the river. As for our own forces, 9 Punjab was ‘moving up to Tsedong, with orders (emanating from Army Headquarters)’ to capture the Chinese post north of Tsedong, contain the Chinese south of Thag-la and, if possible, establish posts on the watershed heights west of the Thag-la Pass.
At the same time, the rest of 7 Infantry Brigade had begun its forward concentration in the Lurnpu area while three (newly arrived) Infantry battalions were on the move from Misamari to Towang. 62 Infantry Brigade was on its way from Ramgarh to join 4 Infantry Division. Stocking for the Tsedong operations was to be undertaken by Headquarters Eastern Air Command, commencing on 28 September and to be completed by 5 October.
The pattern of operational policy and high command decisions evolved during these days was that the Defence Minister ,held a meeting everyday which was attended, from the Army side, by the Chief of the Army Staff, the Officiating CGS (the CGS being on leave) and GOC-in-C Eastern Command whenever he visited Army Headquarters. I was informed by the Officiating CGS that minutes of such meetings were maintained by the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Defence, though they were first, seen in draft form by himself. He also stated that he had access to these records at all times and therefore I was not required to maintain separate records in Army Headquarters.
As I did not attend any meetings held by the Defence Minister, or any meetings that may have been held at PSO level at Army Headquarters, I am unable to comment on the various considerations or discussions that led to policy decisions during this period. Action to be taken on them, however, was conveyed to me by the Officiating CGS or COAS and recorded in my files.
As for command and control of the operations, although the responsibility was entirely that of XXXIII Corps, Headquarters Eastern Command exercised close supervision and also consulted Army Headquarters at each step. Army Headquarters’ involvement in the day-to-day operations was necessitated because of the need to direct the build-up of the necessary logistical support, which at that time was beyond the capacity of Eastern Command…
Please wait...
