In a part of the world where the craft of military history is as poor as the history and tradition of professional soldiering is rich, Gauhar Ayub Khan deserves our fullest gratitude. My friends in the Pakistani media and strategic, Track II type circuit will poison my lunch if I described a big-mouth like this Junior Ayub as a military historian. So it is not my point that his boom is going to throw an entirely new light on the subcontinent’s first full-fledged war since Partition. It is just that by making such a sensational claim, he has regenerated interest in a war that happened 40 years ago and over which both sides are still living with conflicting claims and beliefs, and with really dodgily written histories.
Sure enough, both the Pakistani and Indian governments have written their official histories of the war. In India nobody took much notice of what was published, though it was reasonably realistic and subdued, without any exaggerated claims. The Pakistanis, predictably, had a more flowery account and that too was the cause of much heart-burn and infighting within their own establishment, including military institutions. The key question was, if all three wings of the Pakistani armed forces had indeed done as well as they claimed, how come they had so little to show for it at the end of the war? In terms of territory, in Punjab and Kashmir, India had more at the end of those 22 fateful days (the title of late D.R. Mankekar’s book on the 1965 war).
If you consider the key theatre of Kashmir, while the Pakistanis had gains in the Chhamb-Jaurian, in Kargil, Rajauri and, most importantly, in the Uri sectors, India had nibbled on much greater chunks of crucial territory, including the Haji Pir Pass. In Punjab, the Pakistanis had Khemkaran’barely an hour’s drive from Amritsar’and some territory around it, and the Hussainiwala enclave across the Satluj, but India had a lot more in the Lahore and Sialkot sectors. Yet, nothing, except Haji Pir and perhaps some Kargil posts, was of much strategic significance.
If you looked at the situation after the ceasefire, it was one great stalemate. Both sides had suffered losses, India more in the air, Pakistan a lot more in tanks. It was, as Lt Gen Jogi Dhillon, who commanded the XI Corps controlling the entire Punjab sector, said, one big slogging match, a real war of attrition where nobody won or lost, no objectives were achieved or abandoned, no problem was solved. It left both sides angry and frustrated. It was merely a warm-up for the next war, for which each side began preparing immediately after, and which inevitably came in 1971.
Yet, victory or defeat in a war is usually determined by the objectives with which each side started out with, or what was on the mind of the side that initiated it. This was a war initiated by Pakistan. Ayub Khan had run a military government, his armies had been fattened by the Americans after he joined their “anti-Communist” security alliances. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was his Kautilya, such as he was. Between the two of them they decided and with some justification that 1965 was the moment to strike. India was still punch-drunk after the defeat by the Chinese in the Himalayas. Its order of battle, equipment, deployment patterns, were all changing.
Nehru’s rapid decline and death just the previous year had left a huge political vacuum at the exact moment when the military forces were in a disarray, the brass was still recovering from the post-’62 purge, there were food shortages, Shastri was seen to be a weak leader and, diplomatically, India was placed in that perilously transitional stage when the Americans had refused to supply any fighting equipment, the British had limitations and the Soviet connection was just firming up. In fact, when that war broke out, the IAF’s first MiG-21 squadron was just formed, with only nine aircraft operational as yet.
As Gauhar Ayub also mentions, the Pakistani technology edge at that point was sweeping and could (should?) have been decisive. Its air force had operational supersonics (F-104 Starfighters) while the IAF was entirely subsonic. The PAF with its American Sidewinders was already in the missile age and more of its fighters were night-capable. Pakistan Navy had a submarine (Ghazi, sunk off Vizag in 1971) and the Indian Navy had none, it did not even have adequate sonars to detect it. Pakistan’s Pattons were the best tanks in the region, with night-vision capability, its special forces had the benefit of American training. Finally, the Pakistani generals certainly had more tactical dash, also because this war had been their idea, they had planned for it for at least a couple of years and, unlike India, they had a clear objective to grab Kashmir.
For an entirely unprepared India, it was at best a defensive war. Only when it seemed to be difficult to defend Kashmir in view of Pakistan’s near-breakthrough in Chhamb that Shastri decided to go on the offensive in Lahore and Sialkot. There, too, there was no real objective other than to carry out probing thrusts to force Pakistan to move forces away from the widening assault in Chhamb, and into defensive battles along Punjab.
Apart from the real surprise the Pakistanis delivered in Chhamb ‘ but failed to exploit, which is the real story of that War of Mutual Incompetence ‘ two other sizeable assaults were carried out, one by India and the other by Pakistan. India launched its main strike force, I Corps, spearheaded by its 1st Armoured Division in Sialkot and while it did have some territory to show at the time of the ceasefire, it was engaged in a series of battles of attrition with the Pakistani 6th Armoured and the joke was that it moved at the rate of a kilometre a day.
Indian commanders, including the armoured division commander Gen. Rajinder Singh Sparrow (who later became a Congress MP), have however acknowledged that the assault had no real objective, least of all besieging Sialkot, other than of engaging the main bodies of Pakistani forces in Punjab to relieve the pressure in Kashmir.
Also read: India and Pakistan both know that 1965 was a War of Mutual Incompetence
The Pakistani tank assault, however, was a more purposeful one. They achieved surprise again at Khemkaran in Punjab ‘ how they did it is a question Indian military historians have to answer. Why was the flank of our forces across Lahore kept unprotected, and how did the Pakistanis know? This is what Gauhar credits his father with having had prior information of. The truth is the Pakistanis were moving along almost unopposed.
The idea was to get into the rear of the Indian formations in Amritsar-Lahore, then cross the Beas and, who knows, head for Delhi. This had begun so well as to inspire Ayub’s famous boast of sharing a toast at the Delhi Gymkhana. There was panic in Delhi, it is now believed that Gen. Chowdhury lost his nerve and wanted to abandon most of Punjab and dig in east of the Beas. So much was the panic that even the President’s Body Guards were asked to be relieved of their Rashtrapati Bhavan duties to get back to their fighting formations.
The most accurate Indian account of this most perilous phase in that war is to be found in War Despatches (Lancer International, 1991) written by Lt-Gen Harbakhsh Singh, the hero and western theatre commander in 1965. He confirms the arguments between him and Gen Chowdhury, one wanting to fight at Khemkaran and the other wanting to withdraw. Harbaksh won the argument’the larger objective now was to destroy Pak armour’and laid a trap for the over-confident Pakistani tank force, breached some canals to flood vast stretches of land, forcing the Pakistanis to drive through a narrow area which became a killing ground on a moonlit night.
The truth is, there was no real tank battle at Khemkaran on September 10, 1965. It was a massacre that left behind the famous Patton Nagar at Bhikhiwind. Pakistan’s 1 Armoured Division, the pride of its army, withdrew leaving behind 75 tanks destroyed or abandoned. It was led valiantly, and from the front, but with a rash foolhardiness that was the hallmark of Pakistani generalship in that war. Its GOC, Maj-Gen Nasir Ahmed Khan, was seriously wounded, its artillery commander, Brigadier Shammi, was killed and buried by the Indian army at the village Assaluttar’after which the battle is named for posterity’not far from the grave of Indian anti-tank gunner Havildar Abdul Hamid, who won his Param Vir Chakra in that battle. The entire tank force of Pakistan’s famed 4 Cavalry was captured along with its CO, 12 other officers (including six majors) and several others who surrendered voluntarily on the morning of September 11.
The war’s most audacious attack, one that spread shivers in Delhi, had ended in complete disaster. That is the near-victory Gauhar credits on the alleged betrayal of secrets by an Indian brigadier. It was, instead, a history of great tactical dash followed by incredible foolhardiness, and indeed the defender’s nerve.
While it hung on to a small ‘ just about 50 sq km ‘ chunk of territory, the Pakistani army never recovered from the disaster of Khemkaran. You do not have to believe stories that Indian reporters or soldiers of that time tell you. I heard it first hand from Wolf Gross, who I met in 1987 while researching an arms proliferation book in Northrop Corporation’s office in Rosslyn, on the outskirts of Washington. In 1965, Gross was a military attache with the US Embassy in New Delhi and was in the first group of foreign diplomats to be taken to see Patton Nagar.
It was the real thing. As a sharp-eyed soldier, he could also see how (for India) it was also such a near thing. The Pakistani assault was brilliant in conception and initiation but all this turned into suicidal stupidity in the euphoria of initial successes.
I cannot conclude this without mentioning another little tale of my own. Researching the same book (which never got written, regretfully), I met retired US Colonel T.N. Dupuy, who ran a curiously named consultancy called Historical Evaluation and Research Organisation (HERO). My line of questioning was predominantly to figure out how India and Pakistan make their arms purchase decisions, and he told me the story of 1965. The Pentagon, he said, was very worried after the war.
Why did the Patton not live up to its promise? Why did so many Pakistani soldiers abandoned fully operational tanks? He and his HERO were engaged to study this. His conclusion was that the tank, then with a petrol engine, caught fire rather easily and the Pakistani soldier had the fear of dying by fire. His study, he claimed, led to future American tanks being built with diesel engines. I was never able to check that story out, but the facts of history would establish that fascinating connection between junior Ayub’s claims, the spectacular advance, and then destruction of the pride of the Pakistani armour at Khemkaran, and the dieselisation of the American tank industry!
Also read: How Indian Army won the famous tank battle of Asal Uttar in 1965 against Pakistan