AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 4 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 40 of 237 of the injury. Naib Subedar Shambu Nath, the MMG platoon commander, remained in our area to oversee the MMG fire.Noticing the casualties, he rushed to help. Unfortunately he too was hit on the left thigh and was profusely bleeding . For a while our MMG became silent with me in the post alone. The tank,now turned its turret towards A company.The troops from the vehicular column disembarked and took cover. Since the attention of the tank was diverted away from our MMG post, I quickly traversed the MMG towards the ammunition filled enemy lorries and fired long and sustained bursts igniting them. The RCL detatchment commander too, took pot shots on the lorries causing a massive fire. Although a dangerous move, it kept the Enemy at bay and halted the advance for well over three hours and unnerved them. The first tank commander expertly drove on the berm of the road speeding towards Dhaka, bypassing our forward companies.It was eventually shot by the 9 Bihar’s detachment of 3.5’inch Rocket launcher and the leading tank lost control and got bogged down in the rice fields. The crew got out and were taken as prisoneers. The second tank also manouevred to proceed towards Dhaka and attempted to over run my company from the flank. The belching fire from the ammunition lorries served as a screen and prevented his attempt and eventually slipped and got bogged down in the rice fields, and the crew got killed in the cross fire, eliminating the tank threat. The troops column now remained to be tackled.Only small arms fire was being fired by the two forward companies. This was anticipated in my initial fire planning with Capt Hira. Hira did a very commendable job and the Enemy suffered huge casualties due to Artillery fire. It was a text book type of operation,shifting Defensive Artillery fire from one point to another. In spite of the casualities, two vicious attempts were made to attack our positions.Their battle cry ALLAH O AKBAR at close ranges was a blood chilling experience. Both attacks were repulsed by the accurate fire from the two forward companies. Our ammunition availability was running low and needed replenishment. I sent word to Capt Prakash for help . Major PG Ravi Krishnan commanding D company, heard my communication and promptly ordered his MMG detachment to move to C company area for deployment and support. I thanked him for his spontaneous response,to which he replied “No attack on my company can come with out C company being overrun,I am just safeguarding against such an eventuality”. Very few Company commanders, specially during a battle would have the attitude of Ravi. Later, as a token of my gratitude, I presented him one side of PIPS of Captian Navashish Ali Khan that we had removed as a war memento. He cherished the gesture warmly. With the second MMG, the fire effect was devastating on the enemy, attacking us for the third time.This time the battle cry was feeble ,the morale low and the