AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 4 – War Diary CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 42 of 167 3 The Night I Was ‘Killed in Action’ Capt D P Ramachandran Genre: War Diary here is a town called Phulbari in Northwest Bangladesh. Official account of the initial operations in Bangladesh records that Phulbari was captured by our forces, giving the impression that it was a planned operation that was successful. I beg to differ; it was quite a comedy of errors. I should know; I was even ‘Killed in Action’ there. I cannot forget the operation either; I lost one of my men in it. The tragicomedy went like this: It was early days in the war and the Battle of Hilli was raging. 8 Guards had staged a daring assault on the Pakistani stronghold at midnight 2 nd - 3 rd December; a magnificent show of raw courage, but a disaster since the battalion suffered terrible casualties and the fight ended in a stalemate. My regiment, 63 Cavalry of T-55 medium tanks less one squadron and 69 Armoured Regiment with PT-76 light amphibious tanks formed the armour element of 20 Mountain Division, the formation covering the sector. On the afternoon of 3 rd December, as soon as the war was declared, ‘C’ Squadron of my regiment, of which I, as a young captain, was the Second-in-Command, was unleashed on an outflanking mission to threaten Hilli from the rear. We raced northward from Hilli along the border for some 15 kilometers, before wheeling eastward to penetrate the international border. A couple of kilometers onward by sunset and approaching a river, we were reined in to wait out the night; the first of the many disillusionments during the war for us, young officers, who reckoned it ridiculous to go by the book, when we should be going flat out to get at the enemy. We had information that the river was fordable and there was a half-moon coming up giving us adequate visibility to drive even without our infrared night vision devices. Following the drill, the squadron had formed a ‘harbour’ closing in the tanks, when I had a summons to meet the Squadron Commander at his rover. I found him there with the CO of 69 Armoured Regiment, the latter rather tense. It was told that a troop of his PT- 76 tanks had gone across the river ahead of us and were stranded with a mechanical breakdown. I was to lead a 4-tank task force, of my tank and a troop, on a rescue mission, transporting a couple of EME mechanics to repair the tank and then guide the stranded troop back to our location. We happened to be the nearest unit and the location of the stranded troop was given as just over a kilometer up a road that led from across the river T