AFVOA Newletters of Year 2002

Page 36 of 84 were able to control the situation merely by patrolling and by flag marches, unlike the unpopular police force, which had to use force, causing deaths and injuries. This was a time, also, of many starvation deaths, particularly in Bengal, due to the improper distribution of food grains. 2/2 Punjab, after a spell of intense jungle warfare training in the Mysore area, moved to Burma as part of a brigade under 25 Inf Div. Col KM Cariappa was an AQ on the Div staff. As the RMO, Capt Rangaswami was mentioned in despatches twice. Serving under tour COs during this period (one of whom was killed in a grenade accident on the Mavu Range), his CO was Lt Col SPP Thorat. He had the proud privilege of serving in 2/2 Punjab when it became part of the All Indian Bde in the Arakan, with Lt Col KS Thimayya, DSO commanding 8/19 Hyderabad (he later became the Bde commander) and Lt Col Lionel Protip Sea, DSO commanding 16/10 Baluch Regt. They got their DSOs together. After three years as a RMO, Rangaswami was posted as MO of sargical wands to a 1000 bedded wartime hospital at Bangalore, and later to CMH at Waltair. He was later posted to a Parachute field Ambulance in Quetta (Baluchistan) where 50 Para Brigade was stationed. The officer had to undergo several arduous physical fitness and professional suitability tests before he could become a qualified paratrooper. He was selected and sent to the PTS (then at Chaklala, on the outskirts of Rawalpindi). Surgical training ensued at the 1000 bedded Eastern Command Hospital under Col RD Ayyar (who was later awarded the Padma Bhushan while building Safdarjang Hospital under the direct supervision of Pandit Nehru). Working under several senior surgeons, Gen Rangaswami became a graded surgeon, followed by postings at MH Calcutta and MH Shillong. At the time of commencement of the first Indo Pak conflict of 1948, he was posted back to the only Parachute Field Ambulance, providing cover to troops of some 12-17 battalions in the Uri sector of the Kashmir Valley. Here he was privileged to serve in the brigade under Brig LP Sen, within 19 Div then commanded by Maj Gen KS Thimayya. It was during these operations that Gen Rangaswami was awarded his first Vir Chakra . Later, the Government decided that a medical unit form part of the United Nations Peacekeeping Contingent in Korea, and the choice fell on 60 Parachute Field Ambulance. One of the two surgeons required for the unit was Lt Col Rangaswami, who was then CO and surgeon at MH Wellington (The Staff College was then commanded by Maj Gen Lentaigne). While the selected unit was waiting at Calcutta to board a troopship for South Korea, the North Koreans were repulsed by Gen MacArthur’s UN forces right up to the Chinese border. On duty at the border at the time of the Chinese entry into the Korean War and their southward advance, the unit barely escaped with its advance party when the Chinese troops were barely 20 miles behind, at a place north of Pyongyang. The Para Fd Amb escaped by road/rail and established its first hospital in S Korea housed in American hospital tents, commencing operations on a bitterly cold winter day of January, 1951. The patients were troops from the British Commonwealth. In March, Gen Matthew B Ridgeway (US Army), who had taken over command decided to utilise the Para Surgical Team of the Indian Field Ambulance in a Para operation. Gen Rangaswami was selected as the surgeon of the American Para Brigade. His team treated many wounded American soldiers and several civilian Korean casualties for 7 days. The outcome of this splendid effort was the award of the second Vir Chakra . Rangaswami was one among the medical team that treated several hundreds of British, Australian, and New Zealand troops in the Commonwealth Division, and American and Korean Armed Forces personnel, as well as hundreds of South Korean civilians (in their civil hospital). 60 Para Fd Amb, during its existence since 1942, had earned 2 MVCs, I VrC and Bar, 6 VrCs, 26 Mentions in Despatches, 6 COAS’s Commendation cards and 2 GOC in C’s Commendation cards (Gen Rangaswami is presently working on the unit history of 60 Para Fd Amb-copies should be available by the end of this year. Gen Rangaswami’s return voyage was not without incident: on board a British troopship sailing over rough and choppy seas, on Christmas day, he successfully operated upon the batman of