The Partition saw not only one of the greatest exodus(and slaughter) of humans in history ,but also the division of the centuries-old Indian Army. Besides the division of assets between the newly created Pakistan and India, whole regiments, some of which had even to be split, were partitioned, with Hindu and Sikh components coming to India and Muslims going to Pakistan. The ten Gorkha Rifle Regiments, were likewise split- with the Second, Sixth, Seventh and Tenth Gorkha Rifles going to the British-of these every regiment shed a battalion or so because some of the men refused to opt for British service The result was that India had to absorb not only the five remaining regiments, but also take in the extra men, who volunteered to serve in India. This resulted in the 8th and 5th Gorkha Rifles raising extra battalions from the remnants of the 2nd and 6th Gorkha Rifles. We had also to re-raise the 11th Gorkha Rifles from the Rai and Limbu components of the 7th and 10 Gorkha Rifles. Since the Gorkha Rifles were the exclusive preserve of the British officers, India had to find extra officers to fill in the void left by the British officers.
There were thus a large number of officers from the Second Regular Course, Indian Military Academy, commissioned into the Gorkha Regiments in 1947. Nine of us, ML Chibber, GS Rawat, K Chiman Singh, DS Katoch, HS Sodhi, OS Allen, VB Sathe, SS Gill and myself, for instance, went to the 4th (PWO) Gorkha Rifles. Out of the nine, three, Chibber, Rawat and Katoch, were transferred to 6/5 Royal Gorkha Rifles. Sathe, and I, were posted to the 2/4th Gorkha Rifles. “Ozzie” Allen joined later. (Chibber, Chiman, became Army commanders and Rawat Vice Chief, while Devinder Katoch and Harinder Sodhi retired as brigadiers).
Besides the induction of officers from regiments earmarked for the Pakistan Army, into the Gorkha Regiments, to make up the deficiencies in officers, some outstanding Gorkha Officers(or JCOs) were also promoted in situ in most Gorkha Regiments.This is how we first came in contact with three such Gorkha Officers- Capts Damar Pun, MC, Kam Lal Gurung and Sohan Lal Rajput- when we joined the Second Battalion of The Fourth (Prince of Wales) Gorkha Rifles (24th GR, in short)..
When I reported to the Battalion HQ at Razdhainandan Pass( or Rajdhan), in June 1948, after a grueling two-day march from Bandipore ,we walked straight into a major crisis situation. The Battalion was holding an extended front stretching from Bandipore to Kanzalwan with just three companies(D Company had been detached and was fighting for its very survival under 2/8th GR in Leh), The Commanding Officer, Lt Col AW Desai had deployed A Company under Damar Singh at the 12,229 ft Gosain feature, guarding the vital approaches to the Rajdhan Pass. The remaining two B and C Companies under Capt RB Dunne and Kam Lal, Gurung respectively, had been deployed, along the ridges overlooking the Kanzalwan plateau, with the task of securing the Lines of Communication to Gurez .
Unfortunately, these two companies had taken up defences along a spur, which though dominating the Bandipore-Gurais track and the bridge over the Kishenganga River, were in turn dominated by higher ridges. (Kam Lal, later confided that he had indicated these dominating features to Col Desai. Desai, with just 6-7 years service, and little or no battle experience, had dismissed their tactical importance, saying, “Not even birds will go there!”). It was thus only a matter of time before the enemy exploited the fatal error and occupied the heights left vacant, completely isolating the two companies for over five days. With no reserves Desai, found the situation quite beyond his control. He just sat and moped.
With the main road between the Battalion HQ and the companies cut-off, it was decided to send a relief column via Vijai Gali and Gurez held by 1st Grenadiers. This was a long and circuitous route, which took two days of forced march to reach Kanzalwan. By the time I reached C Company, Kam Lal, despairing of any reinforcements ever reaching their beleaguered positions, had launched a surprise night attack, with a couple of platoons. The enemy fled pell-mell, leaving the position to our troops. Adjustments had been ordered and A Company, under Damar, was in the process of relieving C Company, which had been ordered to move to Gosain Gali, the 12,229 feet feature, vacated by A Company.
Having handed over the stores to Subedar Tek Bahadur Gurung,the Senior JCO of C Company, I wandered off to meet Damar. He was sitting on an ammunition box, giving an almighty tongue-lashing to a hapless jhandi-wallah(as the signalers were then known). Suddenly Damar gave a guffaw, and brandishing a huge staff ,leapt to his feet and with agility, surprising for a person of his girth, gave chase to the signaler. The latter, on the alert and more swift-footed, hared off down the slope. Huffing and puffing, Damar returned to his perch, and pronounced, “Never trust a jhandi wallah-they will always let you down in an emergency”. The “emergency” it turned out, had been the failure of the signaler to transmit an urgent SOS to the Battalion Headquarters, that A Company had run out of rum.
Damar was a stout, squat officer, perfectly rotund, but there was more muscle on him than fat. He wore short-cropped hair and had small eyes hidden in wrinkles of fat. But when he laughed, actually a short bark-like chortle, followed by gnashing of his teeth and an unprintable curse, he resembled a Laughing Buddha. Actually behind the rough and seemingly ruthless exterior, hid a gentle and kindly soul full of compassion, as we found later.
Some months later returning to our respective companies after a conference at Kanzalwan, I joined Damar’s convoy of some twenty pack ponies. Damar himself was astride a pony carrying his mighty staff like a lance. Suddenly a bear ambled out from the woods on the left. Seeing the hordes, with a loud snort, the bear turned tail, creating panic in the convoy. The ponies crazed with fear, bolted off into the blue, with Damar clinging to his panic-stricken mount’s mane and trying to control it. They disappeared around the corner. I caught up a couple of miles later, and saw a scene of appalling devastation. Damar was sitting with outstretched legs, resting on his arms on the grass. All around him were strewn smashed boxes of tinned milk, sacks of rice, atta and sugar and, sadly, broken rum bottles. The ponies having divested themselves of their loads were placidly feeding on the grass. Damar’s body was quaking, much to my alarm. But when I drew nearer I saw to my utter amazement he was shaking with uncontrolled mirth, and an enraged look..
Later, talking to an old Gorkha officer, who had served with Damar in the Fourth Battalion(4/4GR) in Burma, I was told this was characteristic of Damar under pressure. He not only laughed when he was happy, but disaster, rage, nervousness all sent him into paroxysms of merriment. When he was commanding D Company,4/4 GR in Burma, the Commanding Officer had warned him to exercise caution during the assault on Manadaly Hill, where earlier attacks by the Battalion had failed. This had drawn chuckles from Damar. He continued laughing while his men were being mowed down. Still laughing he led the assault personally for the capture of the crest. Violent counter-attacks by the Japanese had only drawn further laughter. When asked by the CO if he wanted anything, he had cryptically replied , “No-only breakfast.Out”. The story goes (which Damar never corroborated) that he had been recommended for a Victoria Cross by Maj Gen TW Rees, GOC,19(Dagger) Division,which the CO had downgraded to an immediate award of a Military Cross, on the grounds that what Damar had done was nothing extraordinary, but in the best traditions of the 4th (PWO) Gorkha Rifles. History recounts this action as “the most outstanding action in the taking of Mandalay”.
Kam Lal Gurung was the very antithesis of Damar. He was a wiry and lean extrovert, bubbling with energy-an absolute live wire. Like Sir Francis Doyle’s “The Private of the Buffs”, “he jested, quaffed and swore”. While Damar was ponderous and deliberate, Kam Lal was quick-silver, impetuous and impulsive, the very epitome of a leader of “skirmishing troops”. He had been a prisoner of war, when 2.4th GR was over-run by Rommel’s armour in Knightsbridge area in Libya in 1942. He had escaped, and with a few other Gorkha officers, had joined the re-formed Battalion in Sicily in November 1943. He had fought on the Gothic Front and been awarded a Mention-in Dispatches. The VrC won in Kanzalwan was highly deserved.
I reported to Kam Lal at Gosain. One of the first assignments he gave me, was to explain the mystery of ‘verbal orders’ to Senior NCOs. It left me wondering how the Battalion had managed without me in the last twelve years of its almost continuous active service. But Kam Lal was a shrewd psychologist, and knew that there was nothing better to restore the confidence of a young subaltern, then such ego-inflating assignments. He sent me on patrols deep into enemy territory. ordered me to lay ambushes during nights in the freezing cold, and, most frighteningly, conduct live grenade –throwing exercises for a batch of newly arrived draft of young soldiers. The last grenade I had hurled was at the Indian Military Academy, from behind a sand-bagged bunker. Here the Company Commander expected me to line up ashen-faced, quaking young Gorkhas along an open snow-covered slope, and “teach” them how to throw live grenades into an depression in the ground. I did not blame the men for hitting the ground the moment the grenade left their hands-who cared where it landed ? So without warning Kam Lal, rolled a grenade in front of the advancing column. There was an almighty bang with pebbles and foliage under the thin snow thrown up into the air. Everyone, including me, hit the ground. According to Kam Lal, this was an effective method to teach raw recruits that they must observe that the grenade had landed in the designated target area. It also got them used to battle-noises,he maintained. When I expressed my serious reservations, Kam Lal airily told me that in times of war, casualties were acceptable and could always be accounted for.
Because in lulls of fighting,we could not carry out conventional physical training and games, he ordered free-for-all snow fights. After one particularly vicious battle, Kam Lal himself became the first casualty. He was ignominiously evacuated with tooth trouble. Peace and tranquility reigned for a brief spell in the Company. I often wondered what the Pakistanis, with some of their pickets having observation over us, thought of the mad Gorkhas. I know they must have disapproved of us “tobogganing” on the seat of our trousers, down the forward slopes of the 13,220 feet Losar(where the company had been re-located) and below ridges controlled by them. It speaks volumes for their tolerance and forbearance that they did not fire on us. Sohan Lal, the Quartermaster, was furious when he saw the number of seat-less trousers produced by C Company for condemnation.
Such then were Damar and Kam Lal, and countless other Gorkha Officers, promoted to fill the gaps left by the British officers. Only those who served during the early years of the “Indianisation” of the Gorkha Regiments will appreciate the enormous contribution made by these stalwarts in ensuring a smooth and painless take-over of their battalions. They were a binding force and an essential link between the newly inducted officers and the men. They were our mentors and spiritual advisers, and above all, they were completely self-less and wedded to their regiments and profession with as the poet says, “ hoops of steel”. The passing away of these pioneers had signaled the end of an era. But as the First World War song went-
“Old Soldiers never die,
“ They only fade away”.
Dehra Dun Lt Gen RK Jasbir Singh
18th October 2009
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