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Thank you for sharing!
Good read
Nice
‘Operation LEGHORN’ and the
Battle of the Namka Chu
continues...
The operational situation at Tezpur on 4th October was that there was a deadlock between Sen and Umrao. Gen. Sen was in a quandary. His immediate subordinate was adamant. . . Gen. Sen was rescued from his predicament by the arrival of Kaul.
The heavy burden of reconciling the formidable problems posed by the Himalayas, the objections of his forward commanders and an insistent Government was taken off his weary shoulders.
On 5th October, 1962, the Government informed the Press that Lt. Gen. B.M. Kaul, the CGS at Army Headquarters, had been given the command of a new corps in NEFA, and that he had already left for Tezpur. On 5th October itself, while 4 Division’s GOC waited to receive him at the Tawang helipad, Lt. Gen. Kaul flew straight to Lumpu, where he personally gave orders for the move forwards of the whole brigade, not to the Brigade Commander who had gone forward, but to the operational staff officer of the brigade headquarters, the Brigade Major (BM), thus completely by-passing the appropriate chain of command from Corps to division to brigade. Brig. Dalvi observes”
The abrupt dismissal of Gen. Umrao Singh was a pivotal decision. Many devious arguments have been adduced to explain the overnight change in the command structure but none of them have
the ring of truth.
This, the most serious blunder on the part of the Government and the Army Chief, cannot be buried under a heap of unconvincing administrative reasons. The biggest ‘if’ of the NEFA War of 1962 must surely be whether there would have been an actual shooting war if Kaul had not been nominated to command, with a personal mandate from the Prime Minister. The impossible task, blithely offered to Kaul, was merrily accepted by him.
When Kaul accepted the assignment he knew that his so-called corps was a political gimmick in so far as his force bore no relation whatsoever to a corps as this term is commonly understood in
modern armies. He had nothing but the two committed brigades –
5 and 7 Brigades.
To be continued...