GIBRALTAR
(D S SARAO) “War does not determine who is right - only who is left.”
Bertrand Russell
1 It was a captured Pakistan Survey map, one inch to a mile -1964 edition, an American Field Telephone TA-1/PT serial No 15838, a water bottle, a pair of binoculars and an American bayonet, alongwith a couple of B&W photographs of the ‘65 operations taken by my father that finally persuaded me to do some research about Operation Gibraltar which was the cause of the 1965 Indo - Pak war.
2 I found it strange that though in all the material authored by Indian writers and in various records available on the Indian side, the commencement of the Indo-Pak hostilities was squarely attributed to Pakistan whereas a large number of books and research papers/commentaries by Pak authors claim that the ’65 war was started by India, when it launched its counter offensive by crossing the IB. As far as a true military commentary on the operations in the Punjab sector are concerned, Maj(retd) A H Amin, 11 PAVO Cavalry, Pakistan, in his article(The Battle for Ravi-Sutlej Corridor 1965 - A Strategic and Operational analysis) gives perhaps one of the most truthful and dispassionate analysis of the happenings specially in the Ravi-Satluj corridor. On the other extreme are various papers/write-ups/commentaries of not much military/historical significance. A lot of writers(Yasin Khan for one) also tend to gravitate more towards hype, romanticism and mythology.
How The War Started-Some Myths and SomeTruths
3 Who started the war or to put it more palatably – how did the war start? Just as it would be naïve for the Indians to keep repeating that the ‘71 war was started by Pakistan it would be extremely myopic to continue haranguing now, almost half a century after that war, that India was the aggressor in 1965. In 1971 Indian regular troops were already making forays across the IB in what was then East PakistNan. All that happened was that Pakistan pre-empted the planned Indian offensive by commencing hostilities along the Western front on 03 December whereas the Indians had planned to launch their offensive for 04 December.
4 Emboldened by the rather timid and weak response of the Indian politico-military leadership during the Kutch crisis, Operation Gibraltar was conceived to get back the Indian part of Kashmir through a covert operation. A plan which almost all Pakistani and neutral analysts have maintained was ‘a clumsy attempt’ to wrest control of ‘Indian Occupied Kashmir’ and was doomed to collapse. It is interesting that the Pak columnist Lt Col(retd) Mukhtar Ahmad Gilani(Panoramic Analysis —Senior and Junior Leaders —Aug 1947 to Dec 1971) calls the Pak foray into J&K as a ‘counter-offensive’. He states that ‘’After launching the counter offensive(sic) in Chamb-Jaurian Sector the Pakistan high command(the President, the C-in-C and the CGS) had failed to foresee the strategic counter action of the Indian Army against Sialkot, Lahore and Kasur, in view of the foreign office assurance, that India would confine its retaliation to the territorial limits of Kashmir’’. It is a known fact that the Indian thrust across the IB was infact a counter offensive in retaliation to ‘Gibraltor / Grand Slam’.
5 According to then Chief of the Pakistan Air Force, Air Marshal Nur Khan, there was little coordination amongst the military services on the impending operation. In any case the plan went completely awry in execution . The infiltrating troops and a large number of irregular and ‘volunteers’ known as the ‘Gibraltar Force’ were organized and commanded by GOC 12 Infantry Division, Major General Akhtar Malik, subsequently awarded the Hilal-i-Jurat for his role in the planning and execution of Gibraltar. In one of the biggest mysteries and blunders related to the inept Pak handling and lack of higher direction of war(not that the Indians did any better, in this war atleast), he was in-explicably replaced by Maj Gen Yahya Khan(later Chief) just when Akhnur was within the grasp of the Pak Army!
6 Ahmad Faruqui, the well known defense analyst and economist(Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan) says that when he asked Sajjad Haider, a retired Air Commodore(author of the book, Flight of the Falcon - Demolishing myths of Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971), to name the aggressor, ’ Nosy’ Haider, a PAF fighter pilot(‘jaunty-angled cap, silk scarves, special boots, and even the way they stand’), known for his rather controversial but no holds barred comments, not mincing any words said very unequivocally, ‘Ayub perpetrated the war.’
7 Any how, be that as it may, Gibraltar was launched and India after an initial phase of set backs, in a series of retaliatory operations, managed to eliminate the saboteurs and capture some tactically advantageous Pak posts across the Cease Fire Line. The loss of Hajipir Pass in August ’65 along with Indian successes in the Neelam Valley and opposite Uri unnerved the Pakistani GHQ which assumed that Muzaffarabad was about to be addressed next . It was under these circumstances that the Pak GHQ ordered launch of Operation Grand Slam on 01 Sep 1965 to cut off the Indian supply lines to J& K. So was Grand Slam initiated as a result of Indian aggression or was it a continuum of the already initiated but now precariously poised Pakistani plan to whip up the local Kashmiri population to a frenzy, so that the larger plan to integrate the state of J & K to Pakistan could be fructified?
8 Brig(retd) Shaukat Qadir, an impartial and independent analyst clearly mentions that Pakistan's Operation Grand Slam was ‘one of a number of contingency plans that had been prepared to support Gibraltar’. Operation Grand Slam basically intended to sever the road link between India and Indian held Kashmir once the valley was up in flames. Operation Grand Slam was four phased says Shaukat Qadir( The 1965 War-A Comedy of Errors): the capture of Chamb, the crossing of river Tawi and consolidation, followed by the capture of Akhnur, and finally severing the Indian lines of communication and capturing Rajauri. As mentioned earlier, the failure of Gibraltar resulted in the loss of some key Pak posts in Kashmir, and it was then that Operation Grand Slam was undertaken to relieve pressure on the Pak troops in Kashmir.
9 Maj(Retd) Agha Humayun Amin(Grand Slam-A Battle of Lost Opportunities) mentions that on being briefed by Major General Akhtar Malik(GOC 12 Infantry Division) on the Gibraltar plan, Ayub suggested that 12 Infantry Division should also capture Akhnur. This attack was codenamed ‘Operation Grand Slam’ and was planned as a sequel to ‘Gibraltar’. Similarly Shaukat Riza, the official historian(Pak) of the 1965 War has admitted that by 31 Aug once the Indians had ruptured 12 Infantry Division’s defences across the cease fire line, the Pak GHQ decided to launch Grand Slam to ease pressure on the Division by capturing Chamb and threatening Akhnur. In an extremely aggressive, well planned and confident move, Pak infantry units backed by armour overran the Indian outpost in Chamb in the initial phase itself, crossed the Tawi river and were headed towards Akhnur in order to cut off India’s line of communication with Srinagar. 10 The Indians were now under tremendous pressure and the military situation was getting precarious in the Kashmir sector. Ahmad Faruqui puts it on record ‘’ that the Indian response on Sept 06 across the international border at Lahore was a natural counter-response, not an act of aggression.’’ To relieve forces almost cut off in their part of Kashmir, the Indian Government took the momentous decision, as advised by Gen J N Chaudhuri, to open another front across the IB. The aim was to relieve the pressure in J&K where the situation was getting uncomfortable for the Indian Army.
The Western Front –The Indian Riposte
11 Following this, the Indian Army then counterattacked by crossing the international border thus opening the Western front in Pakistan Punjab to force the Pakistan Army to relocate troops and distract the Pak Army's attention and resources away from Operation Grand Slam. And thus started the second Indo - Pak war of 1965. Yes, there were no declarations of war made by the adversaries, either when the Pak troops crossed over in J&K nor later when the Indian troops crossed over in the Punjab. Circumstances and perceptions may differ on warring sides, but historical facts cannot be changed or misrepresented for partisan reasons.
