Re: Musharraf threatens Hindustan (days after building more bases near LOC)
The official history straight from the horses mouth… Now lets have Indian mujra on this at Lahore Gymkhana… Ever heard of teh famous Indians enjoying tea at Lahor Gymkhana?
http://news.indiamart.com/news-analysis/the-1965-war-real-st-7668.html
LMAO
** The 1965 War real story **
September 11, 2000
** The English daily, The Times of India has put on the web a copy of the official history of the 1965 Indo-Pak war which was finalized by the Defence Ministry in 1992 after years of research, but was suppressed allegedly by the Defence Ministry because of the allegations of some ‘lost victories’. ** The exclusive ‘Untold History of Indo-Pak War, 1965’ which is available on www.timesofindia.com. was compiled by Gen. Harbaksh Singh, who died recently. According to the Times of India, prepared by Gen. Harbaksh Singh in 1991 from various revealing official war dispatches for the Defence Ministry’s History division, was handed over in September 1992. This 1965 war history was considered to be safe enough to be moot for general release by N.N. Vohra, defence secretary at that time. However, the Government - more precisely the committee of secretaries.disagreed. The committee which consists of Cabinet, defence, External Affairs, Home and Finance Secretaries, refused permission to publish it. The Ministry was not even allowed to provide copies to the officer training institutions run by the armed forces.
** Contemporary accounts, generated by a jingoistic press, saw the war as a spectacular victory on almost every front. But, the truth, which cannot be hidden despite the best efforts of the official history _ is that the war was, in the words of Lt.Gen. Harbaksh Singh, one of the most distinguished commanders, ‘a catalogue of lost victories.’
there was no strategic plan. As the ‘official history’ compiled by gen. Harbaksh Singh points out, the Indian Air force was not in on the army’s plan to launch a surprise attack towards Lahore and Sialkot. Instead of launching pre-emptive attacks, the IAF was caught unawares by a Pakistani strike on Indian bases on the evening of Sept. 6. **
A retired bureaucrat who was part of the Committee of the Secretaries, has been quoted by the Times of India to say that there were three reasons for the decision: [1] It revealed that the thrust to Lahore was mismanage with the division commander losing contact with his base and that there were differences between Harbaksh singh and the Army Chief; [2] It gave information about certain aspects of command and control; and [3] It had details of operational decisions which in the context of tensions with Pakistan, it was felt, should not be made public.
Poor leadership manifested itself from top to bottom during the 1965 fighting when Gen. Ayub Khan launched Operation Gibraltar an sent nine columns of guerillas into the Kashmir Valley and the then Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri responded by authorising the Indian Army to launch a counter offensive in the Lahore sector to relieve the pressure of Pakistani attack on the Chhamb-Jaurian front in Jammu. On Sept. , Gen. Harbaskh Singh was forced to replace 15 Division commander, Maj Gen. Niranjan Prasad for failure of nerve before Lahore. Two days later, he replaced a brigade commander. According to the official history, on Sept. 10, as Pakistan tried to break the defences of Khem Karan, Army Chief, Gen. J.N. Chowdhuri, tried to persuade Harbaksh Singh to withdraw to the Beas. But, Singh stood firm and, by the end of the day, Pakistan’s 1 Armoured division disintegrated.
But, the crowning blunder of the war was India’s decision to accept a ceasefire in September, 22. throwing more light than as hitherto been available, the Harbaksh Singh report says tat 'towards the end of the war, the Prime Minister enquire from Gen. Chauduri whether India could win a spectacular victory if the war was prolonged for some days. the General replied that most of India’s frontline ammunition ha been used up and there had been considerable tank losses also. But, later it was found that at the time of the ceasefire, only about 14 per cent of India’s frontline ammunition had been fired an the number of tanks still held by India was twice the number Pakistan had.
In fact, the war of 1965 was the biggest intelligence assessment failure in independent India’s history and essentially because the army leadership refuse to accept the intelligence made available by the Intelligence Bureau on Pakistan raising a second armoured division when India had only one. The Pakistani armed forces were hamstrung oy extremely limited ammunition stockpiles and could not have sustained the war for more than three weeks. India’s position was far more comfortable. Yet, there was no proper understanding of this. Because of this, a possible victory was thrown away.
To give a sequence of the events that led to the 1965 war exactly 35 years ago, in April, 1965, Pakistan launched Operation Desert Hawk in the Rann of Kutch. On June 30, 1965, India and Pakistan signed an agreement to settle the Kutch dispute trough international arbitration. The signatories were the Secretary in the Indian External Affairs Ministry and the Pakistan High Commissioner in Delhi - the two being Brothers-in-law. But, even as the agreement was being signed, the Pakistani leadership was preparing for massive infiltration into Kashmir Valley - under the code-name Operation Gibraltar. As remarked by a Pakistani columnist, Altaf Gauhar, a confidant of Gen. Ayub Khan in 1965, in his book ‘Four wars and one assumption’, the military leadership assumed tat India would not offer an effective military response to any Pakistani offensive