Military Digest | Truckers, villagers and NCC cadets who fought 1965 Indo-Pak war: a time to remember the forgotten many

Former Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill, who was deputy commissioner of Ambala in undivided Punjab during the war, has written how he requisitioned hundreds of trucks with just a chit of paper signed by him for transporting the 4 Mountain Division to the India-Pakistan border and how the truck company owners and drivers accepted the task without even a murmur of disagreement.

Unfortunately, neither the Punjab Government nor the Union Government has adequately recognised these civilian truckers, even though the truckers attached to Army units and the Army Service Corps (ASC) did receive gallantry awards. But the average Ganda Singh, Nathu Singh, or Tarsem Lal who took part in the war despite being noncombatants has gone unrecognised to date. At least a common memorial needs to come up at a suitable location in Punjab to honour their efforts.

Villagers, NCC cadets and a railwayman

The Pakistan Army’s highly trained Special Service Group (SSG) commandos were paradropped in villages adjacent to the Pathankot, Adampur, and Halwara airfields in Punjab on the intervening night of September 6 and 7.

However, little did these highly trained commandos achieve when faced with the combined wrath of doughty Punjabi villagers and National Cadet Corps (NCC) volunteers. Search parties of villagers, the NCC, and the police caught close to 160 of the 180 Pakistani commandos who had parachuted into Punjab.

The mission to sabotage the three airfields was an abysmal failure, and all captured Pakistani commandos were subjected to a sound beating before being handed over to the military authorities.

On September 13, two extraordinary civilians earned the Ashok Chakra Class III (now Shaurya Chakra) for their daring action of saving a train carrying diesel at the Gurdaspur railway station.

Chaman Lal, a fireman of the Railways, and Sergeant Partap Singh, a cadet of the NCC’s 10th Battalion in Gurdaspur, saved a goods train that was attacked by a Pakistani F-86 Sabre aircraft, with the help of 59 other NCC cadets.

Chaman Lal and Sergeant Partap not only prevented the destruction of wagons and valuable stores but also saved the lives of hundreds of people. Chaman Lal was given the award posthumously, while Sergeant Partap received it from President S Radhakrishnan in 1966.

Villagers in Punjab searching for Pakistan Army commandos who parachuted near airfields in the 1965 war.