To commemorate the Golden Jubilee celebrations of 1965 War Victory, UPES was selected by ‘RAPID STRIKE’, the army formation at Dehradun. A three hour session was conducted in the ‘Vivekananda Auditorium’ on Tuesday morning which included presentations, screening of real time war clippings, panel discussions and an
open house question/ answer session.
The programme began with screening of real time war clippings of the 1965 Indo-Pak conflict which lasted 22 days. These rare war clippings pertained to actual ground operations in various sectors which included Chamb and Akhnoor sectors in Jammu & Kashmir, on one side, and Khem Karan , Phillora and Sialkot sectors, on the other.
After paying two- minute silence, Maj Gen M S Ghura, GOC of 14 RAPID(S) shared that the Pakistan Army and Air Force were better equipped than India during the 1965 conflict. Their Patton Tanks were far more superior than our ‘Centurians’ and ‘ Shermans’. So were their air strike planes but the guts of Indian soldiers proved to be far superior to them in the end,
he said.
Col JVS Rathi, commanding officer of 5/9 GR, gave a detailed presentation on the famous operation “Nepal”, the famous tank Battle in Phillora. This tank battle has been rated as the most fierce tank battle after world war –II. He talked in details about various tasks given to 11 Corp and 01 Corp in the Punjab sector. He also shared that 1965 saw the Indian Army and Air Force fight a war together for the very first time.
Brig R Pandey, Commander 14 Artillery Brigade, in his presentation, encompassed all aspects of this conflict with sequence of events, including the first offensive launched by Pakistan in Rann of Kutch almost six months prior to the full scale war. He spoke about Pakistan’s operation ‘Gibraltor’ in the Kashmir valley and India’s counter operation “Bakshi” in which the very strategic “Haji-Pir” bulge between Poonch and Uri was captured by Indian forces on the night of August 24 1965. He spoke in details about Pakistan’s operation “Grandslam” in Akhnor sector and how it was neutralised within five days of going into the war.
Holding the audience of students and staff of UPES in rapt attention, he then explained in details the Indian operations in the lahore, Kasur and Sialkot sectors. He also spoke about some miscalculations made by Pakistan in its war strategy.