The only officer to serve all the three Services on Friday celebrated his 100th birthday. Colonel Prithipal Singh Gill(retired)also fought in the India-Pakistan war as an Army officer.
Gill is the only officer to have served in the Royal Air Force(RAF), Royal India Navy and then the Indian Army. He started his career in the pre-World War II era as a young pilot in the RAF. He saw action as a naval officer in world war two.
Gill was born in 1920 in Patiala and studied at Government College, Lahore. He got married to Preminder Kaur in 1950. The couple presently resides in Chandigarh with their children and grandchildren.
Gill joined the RAF in 1942 without the consent of his family. He was commissioned as a Pilot Officer and stationed at Karachi flying Howard aircraft. Flying was then considered unsafe and his family did not want their son to live the life of a Pilot. This is when a British General, known to the Gill family, General Savoy, came to his help and was able to have Pilot Officer Singh transferred to the Navy.
In the Navy, he served on a minesweeping ship and later on INS Teer which was a Navy escort Ship for cargo ships during World War II. Gill was detailed to attend the Long Gunnery Staff Course at School of Artillery, Deolali, and he qualified as an Instructor in Gunnery. He then sought a transfer to the Army, which was approved, and he was posted to “Gwalior Mountain Battery” equipped with 5.4 inch Howitzers.
He later served with 34 Medium Regiment and later raised and commanded 71 Medium Regiment. During the 1965 Indo-Pak War when four guns of his regiment were cut off by enemy action, Gill personally led a successful mission to retrieve the four guns.
On promotion to the rank of Colonel, Singh commanded an Assam Rifles Sector in Ukhrul, Manipur. He took premature retirement in 1970 and went to farming the family lands at his native village Pakhi in Faridkot District.