1965 A WESTERN SUNRISE INDIA’S WAR WITH PAKISTAN (HB)

In 1965, while India was still
licking its wounds from the disastrous war against the Chinese in 1962, the
belligerent Pakistanis decided to wrest Kashmir from India. To test the
waters, they launched their first military probes into the Rann of Kutch between
February and May; India responded. By the end of July, India gave in to the
dictates of the UN and stood down the troops it had mobilized in the Punjab
and Kargil sectors in response to the Rann of Kutch skirmishes. Pakistan then
launched its masterstroke?Operation Gibraltar?in Kashmir in August. Nearly
12,000 trained mujahids were covertly deployed in multiple groups, each named
after historical plunderers of the subcontinent. Confident that they had
superior armour (M-47 and M-48 Patton tanks), better fighter planes (F-86
Sabres and F-104 Starfighters), and better submarines (Daphnes) than India,
the Pakistanis expected that in the event of an expanded war, the Indians
would collapse just as they had against China in NEFA three years previously.
However, India repulsed the attack and cut off the entry and exit points into
the Kashmir Valley by capturing the Haji Pir Bulge. Operation Gibraltar
fizzled out. Pakistan then launched Operation Grand Slam in September 1965 in
Chhamb and Jaurian. The resultant Indian counter-attack saw the focus shift
to various other sectors?Lahore, Barki, Kasur (Khem Karan), Fazilka, Sialkot,
and Barmer?on the international border. With the two air forces getting
involved almost immediately, the armed skirmishes turned into full-scale
war.?? As they had in 1962, the junior
officers and men of the Indian armed forces acquitted themselves admirably
despite the on-the-fly reorganization of forces, lack of intelligence,
obsolete equipment, and lacklustre military leadership. What could have ended
in victory instead culminated in a stalemate. Official Indian figures put the
total number of casualties at 12,714, out of which 2,763 were killed, 8,444
wounded, and 1,507 went missing.