Author: Admiral J G
Nadkarni (retd)
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: December 23, 2000
It is history revision
time. We have recently seen revised versions of the 1965 and 1971
wars with Pakistan. An "official" history of 1971 has recently been
published. A large number of files and papers gathering dust in archives
have now become available and a whole army of historians, researchers,
investigative reporters and iconoclasts are out there pouring over every
battle, legend and tradition. Man's perpetual search for truth has
led to newer and sometimes less flattering versions of some events.
Myths are being shattered.
Of course, official history
need not necessarily be true history. Indeed, there is no such thing
as "true" history. There are only different versions of the same
event. Thus the Russian historians writing the history of the "Glorious
Patriotic War" (Second World War) rarely mention the enormous amount of
military aid received through the heroic Arctic convoys. Western
historians downplay the part played by the Red Army in subjugating Hitler's
invincible panzers.
Military history is even
more confusing than political history. Very few have any recollection
of what exactly happened in the heat of battle. During debriefs people
tend to exaggerate their own part and contribution. Thus varied interpretations
of events get written.
Shivaji's encounter with
Afzal Khan is viewed as a great act of courage and shrewdness by historians
from Maharashtra; as an act of treachery in some parts of North India.
Sometimes the rush to
pass judgement attracts speedy denouement, leaving all concerned with egg
on their face. An intrusion into the naval chief's house turned out
to be nothing more than a wonky guard trying to commit a half-hearted suicide
and then letting loose some rounds at an imaginary intruder, causing considerable
embarrassment to naval spokesmen.
Just 50 years ago George
Custer's last stand at Little Big Horn and the Charge of the Light Brigade
at Balaclava were firmly entrenched in the halls of fame as gallant actions
in the face of overwhelming odds. Subsequent investigations and writings
have established both the actions as avoidable and the results of arrogant,
stupid and rigid leadership.
Recently the BBC aired
the strange story of the aircraft carrier Glorious which was sunk by two
German battleships in 1940. Up to now, the sinking of the Glorious
and her two attendant destroyers was touted as a heroic action by an inferior
force in the face of a superior and powerful German fleet. The carrier
according to the earlier story went down with colours flying in the best
traditions of the service. Not so, says the BBC. In fact the
board of inquiry into the loss found such monumental blunders all round
that the British government ordered the inquiry papers to be kept a secret
for 100 years!
To start with, the commanding
officer of the Glorious was a submariner and a bit of a martinet who had
his own ideas about how to use air power. He had violent disagreements
with the head of the ship's air department, to such an extent that he took
the unprecedented step of landing the Commander (Air) ashore before the
ship sailed for the crucial Norwegian operations. During its return
from Norway, the Glorious set off ahead of the main force, ostensibly because
she was short of fuel, but actually because the Captain was in a hurry
to court-martial the commander.
During return, he disregarded
the advice of his subordinates to carry out air reconnaissance which might
have revealed the presence of two German battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
at sea. Instead he had all the ship's aircraft secured in the hangar
below. The Germans accidentally came upon the carrier and their third
salvo landed on the carrier's flight deck making any air operations impossible.
The carrier and the two destroyers were sitting ducks to the might of the
German guns and all were sunk. The carrier's urgent report about
the two battleships was transmitted and received correctly by the cruiser
Devonshire which was in the vicinity. But the cruiser was engaged
in an important assignment, bringing King Haakon of Norway and the royal
family to Britain. It had strict orders from Churchill not to divert.
The captain disregarded the cry for help and did not go to the rescue of
the carrier. More than 900 seamen perished in the disaster in what
has been termed as a "Glorious cockup."
Victory has many fathers,
defeat is an orphan, said John F Kennedy. Sometimes the exercise
to rewrite history is undertaken to claim belated credit in a action.
Forty or fifty years after the event is a safe time to pronounce judgements
without fear of contradiction.
The Indian Navy celebrated
its Navy Day, on December 4, the day on which a force of missile boats
attacked Karachi harbour. The encounter resulted in the sinking of
one Pakistani destroyer and one mine sweeper. In addition a destroyer
and a fleet tanker were badly damaged. Subsequently the missile boats
let lose their remaining missiles on Karachi which managed to set fire
to the oil installations at Kiamari.
More than a few people
were surprised recently when, according to the official history, the India
Air Force claimed most of the credit for the navy's attack on Karachi.
In this version, the attack was only successful because the Indian Air
Force destroyed the Pakistan Air Force and allowed the naval ships to carry
out their attack without fear of a strike by the PAF. In addition,
they supplied a Combat Air Patrol over the boats to protect them.
Moreover, the oil tanks at Kiamari were destroyed by air attacks and not
by the navy.
This was, of course,
news to the navy. The naval plan was bold and audacious and its success
depended on surprise and a modicum of luck. Fortunately for the navy,
both the strategic and tactical surprise was complete. The missile
boats had come to India in early 1971. Such type of boats and their
missiles had sunk the Israeli destroyer Eilath nearly 8 years ago.
Yet the Pakistani intelligence appeared oblivious to the deadly power of
such missiles against gun ships. They were also unaware of the masterstroke
conceived by Admiral Nanda, the Indian Navy chief, in using missile boats
in the offensive role.
The missile hits on Kiamari
were also sheer luck. The P-15 missiles used in the action are meant
for attack against surface ships. A surface ship at sea will result
in a small echo in the missile's radar and the missile is designed to home
on to that echo. The missile was not designed to attack shore targets.
Approaching the shore, the radar will get saturated by echoes and thereafter
there is no knowing what the missile will home on. Naval observers
who saw the missiles home on to the oil tanks believe that it was due to
the strong echoes which the metallic tanks returned.
The navy's second stroke
of luck had to do with the state of the Higher Defence Organisation in
Pakistan. In 1971, Pakistan's naval headquarters was situated in
Karachi. The other two chiefs sat in Islamabad. There was little
cooperation between the services. There was a dedicated maritime
strike squadron but the air chief, who commanded all aircraft, committed
them to the land battle elsewhere. The desperate calls by the Pakistan
Navy for a strike on the missile boats were ignored by the PAF. The
missile boats returned without loss to Bombay.
Rewriting history in
their own image is of course not peculiar to India. Towards the fag
end of the 1971 war President Nixon decided to send the 7th fleet to the
Bay of Bengal. By the time the fleet arrived anywhere near the scene,
Pakistani forces in East Bengal had surrendered. Having achieved
their limited objective in the East and seeing no particular reason to
prolong the war in the west, India declared a unilateral cessation of hostilities.
Yet it did not stop Nixon and Kissinger to claim that the cease-fire was
due to American pressure and the presence of the 7th Fleet.
Newer versions of past
events will no doubt get written. They may well serve to correct
our present perceptions, if not to make villains out of heroes and vice
versa.
