Dragon Fire

India — Pakistan Border, Rajasthan

‘Ready to move, General?’ The voice of Corporal Vasant Kaul in Gurjit Singh’s headphones told him the corps was ready to advance.

Instead of replying directly, Gurjit Singh tapped Kaul’s shoulder with his boot, gave the thumbs-up sign, and the tank lurched forward. It was a breathtaking sight, line after line of armour turning the sand of the Thar Desert into a huge dustcloud covering 100 kilometres from end to end. Thirty minutes earlier, ground-attack aircraft had blasted a path through the minefields, so that each of Gurjit Singh’s five sector commanders would have a clear path through.

Silk sector took the road through Madargh towards Mirbur Marthelo. Cotton was next through Sandhi towards Ubauro. Gurjit Singh himself was Leather sector, with the road to Sadiqabad. But he would turn south well before that to take Walhar. Wool and Calfskin sectors broke through the border together and separated where the road split just before Islamgarth, bypassing the town. Wool headed towards ruins of Baghla south of Rahimyar Khan. Calfskin advanced more directly north towards Khanpur. As each armoured column finished crossing the border, infantrymen stuck a signboard in the sand saying, ‘Welcome to Indian-administered Pakistan.’

But the euphoria was short-lived. The tank commanders were faced with a depressing tableau of the destruction caused by the artillery and air bombardments. For the first thirty kilometres (about the range of the barrage) they met no resistance at all. The desert around them was a smouldering graveyard of charred bodies, destroyed vehicles and arid ground. After the banter of pre-battle nerves, the advance into Pakistan was a disheartening anti-climax. They drove along a moonscape of craters gouged out of the earth by artillery shells, their radios mostly quiet, except for a steady bleep, every fifteen seconds, to tell them that the lines were still secure.

Thirty-five kilometres in, Leather sector sighted the first enemy position. ‘Contact dug-in infantry,’ said a tank commander. ‘Contact. My tanks have engaged.’

The other sectors continued the advance.

‘No return fire,’ said the commander. ‘White flags. Platoon-size position.’

Ten minutes later Silk sector reported coming under attack: ‘One tank hit. Hand-held anti-tank weapon… bunker destroyed.’

‘Casualties?’ asked Gurjit Singh.

‘Two dead. The tank commander seriously injured.’

‘Damn!’ he snarled, knowing that men would be killed, but angered by the first news of casualties.

Similar skirmishes broke out throughout the afternoon. Prisoners were taken. Bunkers were destroyed. The attacks appeared to be random, as if the whole of the Pakistani command and control system had broken down and individual soldiers had been left to fight wherever they saw fit. Indian aircraft flew overhead with control of the skies. Helicopter crews had the most dangerous assignments, flying into far forward positions to test the enemy fire and reporting back.

‘Continue to avoid civilian population centres,’ ordered Gurjit Singh. ‘But armour remains a threat and must be engaged when seen.’

In the first six hours of the assault, the Pakistani vanguard troops shot down three helicopters and damaged five others with machine-gun fire. They mainly operated in the fast-moving, Chinese-made armoured personnel carriers, which were far more mobile than the Indian armoured formations. They destroyed ten tanks and immobilized another eight others.

Then, in the early afternoon, Cotton sector came under a short but damaging artillery attack. Two damaged T-90s blocked the cleared minefield path and stopped the advance in its tracks. The tank commanders behind had no choice but to sit it out for thirty-five minutes while enemy spotters in hidden bunkers directed fire onto their positions. They heard radio reports of tank crews calling in hits or getting blown to pieces around them. Finally, Indian aircraft silenced the guns, then blew a new path through the minefield on either side of the Madargh road.

The worst confrontation took place with Wool sector around the ruined ancient settlement of Bhagla, where satellite pictures had shown only a token Pakistani presence. Thirty minutes before approaching the area, helicopters buzzed it and failed to draw enemy fire. The crew reported signs of fresh wheeltracks, sandbag positions having been removed, and some civilian movement inside the old settlement walls.

‘Bhagla unlikely to present a challenge,’ reported the helicopter pilot.

The Wool commander, Colonel Neelan Chidambaram, gave the order to bypass Bhagla and leave behind a token occupying presence until the second wave arrived. But as they came within 275 metres of the main settlement, a fusillade of enemy fire with anti-tank weapons, recoilless rifles and heavy machine guns opened up on them.

‘Sustained and heavy anti-tank fire,’ reported the commander. ‘Request permission to take Bhagla before proceeding.’