One of the oldest surviving officers and longest-serving commanding officer (CO) of the highly decorated 7th Light Cavalry, which created history by operating tanks at never-seen-before heights of 11,000 plus ft in sub-zero temperatures to wrest Zoji La from Pakistani invaders during the 1947-48 Indo-Pak war, Lt Col Gurcharan Singh (retd), was felicitated on his 96th birthday at his residence here today.
The Colonel of the 7th Light Cavalry, Maj Gen NP Singh, Director, Defence Services Welfare, Punjab, Brig JS Arora (retd), Maj Gen GS Malhi (retd), who had served with the regiment, and Col RS Bagga, Officer Commanding No.1 (Independent), Armoured Squadron, were among those who joined the veteran soldier for a cake-cutting ceremony along with family members.
Still alert, though his hearing is impaired in one ear, Lt Col Gurcharan Singh fondly remembered being a Major under the command of the legendary Maj Gen Rajinder Singh ‘Sparrow’, then a Lieutenant Colonel, when the Stuart light tanks of the regiment blasted the enemy positions at unbelievable heights of up to 11,500 ft under extreme treacherous conditions and freed the crucial Zoji La, the gateway to Leh and Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir.
After aerial reconnaissance and a lot of planning and rigorous training for the final operation, on October 29, the regiment commenced the ascent during heavy snow. Getting the tanks up the steep-winding path, with rocky cliff faces on one side and a sheer drop on the other, was a herculean task and at many bends the tank tracks often overshot the edges of the track. So steep was the gradient at some places that the tanks had to be winched slowly.
On November 1, 1948, dawn broke with an overcast sky. As the guns boomed, three lead tanks debouched into Gumri Basin and engaged the enemy bunkers on Mukand and Chabutra positions and knocked them out, enabling the infantry to secure the lower reaches of the basin. The tanks then advanced and knocked out a mountain gun on the North Ridge, clearing the whole basin of the enemy, who retreated in panic.
