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Operation Desert Hawk

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Operation Desert Hawk
Part of Pre 1965 war conflicts
DateApril 1965
Location
Rann of Kutch, India
Result Pakistani victory.[1]
Belligerents
 India  Pakistan
Commanders and leaders
Gen. J. N. Chaudhuri Major general Tikka Khan[2]
Brigadier Iftikhar Khan Janjua[3]
Casualties and losses
heavy.[1] low

Operation Desert Hawk was the codename of a military operation planned and executed by the Pakistan Army in the Rann of Kutch area, the disputed area was under Indian control from long-standing status quo.[4] The boundary of Rann of Kutch was one of the few un-demarcated boundary pending since the 1947 partition of India.[5][1]

Background

The Rann of Kutch (alternately spelled as Kuchchh) is a large area of salt marshes that span the border between India and Pakistan. The area was originally part of the princely state of Kutch, which was acceded to the India[1][6] present day Kutch region of Gujarat. Both countries maintained few armed police posts scattered along the border.

Objectives

The Pakistan planned to serve several purpose through this operation, First was to asses the response of Indian government and military,[5] Which was relatively unstable under the governance of Prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri after the death of India's first Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964 and the loss in 1962 Sino-Indian war.[3] The second objective was to draw Indian armor southward to Kutch, away from the Punjab and Kashmir region.[5][4] One of the objective was to test the United states protest over the use of United states supplied military equipment against the India, which was the violation of Pakistan's commitment.[4][1] The Pakistan army also got the rehearsal opportunity for the planned invasion of India later the same year.[5]

Operation

In January 1965, Pakistan claimed the area of Rann of Kutch on the basis of the Sindh province. Pakistan's paramilitary force Indus Rangers started activity to took the control over the ruined fort of Kanjarkot located on the north-west fringe of the Rann,[3] Pakistani Indus Rangers started patrolling below the Indian claimed line by January 1965 and occupied an Indian police post near the Kanjarkot fort, Which was violation of long-standing status quo.[4]

The region's terrain and communication network and logistics was on the favor of Pakistan,[5][7][1] while all the approaches to the Rann of Kutch from Indian side was more difficult than from Pakistan. The Pakistani railway station situated at Badin was 26 miles north of the Indian claim line and Karachi was 113 miles east from the Badin, where Pakistan army's 8 division was based. Pakistan was able to move the troops quickly and easily along the border line. The nearest Indian railway station at Bhuj was located 110 miles from border and the nearest Indian army's military formation 31 Infantry brigade situated at Ahmedabad was 160 miles east of Bhuj railway station.[7]

In February, 1965 the bilateral talk for the negotiation failed.[8]

The Pakistan army equipped with US made Patton tank struck on the Indian forces on 9th April.[8][9] Pakistan launched a major offensive on the Sardar post comprising a brigade strength.[10][11]

On 24 April, Pakistan launched "Operation Desert Hawk" a decisive thrust towards the Indian posts in the area deploying an infantry division and two armored regiments equipped with Patton tanks and field guns. Pakistan army captured four more posts and claimed the whole Kanjarkot stretch, with poor logistics and inferior military hardware India had no option other than retreat after offering a decent resistance.[1]

Ceasefire

The British Prime minister Herold Wilson proposed for ceasefire on 28th April. Both countries signed an agreement to settle the disputed border through international arbitration by the International Court of Justice on 30 June, 1965.[12][1] The ceasefire became effective on 1st July, 1965. India and Pakistan both agreed to demarcate the border by a three-member arbitration committee. The possibility of the armed conflict escalation was avoided by the active interventions of the British Prime minister and United Nations' Secretary-General.[13]

Aftermath

The Pakistan army decision makers assessed the Indian army's strength and capability based on minor success in the Rann of Kutch area and headed towards their next planned execution of Operation Gibraltar in August, 1965.[14]

Despite of India's repeated protest against the use of US made weaponry by Pakistan against the India, President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson took no effective action against Pakistan.[1]

This attack exposed the inadequacy of the Indian State Armed Police to cope with armed aggression. So after the end of the 1965 war, the government of India formed the Border Security Force as a unified central agency with the specific mandate of guarding India's international boundaries. The Border Security Force came into formal existence on the 1st December, 1965.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hiro, Dilip (2014). The longest August : the unflinching rivalry between India and Pakistan. New York. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-56858-503-1. Retrieved 24 May 2022.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ Sagar, Krishna Chandra (1997). The War of the Twins. Northern Book Centre. p. 57. ISBN 978-81-7211-082-6. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
  3. ^ a b c McGarr, Paul M., ed. (2013), "Triumph and tragedy:: the Rann of Kutch and the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War", The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, the United States and the Indian Subcontinent, 1945–1965, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 301–344, ISBN 978-1-107-00815-1, retrieved 2022-05-14
  4. ^ a b c d "Rann of Kutch". www.globalsecurity.org. Archived from the original on 2021-08-24. Retrieved 2022-05-14.
  5. ^ a b c d e Hiranandani, G. M. (2000). Transition to Triumph: History of the Indian Navy, 1965-1975. Lancer Publishers. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-897829-72-1.
  6. ^ Brecher, Angus Professor Department of Political Science Michael; Brecher, Michael; Wilkenfeld, Jonathan (1997). A Study of Crisis. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-10806-0.
  7. ^ a b Bajwa, Farooq (2013-09-30). From Kutch to Tashkent: The Indo-Pakistan War of 1965. Hurst Publishers. pp. 65–96. ISBN 978-1-84904-230-7.
  8. ^ a b SCHOFIELD, JULIAN (2000). "Militarized Decision-Making for War in Pakistan: 1947-1971". Armed Forces & Society. 27 (1): 139–140. doi:10.1177/0095327X0002700108. ISSN 0095-327X. JSTOR 45346403. S2CID 144532810.
  9. ^ Chaudhuri, Rudra (2018-01-01). "Indian "Strategic Restraint" Revisited: The Case of the 1965 India-Pakistan War". India Review. 17 (1): 55–75. doi:10.1080/14736489.2018.1415277. ISSN 1473-6489. S2CID 159008785.
  10. ^ "THE WAR IN KUTCH: DEFENCE OF SARDAR POST | Salute". 2015-10-30. Archived from the original on 2021-01-24. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  11. ^ Colman, Jonathan (2009-09-01). "Britain and the Indo-Pakistani Conflict: The Rann of Kutch and Kashmir, 1965". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37 (3): 465–482. doi:10.1080/03086530903157664. ISSN 0308-6534. S2CID 159494083.
  12. ^ Dutt, Sagarika; Bansal, Alok (2013-06-17). South Asian Security: 21st Century Discourses. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-61767-6.
  13. ^ Pradhan, R. D. (2007). 1965 War, the Inside Story: Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan's Diary of India-Pakistan War. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. ISBN 978-81-269-0762-5.
  14. ^ Yamin, Tughral (2012). "An appreciation of the Pakistani military thought process". Strategic Studies. 32 (2/3): 123. ISSN 1029-0990. JSTOR 48529363.
  15. ^ Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. "Report 1965-66" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-05-15. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
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