Society
Of war and captivity
The Chinese captured this young Army officer in 1962 but they could not capture his spirit
Brig A. J. S. Behl (retd)

From left to right: Lieutenant Sharma, Capt BB Kohle, Second Lieutenant AJS Behl, Lieutenant KK Bhandari

Things were heating up between Chinese and Indian forces in NEFA now called Arunachal Pradesh in August/September 1962. Exchange of fire between the Chinese and Indian forces was becoming almost a daily feature. There was an urgent requirement of additional artillery fire support in 7 Infantry Brigade Sector. To meet this requirement, Army Headquarter decided to send one troop of guns from 17Para Field Regiment to NEFA. I, as a young officer, was a part of this troop.

On September 30, 1962, one troop from 17 Para Field Regiment consisting of four guns, 2 officers (Capt HS Talwar and myself), 2 JCOs and 43 jawans left Agra. From Tsangdhar on October 8, we were heli-lifted and for most of the distance we walked over high mountains. By October 10, we were ready to give fire support to 7 Infantry Brigade along Namkachu River. Two of my JCOs and havaldar Major were evacuated due to mountain sickness and my nursing havaldar died because of this.

On October 20, the Chinese attacked our gun position. By 4 pm due to overwhelming strength of the Chinese and our high casualties, we were forced to surrender. Bad communication made us more vulnerable as we could not appraise the brigade headquarters of our situation. We now were prisoners of war with the Chinese (two dead and seven wounded)

Due to the large Chinese numbers, Indian soldiers were forced to surrender

We were kept near the gun position for a day under heavy guard. Next day I cremated my dead soldiers under the Chinese supervision with a heavy heart.

On October 22, the Chinese took across bridge 3 to their area along Namkachu River. After two days of marching we reached the Chinese roadhead of Marmang. Our journey to PW camp started from here in open trucks with chilly winds and sleet accompanying us. It took us three days to reach the PW camp at Chen Ye village.

Chen ye is an important village, more than a hundred years old. During the Tibetan uprising, the Chinese had bombed this gumpha with huge rocks dropped from planes. This had caused a lot of damage to this gumpha, a large number of lamas and rich people had escaped to India along with Dalai Lama. Since most of the occupants of this village had escaped, it was lying vacant hence the Chinese decided to use it as a camp for their POWs. The Chinese had removed all doors and windows of the houses to keep control over us and deprive us of any privacy. This further made our lives miserable icy winds swept through the rooms.

The Chinese divided all of us into four companies. In one company they kept the Gurkha soldiers, rest of us were divided in to three companies. We had a common kitchen where we ate under the Chinese supervision. The meals were very frugal. In the morning it was two chapattis with radish curry and lunch was rice with radish curry. Dinner again was chapattis of maida with radish curry. The radishes were stale and each one weighed more than 10 kg each. This diet was repeated for our entire stay. Only on New Year’s Day they gave us some pork mixed with radish.

This poor diet did a lot of damage to our health. Some suffered badly from malnutrition and respiratory problems. We had no choice but to eat this and survive in the extreme cold. There were no windows or doors so even in the night we did not feel warm. Survival was the aim of the game as a POW.

There were interpreters for Hindi, English and Gurkhali. All interpreters were political people. The interpreters tried to talk to us in order to extract military information and humiliate us at the same time. Till the end the Chinese did not give up on this effort of theirs with almost no success.

By end of our captivity we all had lost weight and looked like skeletons. We had a dispensary in our camp. It had very basic medicines and a doctor who spoke only Chinese. Three of us (Capt Talwar, Lt Bhup Singh and I) reported sick almost every day. We managed to collect medicines for our future plan of escape during summer season when the passes will be open; the mountains will not have much of snow. This also gave us chance to talk to our boys as there was less security in the dispensary. We talked to our men to raise their morale and advised them how to talk to the Chinese interpreters. In about six months time, we had collected and hidden all types of tablets for fever, upset stomach and other small ailments to last us for our planned escape.

Our men were disciplined and acted as instructed by the officers. They gave due respect to officers.

My gun fitter Sardar Singh, who was working in our cook house, brought a mug of morning tea every day for me and my troop commander. My jawans brought us hot water once a fort night at 2 AM so that we wash our hair. Capt Talwar and I were the only two Sikhs who did not cut our hair because we got hot water to wash our hair. This speaks volumes about the loyalty of our men. They did this at a great risk of being caught by the Chinese.

Even after seven months of torture, fear and and uncertainty, our spirits were not broken. We got the news in first week of May 1963 that we will be repatriated soon. This brought hope. We were repatriated on May 23 at Bumla. Breathing fresh air as a free man was a great feeling. As free Indian Army officers, we started our journey to freedom in India.

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