Maha Vir Chakra and Vashisht Seva Medal winner Kuldeep Singh Chandpuri led 120 soldiers in the Battle of Longewala, while facing a strong 2,500-3,000 assault force of the Pakistani 51st Infantry Brigade. The odds were India would have lost the battle. But Chandpuri and his Batallion held the Pakistanis at bay for a full night until the arrival of the Indian Air Force fighter planes in the morning who destroyed the enemy’s tanks one by one.
Back home, his wife Surinder Kaur Chandpuri had no inkling that war had broken out and neither did she know where was her husband posted. She was travelling with her mother-in-law to Chandigarh when she got to know about the war. She knew he was somewhere in the western sector, but where? When she came to know about the war, she went silent, kept crying, as told by her later reliving the war memories.
She did not know then, it was a historical win with her husband at the forefront of a war that would be remembered for generations to come. We’ve completed 50 yrs of the battle of Longewala and the fourth death anniversary of the hero of the historic battle falls on Nov 17.
Late Brig Kuldip Singh Chandpuri
He was decorated with India’s second highest gallantry award Mahavir Chakra and Vashisht Seva Medal. Such was his strength of character and devotion to the armed forces that he carried a loaded carbine with him to shoot himself if he was captured by the Pakistani troops during the battle of Longewala.
The Battle of Longewala
Fought on 4-5 December 1975, 120 men of 23rd battalion of Punjab regiment led by Major Chandpuri saved a strategically important post backed by 22nd Armoured regiment fighting over 2,000 strong force of the Pakistani army backed by over 40 tanks.
Moving from bunker to bunker, Chandpuri kept inspiring his men encouraging them to beat back the enemy until reinforcements arrived. Kuldip Singh Chandpuri and his men inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy, and forced them to retreat, leaving behind twelve tanks.
Among a few things that Chandpuri used to his advantage was the anti-tank mines laid by the Pioneer. One of the only defence against the powerful enemy was the wire fence that had been basically laid to keep out the wild camels that came sniffing for water.
Having patrolled the areas around and fortified the trenches, the batallion was confident . Intelligence inputs had already pointed to a Pakistani attack, and air strikes on all Indian airfields started on Dec 3 announcing the start of the war on the western front.
On the night of December 4/5, Lt Dharamvir, the Company Officer with Maj Chandpuri, reported large columns of tanks and infantry moving towards Longewala. Maj Chandpuri collected his men, spoke to them about their rich martial traditions and urged them to hold fast at all costs. He, however, said that anyone who feared death was free to leave, but he would fight to the very last. “Loon de mull chakaon da wela aa gaya sathiyo (time has come to repay a national debt),” he had said.
As the enemy inched closer, Chandpuri had no answer from his CO on his request for reinforcements and tanks. The enemy tanks had closed in on the wire and gradually spread out to surround the post. Exchange of small arms fire had commenced, all avenues of reinforcement were now blocked. Maj Chandpuri expected a tank assault on his weak defence anytime. Fortunately, that did not happen. The Pakistani tanks thought the fence to ward off camels to be a minefield, so they stopped, in order to save their tanks.
Maj Chandpuri was now moving under continuous artillery from the enemy. Tank-tracer rounds were guiding every fire and making it more accurate, men were getting injured but seeing their Company Commander move under fire kept the company motivated.
As day broke, the IAF Hunter aircraft took to air strikes targeting every tank in the open, once Maj Chandpuri communicated to the higher-ups that all the tanks that IAF planes were seeing from above were Pakistani tanks.
How did he make it possible?
“I was given a task in writing and I had to complete it until changes were received from the army in writing. I did what was asked to do by my seniors,” he had told the then Field Marshall R M Carver who later went to visit the site which saw such heroism.
Making of the film ‘Border’
Filmmaker JP Dutta’s brother, Squadron Leader Deepak Dutta, was one of the officers who had come as saviours on the dusk of Dec 5 to bombard the Pakistani tankers and relieve the unit of the fight overnight.
JP Dutta was a collegiate when his brother narrated the entire sequence and the chivalry of the infantry unit at his Mumbai home to his family after the war. JP Dutta had then decided he would make a film on this win one day. However, he had to wait for 25 long years to make it because the Official Secrets Act forbids sharing of details of war for 25 years.
Citywoofer.com spoke to late Brig Chandpuri’s son Hardeep Chandpuri who lives in Chandigarh.
Tell us about Brig Chandpuri as a person, a father, an officer?
He was very cool-headed, always helpful, and he went out of the way to help others, especially the JCOs and other ranks.
As a father, he was not strict, but firm. I never remember him shouting at us. I have fond memories of him, we still feel his presence amongst us.
How old were you when the Battle of Longewal was fought?
I was one-yr-old and my two other siblings were born later.
A film was made on this historic battle with Brig Chandpuri as the protagonist, what were his initial reactions?
He always gave credit for the victory to the people who fought with him.
How do you feel being a gallantry award winner’s son?
Our family is the only family in Indian military history to have produced four gallantry award winners – Maha Vir Chakra for my father, my two uncles in the Indian Air Force who received Vir Chakras and another Vir Chakra posthumously for a close relative.
