Author: Ahmed Rafiuddin

Publisher:

Published: 2005-04-01

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 9781845740948

In the Indian Army of my day this was the 10th Baluch Regiment which, on the outbreak of war in 1939, consisted of five active battalions (1st to 5th) and a training battalion (10th). During the war a further eight active service battalions were raised (6th to 9th and 14th to 17th) and in addition three Garrison Battalions and four Garrison Companies, the latter providing security and administrative personnel at schools of instruction, GHQ Delhi and military prisons. In May The 10th Training Battalion at Karachi was redesignated the Baluch Regimental Centre (BRC) . Most of this history is about World War II and the part played by the Regiment, whose battalions served in Waziristan (NW Frontier), Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, N Africa, Eritrea, Sicily, Italy Greece, Malaya, Singapore and Burma, winning two VCs and suffering a total of 6,371 casualties of whom 763 were killed and a further 239 died due to sickness etc. Of the total, 92 were officers holding the King s Commission and 168 the Viceroy s Commission (Jemadar, Subedar and Subedar Major). The operations and battles are well described and supported by plenty of maps and a number of interesting photos. But of particular interest is the part dealing with post-war, the birth of Pakistan, partition and the appalling the massacres of refugees and the break-up of the old Indian Army. The author, who was commissioned in the Baloch Regiment in 1958 and commanded its 17th Battalion, is severely critical of the British government, especially Mountbatten whom he accuses of bias towards India. And then the Kashmir situation which led to war between the two countries in 1947-48 and here the part played by Mountbatten is savaged: The situation had become so intolerable that the Supreme Commander, Field Marshal Auchinleck, resigned in protest against Mountbatten s disgusting partiality. There are a number of most useful appendices listing campaigns and Battle Honours (1939-45), honours and awards, casualty figures in detail, succession of COs of all the battalions, the reconstituted Baloch Regiment-1956 and more. There are extensive footnotes and an impressive bibliography and an index.