Remembering Kargil War

Casualty Evacuation – Kargil 1999: I am going to share an actual wartime experience of handling battle casualties. It is also a reality check for tech-savvy youngsters who believe technology is an answer to all problems. Battle casualties, and I mean the injured or maimed and not dead, is a grave tactical reality. It is planned by adversaries especially in the mountains because of a simple fact — an injured soldier requires a dedicated effort of four people over many days for evacuation. This takes away vital manpower which is a criticality in the mountains. Evacuation is, in turn, critical for morale. Otherwise soldiers will not venture forward. It was key to the heroics performed by Indian soldiers, especially in Kargil. The first story is at Zozila Pass or Gumri which was the site of a field ambulance hospital. The hospital was housed in tents. It served as the main base for triage and lifesupport for critical cases before they could be air evacuated to Srinagar Military Hospital. Incidentally, the road from Srinagar to Zozila was blocked with trucks to supply the Indian Army requirements. Air evacuation was the only way out. I was the CO of a squadron that evacuated nearly 620 causalities from Gumri. Most of these were because of air bursts of artillery shells from which there was no protection on a steep mountain slope. I was surprised to see so many critical cases. Surprise turned to shock when I found only one surgeon was available throughout the war at that place.

I met him while he was at surgery. He was half-asleep! He claimed to be on his feet almost 20 hours every day. It was unbelievable that more surgeons could not be spared at Gumri. The next shock was scarcity of stretchers. The CO of the field ambulance unit refused to let go of the stretchers for fear of accounting. I promised that we would return them on the next trip. In fact, we had an ugly argument but he did not relent. The attendants would get a patient to the Mi-17 and just roll him on the floor (covered by blankets) by tilting the stretcher. They were doing this by the hundreds! Drip bottles and other such fixtures were just tied up to any support available within the helicopter.

The second story is from the Gurej Valley, the westernmost extreme of the Kargil War. The Army wanted to put pressure from the flanks by capturing a Pakistani post Laila-Majnu Tila. In the first attempt at about four in the morning, it suffered huge casualties. All the manpower was used up in bringing back the dead and injured.

The next day, in consultation with the brigade commander, I engaged my two Mi-17s in an unbelievable saga of 47 short hops to drop four 130 mm artillery guns (dismantled) at the high altitude helipad of Chakwali. Actually, there was no helipad, only a dried up stream in the narrowest of valleys imaginable. Many of these sorties were out of the limits of performance of my helicopter. But war is war and improvisation is the answer. It was almost sunset by the time I finished the last sortie. The guns had been put together and had already started firing in the direct mode at Pakistani bunkers (or sangars). That night the battalion (Gurkhas) walked over the post with no casualties since the 130 mm guns had destroyed all bunkers and sangars.

But the real story is what happened after I landed at Chakwali with the last gun part. I had enough fuel to go back to Srinagar. A captain approached me with a request to take three critical casualties and one dead body being brought down from the first attack of two days back.

I was running out of time and fuel, since the engines were running. After five minutes, I called the officer and expressed my inability to wait any more. As I opened throttle, the battalion’s subedar major stood in front of the helicopter with folded hands. What really stopped me was a Gurkha soldier beside him with his rifle pointing at me! The captain came in and apologetically said that the situation was out of his control. We finally waited for 20 minutes and the only thing that stopped me from switching off there was the altitude at which a Mi-17 could never be restarted.

AIR VICE MARSHAL

RAJESH ISSER (Views expressed are personal)