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書記處書記

@zekward_wax

Apr 23, 2023 • 50 tweets • 20 min read • Read on X

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🇮🇳Jawans in #PLA veterans's eyes.
Some excerpts from the memories of PLA veterans in #1962war— a long thread.
Section 1. Prewar
1. “Many of them like to keep beards & look more mature than their age, but sometimes they act as naive as 7-year old children.”+

"10 of us patrolled, when passing 🇮🇳 post for 50m, 5 🇮🇳 jawans on opposite suddenly launched a battle form, guns pointed at us, with serious & fierce expressions"
"When we turned to leave, they began to whistle &throw stones at us defiantly & cheer wildly, as if had won a battle"

2.
"🇮🇳 soldiers look down upon us, in confrontation at Zerao bridge, their bayonets so close & touched my eyelashes"
"They thought we dare not fight back. In fact, the patience of our comrades at that time had reached the limit, but we could not disobey orders, No shoot-first"

3. "Later,they became more & more presumptuous, began to openly build fortifications in front of our post. When we gave a verbal warning, they would make obscene & provocative gestures"
"Superior only appeased us & said Central Committee would handle this, & ask us to be patient"

4. "After Aug, activities of indians became more frequent. Sometimes even their new post was built behind ours."
"They seem to eager to fight us very much & thought they can beat us easily."
"Knowing verbal warnings were useless, we also began to build posts close to theirs."

Section2 War
1."They are not all tofu fighters(lousy soldiers), Some have considerable combat experience."
"Many beared 🇮🇳 soldiers (Sikh) have good individual skills & accurate shooting"
"🇮🇳 army attaches great importance to frontal defence, but flanks are usually weak" +

2. "The cooperation between various units of 🇮🇳 army is relatively weak, such as lack of cooperation btwn artillery & infantry.
Rigid European tactics, infantry usually hide in bunkers & no flexible mobile warfare"

3.
"🇮🇳 army lacks initiative & dedication, their discipline is poor & will is weak."
"When a defensive point is breached, they are prone to collapse."
"Always, the commander flee first & left his troops in a mess." +

4. "Almost no opportunity for bayonet battle, bcoz most time the enemy always starts to collapse and flee before we charge."
"🇮🇳 army retreated (fled) quickly, & we actually only caught a few part of pows." +

5. "When our army breaks into enemy positions, they usually surrender, but there are exceptions."
"In Pangong lo battle, a dozen Gurkhas refused to surrender & were stabbed death with bayonets in melee battle.
Later, we buried them according to military ceremonial funeral"

6. "There seems to be little mutual support btwn IA units from different ethnic"
"In a battle, our army surrounded a Sikh army & tried to lure the nearby Garhwal troops to reinforce & annihilate them together. But Garhwals didn't come to help, they fled away."

7. "🇮🇳 WWII hero, Brig Gen.Hosier singh, commander of 62 Brigade, was low."
"When his army in a mess after being surrounded, he put on low-rank soldier uniform & fled, then be killed. If it weren't for ID card in his pocket, we would have thought it was just an ordinary Jawan."

8."After we captured Bomdila, the will of enemy basically collapsed."
"We basically failed to meet a decent blocking when advancing, & enemy could not organize a whole unit to pose a threat to our army."
"Enemy mainly fled, & pows we captured were still much less than expected."

9. "Our unit (33rd reg) has defeated IA 4th Div of Dirang Dzong, with the overall goal of capturing enemy General Brij Kaul alive. However, after we captured headquarters of 4th division, Kaul had already fled ahead of schedule."
"This is the biggest regret."

Section3 🇮🇳 PoWs
1. "The 4,000 IA Pows in this pow camp came from 12 ethnics & 5 religions."
"Many can't speak English, but only their own native language."
"Relations between ethnics are not good & they often fight in groups"

2. "They are geat bragger, & vanity."
"When registering, many claimed from rich families owned railways or mines, but couldn't even write their own names."
"They didn't tell truth until be warned PLA is a proletarian army & capitalist PoW must be reeducated for a longer time."

3."One day,some highcaste PoWs protested that here couldn't be called PoW camps, coz 🇮🇳&🇨🇳hv not officially declared war, they shouldn't be called PoW." "After asking for instructions from the superior, PLA changed "PoW camp" into 'China border guards' Indian soldiers' shelter'".

4. "The most difficult to manage are Sikhs, who are extremely aggressive & especially hate Muslims,Garhwals & Tamils." "They like to blame the failure of war on the cowardice of these 3 ethnics, so they always like to find PoWs from these 3 ethnics to fight in groups."

5."The other difficult to manage are Rajputs."
"They always like to brag their higher status & education, & think other ethnic groups are low."
"Rajputs think the defeat is due to ignorance, backwardness& low tactical level of other ethnics,so they often fight with other PoWs."

6. "There always be 6 Singhs & 5 Kumars in every squadron, which is very confusing." "In order to take care of their self-esteem, PLA superiors are not allowed to set prisoner numbers for them, so we use their Surname+Military ID Number to address them."

7. "They always like to make some strange demands." "Once went out to deliver food back,some PoWs actually asked me for wages.They demand payment according to their work."
"I told them these food is for their own dinner, not in scope of wage payment, they just gave up."

8."Managing 4,000 🇮🇳pows is even more difficult than managing 110,000 of 🇺🇸+🇺🇳pows."
"Their dietary habits are very different. For example, Sikhs don't eat beef, but only eat fresh mutton, &they will only eat mutton from sheep slaughter by "Bro" of their own ethnic & religion."

9. "At first, they thought PLA's "equality btwn officer & soldier" was a propaganda. It was not until they saw PLA officers cleaning toilets, chopping wood ,giving haircuts to pows, & eat/live with ordinary soldiers, that they changed their views & gradually took part in labor."

10. "Once, an Indian pow was collecting firewood and found a squadron leader of our army walking behind with a rope. He thought our officer were here to supervise them, so he tied him up with that rope if he didn't behave well." +

"But later, he found our officer also began to collect firewood, he was puzzled. Isn't he here for supervising? He asked the question in his heart, and our army officer smiled & told him that the rope in his hand was used to bind firewood, not to bind him."

11. "Gurkha & Tamils are only used to eating rice, while Sikhs prefer to wheaten food. Rajputs &Garhwals are relatively non-picky eaters."
"We once made vermicelli into sweet staple food, & Indians liked it very much. But if vermicelli is made into a dish, they don't like it."

12."Some IA officers were very stubborn & reactionary. They refused re-education & often incite junior soldiers to protest & hunger strike."
"Corporal punishment of pow is not allowed in our army, so they were isolated separately to prevent them from contacting junior soldiers."

13. "These senior 🇮🇳officers are quite arrogant, they can always find various excuses even if they were defeated on battlefield."
"Some excuses are ridiculous, such as 'I was asleep when PLA attacked in dark, & was not ready'
'Such backstab behavior has no sense of honor.'"

14.“These high caste officers generally hv deep hostility & prejudice against🇨🇳.In their view,🇨🇳is so backward & can only produce silk & tea. During half-yr in pow camp, although we hv conducted a lot of education for them, we still can't change their deep-rooted prejudices.”

15. "Usually, compared with officers from high castes, ordinary soldiers from low castes changed their minds faster." "Many Indian soldiers think that they feel equality here for the first time, & India's propaganda completely distorts the facts."

16. "When handing over pows to 🇮🇳Gov, most pows warmly embraced our army guards & shouted slogans such as "🇮🇳&🇨🇳 are brothers" & "Long live 🇮🇳&🇨🇳friendship"" "Before they left, our army prepared a gift for each of them. Although not expensive, it represented a wish."

17. "When the pows were handed over, the representatives of 🇮🇳RedCross seemed to think these pows made them lose face, so their attitude was quite cold." "This made many 🇮🇳soldiers very chilling."

18. "A few IA officers secretly threatened 🇮🇳pows to throw souvenirs, books & clothes issued by PLA on the ground in front of the camera of 🇮🇳journalists at the handover site to show their absolute hatred for CPC🇨🇳.

19. "At the handover site, the representatives of 🇮🇳Red Cross also explicitly threatened 🇮🇳pows" only brought their personal belongings back to 🇮🇳& threw away everything given by PLA"."

20. "🇮🇳 RedCross representative faced camera, took the lead in shouting "JaiHind", but few 🇮🇳pows responded. When🇨🇳personnel saw this,immediately shouted in Hindi: "Indy Qinni, Bayi Bayi". As a result, 🇮🇳pows shouted together, which made malicious 🇮🇳media feel very embarrassed."

21. In addition,🇨🇳also arranged for 27 captured 🇮🇳army senior officers, including Brig.John Dalvi, to visit Lhasa, Tibet & 6 mainland cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Nanjing, Hangzhou & Wuxi.

"We tailor-made brand-new suits & shoes for them. Coz they are still pows, in order to avoid embarrassment, we didn't arrange any public reception in various places, & used "Mr" instead of military rank throughout the process."

22.After being released & returned to 🇮🇳,Brig.John Dalvi, in his memoir "Himalayan Blunder", described in detail the fact 🇮🇳Gov & army deliberately created border disputes & launched a large-scale attack on 🇨🇳, criticized Nehru's unbridled expansionist policy of "expelling🇨🇳ppl"+

No surprising, the "Himalayan Blunder" was banned by 🇮🇳Gov after its publication, just as "Henderson Brooks report". It is by blocking information that the 🇮🇳gov covers up & tampers with its despicable history.

All the time, history of Indians can contact is fake history that has been greatly distorted. Especially when concerning 🇨🇳.
🇮🇳Gov tried every means to cover up its unjust aggression,& incite nationalism against 🇨🇳when necessary to transfer contradictions.

Some old footage materials about "China border guards Indian soldiers shelter" (French narration, no subtitles)
1.

Some old footage materials about "China border guards Indian soldiers shelter" (French narration, no subtitles)
2.

Some old footage materials about "China border guards Indian soldiers shelter" (French narration, no subtitles)
3.

Some old footage materials about "China border guards Indian soldiers shelter" (French narration, no subtitles)
4.

Some old footage materials about "China border guards Indian soldiers shelter" (French narration, no subtitles)
5.

Some old footage materials about "China border guards Indian soldiers shelter" (French narration, no subtitles)
6.

Some old footage materials about "China border guards Indian soldiers shelter" (French narration, no subtitles)
7.

Written at the end
to 🇮🇳 friends:
This thread has been blocked once.
If it is blocked again, it means someone is unwilling to make you know the turth.
Then you can believe it 100%

Supplementary material:
Any country has dignity, it is often not just disputes over territory & interests that lead to war. Political games often need to leave some room for each other. Anyone who is cornered will fight back.