Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Remembering 18th November ...

We all remember and celebrate 14th November, birthday of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, first PM of India or more famously as "Children's Day".

However, does anyone remembers what happened on 18th November, 1962 ? It was a day when we fought in the Indus valley, near Chushul village against the Chinese aggression.

The battle of Rezangla, fought at an altitude of 17,000 feet, is one of the most incredible sagas of valour and courage that Indian soldiers have showed. That was November 18, 1962, exactly 46 years earlier. They fought and died for Indian soil.

They fought till the last man, last bullet ... They were ill-equipped, ill-prepared and heavily outnumbered by the Chinese. All the 114 jawans died in action, not a single soul retreated and neither did they let the Chinese intrude. For three months the government didn't know about them, about their extraordinary sacrifice, till in January-end in 1963, shepherds from Chushul found bodies of jawans scattered on the Rezang La, after the snow had melted. The dead bodies of the Chinese were far more in number, about eight hundred on our side, and it was estimated that more than a thousand might have fallen to the bullets of Indian soldiers.

Read the complete article at:- http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/18sd1.htm

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