4. I am reminded of an incident while I worked with him in the Defence Ministry. It was 1st of September, 1965. As a retaliation to our capturing Hajipur area in Kashmir, Pakistan had launched a full-fledged armoured corps attack in Chhamb-Jurian sector. Geographically, this was a difficult sector for us to defend. By afternoon, many of our forward pickets and fallen. I received a call from Air Marshal Arjan Singh at 4.00 PM for an emergency meeting with the Defence Minister. Both he had General Chaudhary were in my room in five minutes. The Defence Minster was holding a large meeting in his room and so, instead of calling them to his office, he came to my room and had discussion with them. Both pointed out that there was no way of repulsing Pakistani attack without using Air Force. After the 1965 and 1971 wars, use of Air Force looks natural today but it must be remembered that the Sino-Indian war of 1962 was fought without use of air power. Escalation of war through air attacks on civil population was considered dangerous. After listerning to the arguments of the Chief of Staff. Yashwantraoji agreed that Air Force must be used. He asked me to contact the Prime Minister in the Parliament House on the special phone. Unfortunately, Lal Bahadurji was intervening in a debate in Parliament and it would have taken some time before he could be called out. Yashwantraoji aksed the Chiefs of Staff how much time he had to take the decision. They replied that the Air Force, to be effective, must be used before sub-set and considering the time involved in communicating the decision and scrambling the planes, the decision had to be made within 5-10 minutes. Yashwantraoji looked at them, paused and said, "Order the Air Force to attack". How the Pakistani attack was repulsed is now a part of history. I accompanied Yashwantraoji to the Parliament House where he rushed immediately to meet the Prime Minister. He was with the Prime Minister in his room only for a couple of minutes. As we headed back in the car to South Block. I asked him what happened. He said that Lal Bahadurji merely observed, "Well done, this is the most appropriate decision". The story brings out bot the decision-making capability of Yashwantraoji and the excellent rapport he had with the Prime Minister in terms of general strategy for the war.
5. Another interesting incident occurred prior to the war. Against the background of Pakistani infiltration in Kashmir and the expected Pakistani thrust in Chhamb sector, a high level meeting was held to decide on Indian strategy in the event of war. Gen. Chaudhary recommended a counter-attack on the Punjab front arguing that, on account of geographical handicap, a counter-attack over the cease-fire line in J&K would not be effective. The Foreign Office did not agree to the escalation over the international boundary (as different from the case-fire line) and insisted that 48 hours ultimatum would be necessary if counter-attack was to be launched on the Punjab front. Any ultimatum would have removed the element of surprise. Yashwantraoji strongly supported General Chaudhary and made it clear that the strategy should be determined solely with a view to win the war and the point of attack should be in the area of our choosing. This was approved by the Prime Minister. Six days were required from zero date to put the counter-attack plan in operation. The decision was taken on the 1st of September and the attack on Lahore was launched on the 6th of September. So well-guarded was the secret that the surprise was total; Pakistani thrust in Chhamb-Jurian petered out and it was forced to take a defensive role. As Yashwantraoji observed later "Two thousand years of Indian history was a history of invasions on India which Indians tried to defend. On 6th Sept. 1965, India changed for the first time from defence to counter-attack and took the initiative. "Thanks to these bold tactics, India could defend its honour in 1965 in spite of the more sophisticated armed forces of Pakistan.