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Lt Col Dilbag Singh Dabas (Retd)
During Operation ‘Cactus Lily’ on the eastern front, among the seven Brigadier-rank officers awarded the Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) was Brigadier Kailash Prasad Pande, an artillery officer who was considered more than capable to command an infantry brigade.
Affectionately known in the Gunners’ fraternity as ‘Tom’ Pande, he was born in 1925 in an illustrious Brahmin family of Gwalior in the then Central Provinces of undivided India (now Madhya Pradesh). Kailash had his secondary education at Victoria College (now Rani Laxmi Bai Government College) where Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the former Prime Minister, was his classmate. The family had a tradition of its male members joining the Army and after Senior Cambridge, Kailash was commissioned into the Gwalior State Forces on August 25, 1945.
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1 The MVC recipients: Brig (later Maj Gen) HS Kler and (right) Brig (later Lt Gen) Anand Sarup.
Lt Col Dilbag Singh Dabas (Retd)
Chakra awards are associated with the bravery displayed in the face of the enemy. During war, the senior-level commanders’ primary role is planning of operations based on overall strategy and for that they need not be personally facing the enemy. They perform the most challenging tasks by formulating operational plans sufficiently simple and flexible for the junior commanders and leaders to execute.
A military operation seldom proceeds as planned because the enemy’s reaction can never be factored in since his representative wouldn’t be on board while planning. During execution, the senior commanders follow minute-to-minute progress of the battle and should the execution get stalled or even boomerangs, take on-the-spot decisions to ensure success. They are not just responsible but also accountable for the successes as well as failures. By
Lt Col Dilbag Singh Dabas (Retd)
In the 1971 war on the western front, during the battles of Chakra-Dehlra and Basantar in the Shakargarh sector, the Indian Armoured Corps was at its best. During mos
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