WW-II Humber armoured car

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 8

The war horses of yore that had once blazed a trail of glory across battlefields in India and abroad have come alive to commemorate the platinum jubilee of the Army’s “Ghost Regiment”, a sobriquet earned by 63 Cavalry for the shock and awe its tanks created during the 1971 Indo-Pak War by converging on the enemy from four cardinal directions without any warning.A number of vintage tanks and armoured cars have been restored to running condition and these would be participating in a special parade being organised to commemorate the event at the regiment’s location in Amritsar later this week.The showpiece of the event would be American M-113 Bradley, which would be rumbling on Indian soil for the first time. Interestingly, the regiment was also the first to use this equipment before the Americans inducted it in their inventory.The American Cadillac Stuart-VI tank, British Humber and Daimler “Dindo” armoured cars, which are of World War-II vintage and saw action in various theatres in Europe, Africa and the south-east, along with the more recent PT-76 light amphibious tank and the T-55 tank, both of Soviet origin, are among other vehicles participating in the parade, besides the present generation of T-72 tanks that 63 Cavalry now operates.“The vintage vehicles were brought in from various military stations where they were either displayed as war trophies or were lying in storage,” a regimental officer said. “These were repaired and restored in our own regimental workshop over a period of two months,” he added.Raised at Alwar on January 2, 1957, 63 Cavalry was the third armoured regiment to be raised post-Independence. It served in Congo in 1961-62 under the United Nations mandate, where it earned 12 gallantry awards, and consequently its Humber armoured cars were airlifted to Chushul in wake of the 1962 Chinese aggression. During the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, it was the only armoured regiment in the Eastern Theater that reached Dacca. It was bestowed with the Battle Honour “Bogra” and Theatre Honour “East Pakistan” and earned eight gallantry awards.