Sitting -Bhagwan Krishan Mathur, Pran Nath, Capt Sethi, Maj G S Sidhu, Capt George Paisley, Balasunramniana Nagaraj
Standing- RN Pandit, C V S Deshmukh, Inder Raj Anand, Surender Nath Sood, Yesh Pal Gupta, Vinod Kumar Arora, Author, Satish Chandra, BP Nigam Standing rear- G P Rao, MR Iyenger, Vishnu Prakash Singh Srivastava, Gopal Krishan Malik, Divender Singh Cheema, Vyacharya Subrramaniam Balan, RS Dhyani, SK Rawala.
Sitting L to R– Capt Gurmukh Singh, Capt Sushil Nath, Maj K S Oberoi, Lt Col A M David, Lt Col GS Siddhu, Maj Dogra, Maj JL Ratan
Standing – Capt V K Pachauri, Author, Capt SN Sood, Capt Raj Saran, Capt DS Cheema.
I knew Brig Sidhu as seen from the eyes of a 2nd lieutenant attending the YO's course when he was officiating wing commander and later on posting as instructor Class C to Tac wing when he was commanding the wing. Some extracts from my books possibly will throw some more light on my prescriptions of Brig Sidhu formed at that time.
The officiating Commander of Tac Wing where we were destined to spend the major portion of the next six months of our stay at Mhow, Major G S Sidhu,…. was not only formidable looking he acted the same keeping us terrorised successfully all the time.
... The confusion created by the mixed lot that we were was further confounded by the fact that the Technical entry was also clubbed with the normal YO course and not the specialised one in Technical Wing as hither-to-fore and what a confusion it was, with Balan, a Bachelor of Engineering and MSc like me and others, Cheema whose only qualification for joining Signals was that he was also an MSc Agriculture; the mixed bag, milling around in the Electricity and Magnetism (E& M) classes and the Laboratories alongwith the other Ex NCC and NDA officers with varying technical background and aptitude was indeed true learning.
The civilian instructors especially the diminutive Mr Murty with his squeaky voice had a harrowing time managing the class with the hare and the hound syndrome. Some like me were pulled up and marched up in the tension filled office of Maj Sidhu, aloof with deep penetrating and withdrawn eyes, for impeding the progress of the class while others for being too slow on the uptake. Extract from 'A Soldiers Journey through Life with Two Wives.'
I was posted to Tactical Wing (TAC Wing) in October 1963, my only qualification for posting, as an instructor to the School of Signals at that time - the involvement of my section in Op Leghorn. Possibly I was also a demonstration piece for the YO’s like the Demo Section which I was given to command to start with. The Commander TAC Wing at that time was Lt Col GS Sidhu.
He also happened to be the officiating OC TAC Wing, when I reported to the School of Signals for attending the YO’s (Young Officers Course) on passing out from IMA Dehradun in Jun 1955. I had done not too well during the portion of the course covered in TAC Wing, I found little interest in the statistical nature of Signal Organisation and Tactics, I was also not very good at games which was considered to be the prime requirement in a young officer. However, I had compensated for that to some extent by my performance during the portion covered in the Technical Wing.
The Technical Wing at that time commanded by Lt Col BS Panwar, was later renamed as FC&VE (Faculty of Communication and Value Engineering), on the School of Signals being upgraded to MCTE. I also had the privilege of later Commanding FC&VE from 1979 to 1982.
I had passed out from the YO’s course with a ‘C’ Grading. Major Sidhu, though a bit surprised with my above average results in Technical Wing had warned me on the day of my final interview with him as the OC TAC Wing, that he would kick me out of the Corps if I did not do well. Possibly it was this threat hanging on my head that made me a reasonable Signals officer. However, I did maintain my record of collecting ‘C’ gradings on all the courses that I attended in MCTE.
Lt Col Sidhu, as Commander of TAC Wing did give me a reasonable ACR (Annual Confidential report), possibly by now he had modified his opinion about me extract from 'Letters From the Border and Other Less Told Stories'
It is also interesting that I followed him all over, though, always a few steps behind. The then Major Sidhu was the BM of 7 Inf Bde before Kharbanda took over from him. I joined as Sparrow 7 Inf Bde soon after he had left. I was also fortunate to command 9 Inf Div Sig Regt of which he was the first CO in the rank of Lt Col. True, but strange, as it may seem. Both of us retired as Brigadiers.
Brig Lakshman Singh VSM (Retd)
