More on My Artillery Days

20 May.2011
My Army days.


Hi folks, One most amazing advantage of serving in the Army is that you are required to  perform some duties which actually are your hobbies. For example, playing polo is one of them. As a young officer we always performed such duties very enthusiastically.

And the best part of being a Mountain gunner was that one could always find some patch of land even in the operational areas in the hills to practice polo. The picture below was taken in 1965, just before the move of our Battery from one forward location to the other on the Western front (up in the mountains) to participate in the Indo-Pakistan war.

Mountain batteries, Artillery, India & Pakistan

Well, as I mentioned in my previous blog about the 4th Hazara Mountain batteries Frontier Force raised at Abbottabad by Major James Abbott, I must briefly  mention the names of other four Frontier Force Batteries.
After all, as a Gunner, I should take some liberty and vent out the old nostalgic memories of the Artillery days.
So folks, the other Batteries were_
(a) 1st Kohat Mountain Bty (FF) - After partition, the Battery went to Pakistan.
(b) 2nd Derajat Mountain Bty (FF)- (My first Unit), Continue to be with Indian Army.
(c) 3rd Peshawar Mountain Bty(FF)- With Pakistan Army.
(d) 5th Bombay Mountain Bty (FF) -With Indian Army and the became the nucleus of a newly raised Field Regiment in 1963.
(4th Hazara too is a Field Bty and part of a newly raised Regiment)
(All these FF Batteries, raised in 18th century) have fascinating history and battle records.