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The story of bravery of my grand father.
BAPTISM BY FIRE OF
2/LT ZARIF KHAN, MC, 3/16TH PUNJAB REGIMENT
by Maj Gen Syed Ali Hamid (Retd)
Fifty minutes before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they invaded Malaya. On the night of 8/9 December 1941, the 18th Japanese Infantry Division landed on the northeast coast at Kota Bharu and the 5th Japanese Infantry Division (whose call sign was Carp Division), landed 130 km further up the peninsula to secure the Thai ports of Singora and Patani, The Carp Division then rapidly pushed southwest to cross into Malaya before the British could react.
The sector along the western coast of Malaya was defended by the 11th Indian Infantry Division which had plans to launch a pre-emptive strike to deny the Thai ports to the Japanese. However to mount the operation it required a warning of 24 hours but the Japanese gained surprise. The division was caught off-balance as it now had to hastily adopt a defensive posture. Three ad hoc columns were hastily formed to harass and delay the Japanese advance. KROHCOL was the most important of the three and its objective was a 10 km stretch of road known as ‘The Ledge’ which was bounded on one side by a steep hill and on the other by a sheer drop into the River Patani.(1) Blowing the hillside on to the road would have considerably delayed the Japanese and secured line of communication and retreat of the 11th Indian Infantry Division. KROHCOL was originally planned as a brigade sized force but at the last moment all it could muster was 3/16th Punjab and some engineers.
IC-395, 2/Lt Muhammad Zarif Khan, with just a year’s service was commanding ‘D’ Company of Punjabi Muslims. He was the son of Honorary Capt, Subedar Major Tikka Khan Bahadur, IOM, 3/2nd Punjab, who was of Rajput decent and belonged to Karor, a village near Islamabad (2) Tikka Khan was one of the four VCOs who were selected as Indian Orderly Officers in 1926 to attend to the King in Court in London.(3) Zarif had been educated at RIMC Dera Dun where he was a contemporary of Sahibzada Yaqub, Nur Khan, Asghar Khan and Gul Hassan. He and Sahibzada as well as Tikka Khan were commissioned from the same IMA course on 22 Dec 1940. All three would spend most of the war in captivity; Sahibzada and Tikka in a POW camp in Italy and Zarif in Malaya.
The men from Karor had traditionally enrolled in 3/16th Punjab. The battalion had been raised in December 1857 as the Allahabad Levy and in 1890, it was reconstituted with Punjabi Muslims. It fought in the First World War and the Third Afghan War as the 33rd Punjabis and in the Indian Army Reforms of 1921-22, it was renumbered as the 3rd Battalion of the 16th Punjab Regiment Group.(4) At the beginning of the Second World War, it was part of the Sind Brigade Area at Karachi. When Zarif joined it in Dec 1940, the battalion had moved to Secunderabad under the newly created 15th Indian Infantry Brigade. The brigade left Bombay for Malaya in Mar 1941 to join the 11th Indian Infantry Division and on arrival at Penang, 3/16th Punjab was moved to Kroh at the start of Apr 1941.
With the rapid expansion of the Indian Army, all the old battalions were heavily milked of officers and soldiers and it seriously affected their fighting capability. The process continued even after they arrived in Malaya, and in some battalions there were no more than a couple of men per section who had over two years of service. The recruits that filled the void had little basic training and most was related to the desert.(5) The Indian Army had no doctrine for Jungle Warfare, though some formations and units that were based in Malaya earlier trained in ‘Forest Warfare’ as it was termed at that time. Some pamphlets had been hastily compiled and issued but many of the battalions were too busy in preparing defences to devote time for training. In short most of the British and Australian battalions in Malaya were in no way fit to meet the Japanese on equal terms. The topping on the cake was that in Malaya the capabilities of the Imperial Japanese Army were seen “as lying somewhere between that of the Italian and the Afghan Armies”.(6) They were in for a rude shock.
3/16th Punjab crossed the frontier on 8 Dec, some 14 hours after the Japanese landed. It was harassed by units of the Thai police and took over a day to cover 5 km to Betong. This delay proved fatal. The Ledge was still 42 km away and though it made better speed on the morning of 10 Dec, just two kilometers short of it, the leading company commanded by a VCO ran into Japanese tanks and infantry. In a fierce battle that lasted half an hour the company was wiped out. At the sound of battle, Zarif’s company was sent forward to support the leading company while the other two companies deployed to protect the flanks. The battle account of KROHCOL does not provide details of ‘D’ Company’s subsequent action but Zarif’s citation states that “This young officer with great gallantry led his company in a bayonet charge which dislodged the Japanese from a hill overlooking the Ledge position.” It says a great deal for a young officer to successfully lead a charge in his first encounter with the Japanese.
The Japanese 5th Infantry Division, was considered the best division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Formed in 1871, it had fought in many campaigns including the two Sino-Japanese Wars, the Boxer Rebellion and the Russo-Japanese War. Prior to the invasion of Malaya, the division had undergone an intensive training program which included paratrooper exercises.(7) In spite of great pressure from this battle-hardened division, Zarif’s company hung onto its position till nightfall. Unknown to him, this gave the battalion time to take defence with its remaining two companies and check the Japanese. At nightfall, Zarif led his company back in a long detour through the jungle and rejoined the battalion next day much to the relief of the CO who had no information of its fate. Under the dynamic leadership of its young company commander, who was only two days short of completing a years’ service, the company lost only 15 men. During the afternoon of 11 Dec, the Japanese made repeated attacks on the forward troops of 3/16th Punjab, but were repulsed with heavy losses. The battalion casualties, however, after three days and nights fighting had passed the 200 mark. Ultimately it was forced back across the frontier which was now defended by a brigade that had come up from Singapore.
Despite these early losses, 3/16th Punjab Regiment fought on and never broke throughout the long weeks of the campaign as the division conducted a fighting withdrawal. Casualties continued to mount and when the battalion arrived at Klaung on 14 Jan, it was merged with its sister battalion, the 2/16th Punjab to form a composite 16th Punjab Battalion. After three days to rest and reform, it was back in action and Zarif continued to command a company “with determination and skill”. One of the toughest battles was at Kampar, 30 km south of Ipoh and astride the main axis leading to Kuala Lumpur. The composite battalion covered the rear of the Kampar position. It was a ferocious battle in which the Japanese could not break through the defenders and finally outflanked the position with a landing on the west coast south of Kampar. The composite battalion was involved in actions by the rearguard as the troops fell back to the Slim River. The composite battalion was moved to a coastal defense position further south of the river to defend the western flank of the division. It was here that Zarif was promoted to lieutenant on 25 Jan 1942. Following a final battle on the coastal road at Benut, 40 km short of the Johar Straits and Singapore, on 28 Jan the composite battalion covered the withdrawal in concert with the armoured cars of the 3rd Cavalry. During the subsequent battle for the defence of Singapore, on 11 Feb Zarif was badly injured in the face and believed killed. “However he actually stayed in the jungle for over a fortnight assisting a wounded soldier who was unable to move more than a few yards a day.”
For the next 3½ years, Zarif was a prisoner of war. There is a great deal on record how badly and inhumanly the Japanese treated their prisoners and Zarif must have suffered it all. When the captors became the vanquished, he was repatriated to India in Sep 1945. It is very creditable that his act of valor (and of many others) remained on record right through the period of captivity and after the war, Lt. Gen. Sir Lewis Heath, who had commanded the III Indian Corps during the Malayan Campaign, initiated his citation.(8) Zarif was presented the Military Cross by Gen Auchinleck, C-in-C India probably during Auk’s visit to the Centre of 16th Punjab Group at Sialkot in Dec 1945. The untreated injury to Zarif’s face had left him disfigured and he spent two years in UK undergoing facial surgery. Following Independence, Zarif was promoted lieutenant colonel in 1948 and re-raised 7/16th Punjab (19th Punjab) at Sialkot.(9) Following his command, he was again sent to UK for treatment for two years. Through the 1950s and early 1960s, Zarif did a number of assignments with the Frontier Corps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
In January 1963, he was fortunate to be appointed as the commandant of the Punjab Regimental Centre at Mardan because a month later he was privileged to host a visit from the very same officer who 18 years earlier had presented him with the Military Cross. Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck was in Pakistan to attend the joint centenary celebration of 1st Punjab (his old battalion) and 5th Punjab (Sherdills), after which he visited the Centre. It must have been very moving for Zarif to be once again meeting his ‘Chief’ of an era past. A year later, Zarif organized the first reunion of the Punjab Regiment. Not since the four famous Punjab Regiments amalgamated in 1956, had a reunion been held. Among the distinguished guests who attended the celebrations were the President of Pakistan and the Colonel-in-Chief of the Punjab Regiment, FM. Mohammad Ayub Khan, Maj. Gen. Akhtar Hussain Malik and many other serving and retired officers of the Regiment. Zarif retired as a full colonel in 1967 and passed away in 2002.
(1) The Ledge along the River Pattani is now under the waters of the Bang Lang Reservoir which was formed in 1981 by the construction of a dam on the river.
(2) The 3/2nd Punjab was formally the 72nd Punjabis which during the First World War was first deployed along the North West Frontier but later took part in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.
(3) The other three IOOs were RM Nur Khan, Guides Cavalry, RM Faujdar Khan, Skinner's Horse and SM Ahmed Din, 1/4 Bombay Grenadiers.
(4) After Independence it was renumbered as 15th Punjab Battalion.
(5) The Indian Army in the Malayan Campaign by Allan Jeffreys.
(6) Ibid
(7) The Japanese infantry divisions consisted of two brigades each with two regiments. The strength of each regiment was 2600 troops and the total strength of the division was 15,300 troops.
(8) Veteran Campaigners, A History of the Punjab Regiment 1759-1981, by Brig. Abbas Rizvi, pp. 116:
(9) The battalion had been disbanded in January 1948.
Author’s Note: I am grateful to Brig Zahid Zaman
(Retd), Frontier Force, who is the son-in-law of Col Zarif for providing me the pictures, bio data and citation. I am also grateful to Sushil Talwar for sharing with me valuable and detailed information on the officer’s career.
BAPTISM BY FIRE OF
2/LT ZARIF KHAN, MC, 3/16TH PUNJAB REGIMENT
by Maj Gen Syed Ali Hamid (Retd)
Fifty minutes before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they invaded Malaya. On the night of 8/9 December 1941, the 18th Japanese Infantry Division landed on the northeast coast at Kota Bharu and the 5th Japanese Infantry Division (whose call sign was Carp Division), landed 130 km further up the peninsula to secure the Thai ports of Singora and Patani, The Carp Division then rapidly pushed southwest to cross into Malaya before the British could react.
The sector along the western coast of Malaya was defended by the 11th Indian Infantry Division which had plans to launch a pre-emptive strike to deny the Thai ports to the Japanese. However to mount the operation it required a warning of 24 hours but the Japanese gained surprise. The division was caught off-balance as it now had to hastily adopt a defensive posture. Three ad hoc columns were hastily formed to harass and delay the Japanese advance. KROHCOL was the most important of the three and its objective was a 10 km stretch of road known as ‘The Ledge’ which was bounded on one side by a steep hill and on the other by a sheer drop into the River Patani.(1) Blowing the hillside on to the road would have considerably delayed the Japanese and secured line of communication and retreat of the 11th Indian Infantry Division. KROHCOL was originally planned as a brigade sized force but at the last moment all it could muster was 3/16th Punjab and some engineers.
IC-395, 2/Lt Muhammad Zarif Khan, with just a year’s service was commanding ‘D’ Company of Punjabi Muslims. He was the son of Honorary Capt, Subedar Major Tikka Khan Bahadur, IOM, 3/2nd Punjab, who was of Rajput decent and belonged to Karor, a village near Islamabad (2) Tikka Khan was one of the four VCOs who were selected as Indian Orderly Officers in 1926 to attend to the King in Court in London.(3) Zarif had been educated at RIMC Dera Dun where he was a contemporary of Sahibzada Yaqub, Nur Khan, Asghar Khan and Gul Hassan. He and Sahibzada as well as Tikka Khan were commissioned from the same IMA course on 22 Dec 1940. All three would spend most of the war in captivity; Sahibzada and Tikka in a POW camp in Italy and Zarif in Malaya.
The men from Karor had traditionally enrolled in 3/16th Punjab. The battalion had been raised in December 1857 as the Allahabad Levy and in 1890, it was reconstituted with Punjabi Muslims. It fought in the First World War and the Third Afghan War as the 33rd Punjabis and in the Indian Army Reforms of 1921-22, it was renumbered as the 3rd Battalion of the 16th Punjab Regiment Group.(4) At the beginning of the Second World War, it was part of the Sind Brigade Area at Karachi. When Zarif joined it in Dec 1940, the battalion had moved to Secunderabad under the newly created 15th Indian Infantry Brigade. The brigade left Bombay for Malaya in Mar 1941 to join the 11th Indian Infantry Division and on arrival at Penang, 3/16th Punjab was moved to Kroh at the start of Apr 1941.
With the rapid expansion of the Indian Army, all the old battalions were heavily milked of officers and soldiers and it seriously affected their fighting capability. The process continued even after they arrived in Malaya, and in some battalions there were no more than a couple of men per section who had over two years of service. The recruits that filled the void had little basic training and most was related to the desert.(5) The Indian Army had no doctrine for Jungle Warfare, though some formations and units that were based in Malaya earlier trained in ‘Forest Warfare’ as it was termed at that time. Some pamphlets had been hastily compiled and issued but many of the battalions were too busy in preparing defences to devote time for training. In short most of the British and Australian battalions in Malaya were in no way fit to meet the Japanese on equal terms. The topping on the cake was that in Malaya the capabilities of the Imperial Japanese Army were seen “as lying somewhere between that of the Italian and the Afghan Armies”.(6) They were in for a rude shock.
3/16th Punjab crossed the frontier on 8 Dec, some 14 hours after the Japanese landed. It was harassed by units of the Thai police and took over a day to cover 5 km to Betong. This delay proved fatal. The Ledge was still 42 km away and though it made better speed on the morning of 10 Dec, just two kilometers short of it, the leading company commanded by a VCO ran into Japanese tanks and infantry. In a fierce battle that lasted half an hour the company was wiped out. At the sound of battle, Zarif’s company was sent forward to support the leading company while the other two companies deployed to protect the flanks. The battle account of KROHCOL does not provide details of ‘D’ Company’s subsequent action but Zarif’s citation states that “This young officer with great gallantry led his company in a bayonet charge which dislodged the Japanese from a hill overlooking the Ledge position.” It says a great deal for a young officer to successfully lead a charge in his first encounter with the Japanese.
The Japanese 5th Infantry Division, was considered the best division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Formed in 1871, it had fought in many campaigns including the two Sino-Japanese Wars, the Boxer Rebellion and the Russo-Japanese War. Prior to the invasion of Malaya, the division had undergone an intensive training program which included paratrooper exercises.(7) In spite of great pressure from this battle-hardened division, Zarif’s company hung onto its position till nightfall. Unknown to him, this gave the battalion time to take defence with its remaining two companies and check the Japanese. At nightfall, Zarif led his company back in a long detour through the jungle and rejoined the battalion next day much to the relief of the CO who had no information of its fate. Under the dynamic leadership of its young company commander, who was only two days short of completing a years’ service, the company lost only 15 men. During the afternoon of 11 Dec, the Japanese made repeated attacks on the forward troops of 3/16th Punjab, but were repulsed with heavy losses. The battalion casualties, however, after three days and nights fighting had passed the 200 mark. Ultimately it was forced back across the frontier which was now defended by a brigade that had come up from Singapore.
Despite these early losses, 3/16th Punjab Regiment fought on and never broke throughout the long weeks of the campaign as the division conducted a fighting withdrawal. Casualties continued to mount and when the battalion arrived at Klaung on 14 Jan, it was merged with its sister battalion, the 2/16th Punjab to form a composite 16th Punjab Battalion. After three days to rest and reform, it was back in action and Zarif continued to command a company “with determination and skill”. One of the toughest battles was at Kampar, 30 km south of Ipoh and astride the main axis leading to Kuala Lumpur. The composite battalion covered the rear of the Kampar position. It was a ferocious battle in which the Japanese could not break through the defenders and finally outflanked the position with a landing on the west coast south of Kampar. The composite battalion was involved in actions by the rearguard as the troops fell back to the Slim River. The composite battalion was moved to a coastal defense position further south of the river to defend the western flank of the division. It was here that Zarif was promoted to lieutenant on 25 Jan 1942. Following a final battle on the coastal road at Benut, 40 km short of the Johar Straits and Singapore, on 28 Jan the composite battalion covered the withdrawal in concert with the armoured cars of the 3rd Cavalry. During the subsequent battle for the defence of Singapore, on 11 Feb Zarif was badly injured in the face and believed killed. “However he actually stayed in the jungle for over a fortnight assisting a wounded soldier who was unable to move more than a few yards a day.”
For the next 3½ years, Zarif was a prisoner of war. There is a great deal on record how badly and inhumanly the Japanese treated their prisoners and Zarif must have suffered it all. When the captors became the vanquished, he was repatriated to India in Sep 1945. It is very creditable that his act of valor (and of many others) remained on record right through the period of captivity and after the war, Lt. Gen. Sir Lewis Heath, who had commanded the III Indian Corps during the Malayan Campaign, initiated his citation.(8) Zarif was presented the Military Cross by Gen Auchinleck, C-in-C India probably during Auk’s visit to the Centre of 16th Punjab Group at Sialkot in Dec 1945. The untreated injury to Zarif’s face had left him disfigured and he spent two years in UK undergoing facial surgery. Following Independence, Zarif was promoted lieutenant colonel in 1948 and re-raised 7/16th Punjab (19th Punjab) at Sialkot.(9) Following his command, he was again sent to UK for treatment for two years. Through the 1950s and early 1960s, Zarif did a number of assignments with the Frontier Corps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
In January 1963, he was fortunate to be appointed as the commandant of the Punjab Regimental Centre at Mardan because a month later he was privileged to host a visit from the very same officer who 18 years earlier had presented him with the Military Cross. Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck was in Pakistan to attend the joint centenary celebration of 1st Punjab (his old battalion) and 5th Punjab (Sherdills), after which he visited the Centre. It must have been very moving for Zarif to be once again meeting his ‘Chief’ of an era past. A year later, Zarif organized the first reunion of the Punjab Regiment. Not since the four famous Punjab Regiments amalgamated in 1956, had a reunion been held. Among the distinguished guests who attended the celebrations were the President of Pakistan and the Colonel-in-Chief of the Punjab Regiment, FM. Mohammad Ayub Khan, Maj. Gen. Akhtar Hussain Malik and many other serving and retired officers of the Regiment. Zarif retired as a full colonel in 1967 and passed away in 2002.
(1) The Ledge along the River Pattani is now under the waters of the Bang Lang Reservoir which was formed in 1981 by the construction of a dam on the river.
(2) The 3/2nd Punjab was formally the 72nd Punjabis which during the First World War was first deployed along the North West Frontier but later took part in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.
(3) The other three IOOs were RM Nur Khan, Guides Cavalry, RM Faujdar Khan, Skinner's Horse and SM Ahmed Din, 1/4 Bombay Grenadiers.
(4) After Independence it was renumbered as 15th Punjab Battalion.
(5) The Indian Army in the Malayan Campaign by Allan Jeffreys.
(6) Ibid
(7) The Japanese infantry divisions consisted of two brigades each with two regiments. The strength of each regiment was 2600 troops and the total strength of the division was 15,300 troops.
(8) Veteran Campaigners, A History of the Punjab Regiment 1759-1981, by Brig. Abbas Rizvi, pp. 116:
(9) The battalion had been disbanded in January 1948.
Author’s Note: I am grateful to Brig Zahid Zaman
(Retd), Frontier Force, who is the son-in-law of Col Zarif for providing me the pictures, bio data and citation. I am also grateful to Sushil Talwar for sharing with me valuable and detailed information on the officer’s career.
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