Havildar Joginder Singh of 2 Sikh destroyed an insurgent post with two grenades after his convoy was ambushed near Phek on 24 April 1956.
Three Jeeps for Phek
On 24 April 1956, Havildar Joginder Singh of 2 Sikh was leading a three-jeep convoy with supplies for a forward post at Phek, in the Naga Hills. Past milestone 16, on a curved mountain track, insurgents opened fire with light machine guns.
A bullet hit him in the right leg. He got out of the jeep and charged, and six of his soldiers followed.
About 25 metres from the enemy he was shot in the stomach. He crawled on and threw two grenades at the post. His men finished the position, which had been blocking Army movement in the area. He died of his wounds that day, aged 33.
From Datewas to Greece and Africa
Joginder Singh was born on 30 November 1922 at Datewas, then in Bathinda district, Punjab, to Sardar Sham Singh, a farmer. The family could not afford to send him to school.
He enlisted on 30 November 1940, his eighteenth birthday, and served in Greece and Africa. Army courses followed, in map reading and in engineer platoon command, the second graded 'BY'.
The Defence Ministry's portal lists service number 18576 and a posthumous award in the Republic Day list of 1957.
What the citation recorded
The official citation could not be read for this article. Secondary profiles describe an ambush on a supply convoy in the Naga Hills on 24 April 1956, in which he charged after being wounded, was hit again about 25 metres from the enemy, and destroyed the post with grenades before dying of his wounds. This is a summary, not the official wording.
Cover image: Robert Prummel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized for this page. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashoka_Chakra_India_De_drie_medailles_van_voor_1967.jpg