The Regiment of Artillery marks 28 September 1827 as its raising day and won its only Victoria Cross through Havildar Umrao Singh in Burma in 1944.
Kaladan, December 1944
When the Japanese came for Havildar Umrao Singh's gun in the Kaladan valley on 15 December 1944, they first shelled and mortared the position for about an hour and a half. He commanded one gun of 33 Battery, 30 Mountain Regiment, in an advanced position, with the battery attached to the 81st West African Division. Two companies of Japanese infantry then attacked.
Two grenades wounded him in the first assault. He held off the next attacks, firing a Bren over the gun shield at men about five yards off. When the last rush came the ammunition was gone and the neighbouring gun had been overrun, and he fought hand to hand. He struck down three men before he was knocked unconscious. He was found later beside the gun with seven severe wounds and ten Japanese dead around him. The gun could still fire.
It is the only Victoria Cross won by the Indian Artillery. Umrao Singh, born at Palra near Rohtak, received it from King George VI at Buckingham Palace in October 1945 and rejoined the Army in 1948. He retired as an honorary captain in 1970 and went back to farming a two-acre holding, and he refused to sell the medal.
Golandaz and the ban
The East India Company raised its first regular artillery company in 1748, with Indian gun lascars, tindals and serangs in its ranks. The date the regiment keeps comes later. On 28 September 1827 the 8th Company of the Golandaz Battalion, Bombay Foot Artillery, was raised, and it survives as 5 Bombay Mountain Battery. Its unbroken service is the reason 28 September is Gunners' Day.
After 1857 the British trusted Indians with no guns except mountain guns, and that ban lasted until the 1930s. On 15 January 1935 'A' Field Brigade was raised at Bangalore, the first artillery unit officered by Indians, and P. S. Gyani, later a lieutenant general, was the first Indian officer commissioned into the artillery. The title went through several changes: the Regiment of Indian Artillery in 1940, the Royal Regiment in 1945, and the Regiment of Artillery after India became a republic on 26 January 1950. At Partition India received 18.5 regiments and Pakistan 9.5.
Devlali has been the home of the School of Artillery since 1941. The Artillery Centre at Golconda, Hyderabad, opened on 15 August 1962 alongside the centre at Nashik Road. Two arms have since left the regiment: the Air Observation Post in 1986, to become the Army Aviation Corps, and Air Defence in 1994.
Twelve guns at Anzac
The two Indian mountain batteries at Gallipoli, 21 (Kohat) and 26 (Jacob's), went ashore at Anzac with the Australians and New Zealanders in late April 1915. They brought 12 guns, 13 officers, 820 rank and file and more than 500 mules. Accounts differ on the hour each battery landed. At noon on 26 April, three guns on each side of White's Valley had opened on Battleship Hill and Scrubby Knoll. Turkish artillery replied and silenced the battery; Captain P. C. Chapman was wounded in the forehead and later died in Egypt. By the late afternoon only four of the six guns could be worked, and the valley behind them was full of dead mules.
Bum La, Poongli, Tiger Hill
On 23 October 1962 the Chinese came through Bum La against 1 Sikh. Captain Gosal directed the fire of 7 (Bengal) Mountain Battery, and it broke the attack.
In December 1971 the 49 Para Field Battery dropped with 2 Para to seize the Poongli bridge near Tangail. On the 16th, 2 Para became the first unit into Dacca, at about 11.30 in the morning.
Lieutenant General P. R. Shankar, a former Director General of Artillery, has written that more than twenty artillery regiments were concentrated for the Kargil fighting by 10 June 1999, with 105 mm guns, 155 mm Bofors, 120 mm mortars and BM-21 rocket launchers. He gives over 2,50,000 shells, bombs and rockets fired, and about 9,000 shells on Tiger Hill when it was retaken. Guns were run forward for direct fire, and at the peak each battery fired more than a round a minute for 17 days.
SP's Land Forces listed the regiment's decorations in 2017 as one Ashoka Chakra, seven Maha Vir Chakras, eight Kirti Chakras, 92 Vir Chakras, three Yudh Seva Medals, 56 Shaurya Chakras and 441 Sena Medals for gallantry, with 40 honour titles.
At a glance
- Raised: 28 September 1827 (Gunners' Day, the raising of what became 5 Bombay Mountain Battery)
- Regimental centre: Artillery Centre, Nashik Road; Artillery Centre, Hyderabad
- Motto: Sarvatra Izzat-o-Iqbal (Everywhere with Honour and Glory)