56 Field Regiment (Jitra) is part of the

Regiment of Artillery The Regiment of Artillery is a combat/fighting arm of the Indian Army, which provides massive firepower during all ground operations of the Indian Army. It is a successor to the Royal Indian Artillery (RIA) of British Indian Army, which itsel ...

of the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

Formation

The regiment was raised on 15 April 1964 at

Aurangabad Aurangabad ( is a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Aurangabad district and is the largest city in the Marathwada region. Located on a hilly upland terrain in the Deccan Traps, Aurangabad is th ...

as 56 Mountain Composite Regiment (Pack). Lieutenant Colonel Kailas Prasad (Tom) Pandey was first commanding officer. The unit is presently a field regiment.

Batteries

At the time of formation, the regiment had the following three batteries: ; 4 (Hazara) Mountain Battery (Frontier Force) This battery joined the regiment from 22 Mountain Regiment. It is one of the oldest and most decorated mountain batteries. It was formed at Haripur (presently in Hazara, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Pakistan) from a small body of Hazara gunners raised by Major James Abbott for local defence between 1848 and 1849. The troop nucleus of a native officer and twenty men was from the artillery of Shaikh Imam-ud-din, who was the governor of the Sikh province of Kashmir. On 2 April 1851, Lieutenant G.G. Pearse, Madras Artillery was appointed in charge of the Hazara Mountain Train, in addition to his duties as the Assistant Commissioner. The battery has gone through many name changes: *Hazara Mountain Train *In 1856, Hazara Mountain Train Battery, Punjab Irregular Force *In 1865, Hazara Mountain Battery, Punjab Frontier Force *In 1876, No. 4 (Hazara) Mountain Battery, Punjab Frontier Force *In 1901, Hazara Mountain Battery *In 1903, 24th Hazara Mountain Battery (Frontier Force) *In 1920, 24th Hazara Pack Battery (Frontier Force) *In 1921, 104th (Hazara) Pack Battery (Frontier Force) *In 1927, 4th (Hazara) Mountain Battery (Frontier Force) *In 1932, 4th (Hazara) Mountain Battery, R.A., F.F. The battery has won the following battle honours: *

Ali Masjid Ali Masjid (Pashto and ) is the narrowest point of the Khyber Pass. It is located in Khyber District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is around east of the city of Landi Kotal (West of Peshawar) and has an elevation of . The width of the Kh ...

* Kabul, 1879 * Afghanistan, 1878-80 * Burma 1885–87 *

Chitral Chitral ( khw, , lit=field, translit=ćhitrār; ur, , translit=ćitrāl) is situated on the Chitral River in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It serves as the capital of the Chitral District and before that as the capital of Chitral ...

* E.Africa 1917-18 *

Jitra Jitra ( zh, 日得拉) is a town and a mukim in Kubang Pasu District, in northern Kedah, Malaysia. It is the fourth-largest town in Kedah after Alor Setar, Sungai Petani and Kulim. History During World War II, when the Japanese attacked Mala ...

;145 Mountain Battery (Pack) This battery joined the regiment from 52 Mountain Regiment (Pack). It was incidentally raised in 1952 by Lieutenant Colonel KP Pande, the first commanding officer of the regiment. ;563 Mountain Battery This youngest battery was raised along with the regiment in 1964.

Operations

The regiment has taken part in the following operations: ;

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 Decem ...

The regiment was part of 95 Mountain Brigade deployed in the northern sector for the liberation of

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. It was equipped with 76 mm guns. On 3 November 1971, the regiment provided artillery support to 13 Rajputana Rifles in the capture of Telikhali (east of Jamalpur-Tura-Sherpur road). The regiment lost one gunner (Gunner Raja Gopal Pandurang) and two officers wounded. The regiment took part in the battles at Jamalpur and Kamalpur. At Kamalpur, it provided accurate artillery support to 1 Maratha Light Infantry and 13 Guards. During the capture of Kamalpur on 4 December 1971, Captain Vijai Pratap Singh of 4 Hazara Battery was the

Forward Observation Officer An artillery observer, artillery spotter or forward observer (FO) is responsible for directing artillery and mortar (weapon), mortar shooting, fire onto a target. It may be a ''forward air controller'' (FAC) for close air support (CAS) and spo ...

with 13 Guards. Once the company commander of 13 Guards got injured, he too charge. But soon after, he along with his radio operator Gunner Hans Raj were killed by enemy fire. Bahadur Singh, the technical assistant took over the role and directed fire on the enemy. The enemy surrendered on the evening of the same day. The regiment won the following gallantry awards: *

Vir Chakra Vir Chakra (pronunciation: ʋiː ɾ a tʃ a kɾa) is an Indian wartime military bravery award presented for acts of conspicuous gallantry in the presence of the enemy on the battlefield and is third in precedence in wartime gallantry awards and ...

– Captain Vijai Pratap Singh (posthumous) *

Mentioned in dispatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

–Captain Charan Singh Bahara ;Other operations: * Operation Trident * Operation Falcon *

Operation Rakshak Capt. Sanjay Chauhan, SC, was an Indian Army officer of the 16 Rajputana Rifles. During a military counter-insurgency operation in Jammu and Kashmir, India, Captain Chauhan attempted to infiltrate an enemy militant group. On the basis of actiona ...

– the regiment took part in counter insurgency operations in

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

between 1991 and 1992. *

Operation Rhino Operation Rhino was a raid led by the United States Army's 75th Ranger Regiment (Regimental Reconnaissance Company) and (3rd Ranger Battalion), who were led by Colonel Joseph Votel, and other SOCOM units on several Taliban targets in and around K ...

– counter insurgency operations in

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

between 2000 and 2003. *

Operation Meghdoot Operation Meghdoot ( "Operation Cloud Messenger" after a famous Sanskrit poem by Kalidasa) was the codename for the Indian Armed Forces' operation to seize control of the Siachen Glacier in Kashmir, precipitating the Siachen conflict. Exe ...

– the regiment was posted in the highest battlefield in the world,

Siachen Glacier The Siachen Glacier is a glacier located in the eastern Karakoram range in the Himalayas at about , just northeast of the point NJ9842 where the Line of Control between India and Pakistan ends. At long, it is the longest glacier in the Kar ...

between 2008 and 2010.

Honours and achievements

*4 (Hazara) Mountain Battery (Frontier Force), which was then part of 22 Mountain Regiment took part in the

Battle of Jitra The Battle of Jitra was fought between the invading Japanese and Allied forces during the Malayan Campaign of the Second World War, from 11–13 December 1941. The British defeat compelled Arthur Percival to order all Allied aircraft stationed ...

from 11 to 13 December 1941. This battle was fought between the invading Japanese and Allied forces during the

Malayan campaign The Malayan campaign, referred to by Japanese sources as the , was a military campaign fought by Allied and Axis forces in Malaya, from 8 December 1941 – 15 February 1942 during the Second World War. It was dominated by land battles between ...

of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The battery was awarded the battle honour ''Jitra'' and the regiment continues to carry this honour title. *The first commanding officer of the regiment, Brigadier KP Pande was awarded the

Maha Vir Chakra The Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) () is the second highest military decoration in India, after the Param Vir Chakra, and is awarded for acts of conspicuous gallantry in the presence of the enemy, whether on land, at sea or in the air. It replaced the B ...

for his gallant actions, while commanding 61 Mountain Brigade Group during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Affiliation

1st Battalion, 5th Gorkha Rifles (Frontier Force), popularly known as FASFIF is affiliated to 56 Field Regiment (Jitra).

References

{{reflist Military units and formations established in 1964 Artillery regiments of the Indian Army after 1947