On 3 May 1999, little did India know that the enemy had crept up to the gates. In harmony with the unwritten understanding, armies on both the sides of Line of Control (LC) vacated the posts in the higher reaches of Kargil in October, owing to a glacial winter.

Hence, during the winter months of 1998-99 our non-maintainable posts were vacated. Northern Light Infantry of Pakistan Army, awaiting this opportune moment, not only did not vacate their posts but occupied some of the dominant posts on our side of the LC.

The Srinagar-Leh national highway is the lifeline for Ladakh and it passes through Kargil running parallel to the LC. The aim of infiltration was to sever the link between Kashmir and Ladakh and force the Indian Army to withdraw from Siachen. Thus, compelling India to negotiate a settlement of the Kashmir dispute by internationalising the issue. Taken by surprise, the Indian Army planned a fierce counter-assault called ‘Operation Vijay’ to recapture the occupied posts.

Maintaining the sanctity of every word of the Chetwode Motto, the heroes of Kargil scaled vertical cliffs in glacial temperatures, without snow boots or night-vision devices. “We will fight with what we have,” Chief of the Army Staff General V.P. Malik told the nation and indeed they did. Our unstoppable soldiers held the enemy by the neck and reclaimed the strategic peaks of Tololing and Tiger Hill, among others.

While the gallantry of the Indian Army is well-documented, the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) role is lesser known. Air Commodore Anil Kumar Sinha (retd), Vir Chakra, who led a four aircraft formation, tasked to fly an air-to-ground rocket attack mission on feature 5140 located on the strategic Tololing recalls Operation Safed Sagar, the IAF’s part, during Op Vijay. The criticality of the mission could be gauged from the fact that the enemy was aiming accurate fire from this peak on Srinagar-Leh national highway.