S. P. P. Thorat
Lieutenant General Shankarrao Pandurang Patil Thorat, KC, DSO was a General Officer in the Indian Army. He was the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Command in the lead up to the 1962 Sino-Indian War.
Early life
Shankarrao Thorat was born on 12 August 1906, in Vadgaon village, Kolhapur State, British India. He studied at Sir Parashurambhau College, Pune and then at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he commissioned into the British Indian Army as a King's Commissioned Indian Officer.Military career
Early career
After graduating from Sandhurst, Thorat was placed on the Unattached list for the Indian Army in September 1926. KCIOs were supposed to serve with a British regiment before being sent to an Indian unit. Thorat was posted to the 2nd battalion, The Middlesex Regiment then stationed at Ahmednagar. After a year-long attachment, in October 1927, he was posted to the 1st battalion, 14th Punjab Regiment in the rank of second lieutenant, with seniority from 30 August 1926. The battalion was in Manzai in the North West Frontier Province. The battalion moved to Aurangabad in early 1928 and Thorat was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in November 1928.Thorat was posted as the adjutant of the Territorial battalion of the 14th Punjab regiment in October 1931, then at Delhi. After around three years, he returned to his battalion and in 1935 appointed quartermaster of the unit. Shortly thereafter, the battalion moved to Peshawar to participate in the Mohmand campaign. Around the same time, in August, he was promoted to the rank of captain. He spent the next two years as a company commander of the Training battalion in Ferozepur, before being posted to Bannu as the adjutant of 1/14th Punjab.
World War II
In 1940, Thorat was selected to attend the Staff College, Quetta. He graduated the next year and was posted to Army headquarters in the Staff Duties directorate. Anxious to be posted to regimental duty, he was transferred to Rajaram Rifles of Kolhapur State where he served for a year. He was promoted major in August 1943. He subsequently moved to 4/14th Punjab which as part of the 114th Indian Infantry Brigade under the 7th Indian Infantry Division played a role in clearing Japanese forces from the Naga Hills.Thorat participated in small actions with 4/14th Punjab, and after the Battle of Kohima, he was appointed second in command of 9/14 Punjab under the 20th Indian Infantry Division, which was engaged in fighting on the Imphal plains. The commanding officer of 9/14th Punjab went down with dysentery and Thorat temporarily took command of the battalion. Since it was his first time commanding a battalion, he accompanied his troops on a long reconnaissance patrol, which his brigade commander didn't approve of.
In November 1944, Thorat was appointed commanding officer of the 2nd battalion, 2nd Punjab Regiment under the 51st Indian Infantry Brigade. The CO had been killed in action and Thorat was to take command immediately in Maungdaw in the Arakan. This brigade became known as the "Indian Brigade" because unlike other British Indian Army brigades which were composed of 2 Indian battalions and 1 British battalion, the 51st Brigade had 3 Indian battalions. Additionally, all 3 battalions in the brigade had Indian commanding officers - K.S. Thimayya, L. P. Sen, and Thorat. These 3 were among the few Indian officers above the rank of major who saw intense action during the war.
Battle of Kangaw
In January 1945, 2/2nd Punjab participated in the Battle of Kangaw. The 51st Brigade had been assigned the task of clearing strongly fortified Japanese rearguard positions, and Thorat coordinated his battalion's attack with artillery and air support. However, the battalion still took heavy casualties as they advanced through rice paddies to close with the Japanese. At one point Thorat engaged in hand-to-hand combat, during which he killed a young Japanese officer and seized his sword. After his initial attack had succeeded, Thorat limited his battalion's advance and consolidated their position of half of the hill feature. He was fully aware of the Japanese tactic of evacuating a position under attack and then swiftly counterattacking to retake it, thus inflicting maximum casualties on their enemy. When the counterattack came, it was repelled by prepared battalion defences and air strikes.For his leadership and gallantry, Thorat was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.