Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh
Punjab is set to immortalise the memory of the only officer from the state to have been decorated with the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award in the Commonwealth for gallantry in the face of the enemy.
A statue of Lt Kamaljeet Singh Judge is being installed at Kapurthala, the place to which the officer belonged. “The task is being executed by Headquarters Western Command and funding for the same is being done through the Rajya Sainik Board,” an officer said.
Though there are several soldiers from the erstwhile British Indian Army belonging to Punjab who have been awarded the VC, Lt Judge is the only officer among them. He was decorated posthumously at the age of 21 during the Burma Campaign in the Second World War.
Son of the then chief of police at Kapurthala, he was commissioned as an infantry subaltern at Ambala and thereafter deployed with the 4th Battalion of the 15th Punjab Regiment as part of General William Slim’s 14th Army that fought against the Japanese.
On March 18, 1945, Lt Judge, a platoon commander, was ordered to capture a cotton mill near Meiktila in Burma (now Myanmar). After clearing out 10 enemy bunkers, he directed one tank to be within 20 yards of another bunker and asked the tank commander to ceasefire while he went in to mop up the remaining enemy. While doing so he was mortally wounded and succumbed to his injuries.
“In three previous and similar actions, this young officer had already proved himself an outstanding leader of matchless courage. In his last action, Lt Judge gave a superb example of inspiring leadership and outstanding courage,” his citation, as reported in the London Gazette on July 3, 1945, stated.
Indian troops became eligible for the award of VC only in 1911. In fact, the first Indian soldier to be decorated with the VC, Sepoy Khudadad Khan, which was at Belgium in 1914, hailed from undivided Punjab, with his native village, Dab, now on the other side of the fence.
The only other statue of a VC winner in Punjab is that of Naik Nand Singh of the Sikh Regiment, referred to as India’s highest decorated soldier as he was also awarded the Maha Vir Chakra post-Independence for his actions in Kashmir.
