Stuart Light Tanks Climbed the Zoji La Pass at About 11,500 Feet on 1 November 1948, and by 24 November the Army Had Reached Kargil and Met the Column From Leh

On 1 November 1948 a squadron of Stuart light tanks from the Indian Army’s 7th Light Cavalry fought its way up the Zoji La, the pass that carries the road from the Kashmir Valley into Ladakh, and by the afternoon it was in the Gumri basin on the far side. The Tribune writes that never before had tanks been used at such an altitude by any army. The regiment had brought them from Akhnoor near Jammu with their turrets off, about 447 km over mountain roads whose bridges could not take their weight.

The operation was one part of the war covered in the first Kashmir war. This article follows the tanks.

The pass the Army had twice failed to take

Zoji La sits at 3,529 metres (11,578 feet) by the figure Maj Gen Harvijay Singh gives in SALUTE magazine, about 100 km from Srinagar. Other sources give 11,553 feet (ThePrint, The Tribune) and 11,575 feet (Maj Gen Jagatbir Singh in SALUTE), so “about 11,500 feet” is the safe reading. Harvijay Singh describes a pass 3 km long, dominated by peaks of 4,000 to 5,000 metres, with snowfall of up to 50 feet.

Whoever holds it controls the approach to Dras, Kargil and Leh. Lt Gen N.S. Brar, a former commander of 10 Corps, told a military literature festival in Chandigarh in December 2023 that the pass protected all of them. In the summer of 1948 the Army’s 1st Patiala battalion fought for 19 days, from 18 June to 6 July, against Pakistani forces that included hill tribesmen, according to Harvijay Singh. It pulled out of Machoi and Gumri on the night of 6 and 7 July, and the Gilgit Scouts took the pass on 7 July.

The first Indian attempt to retake it, by 77 (Para) Brigade under Brig K.L. Atal, began on 3 September 1948 and failed. A second try on 13 September also failed, according to ThePrint. The Tribune, quoting the Ministry of Defence History Division’s official history of the 1947-48 operations, says that by October two well-planned attacks had failed.

A divisional commander’s idea, and a colonel who accepted it

Maj Gen K.S. Thimayya, who commanded 19 Infantry Division, decided to try light armour. Jagatbir Singh, a former commander of 1 Armoured Division and a fellow of the United Service Institution of India, writes that Thimayya chose the Stuarts of 7 Light Cavalry to go in alongside the infantry. The regiment’s commanding officer was Lt Col Rajinder Singh, known as Sparrow.

ThePrint reports the Army’s account of him as an officer who “did not hesitate for a moment to accept this seemingly impossible mission.” The Stuart, an American design, reached Indian cavalry regiments in 1943, and the Asian Age records that 7 Light Cavalry was among those that took part in the Burma campaign with it. By 1948, R. Ayyapan writes, the regiment fielded one squadron of Stuarts plus armoured cars and weapon carriers.

Turrets off, engines silent, 278 miles to Baltal

Brig Atal issued the plan for the attack, named Operation Bison, on 14 October, according to the official history as the Tribune reports it. Harvijay Singh writes that the first brigade operation, codenamed Duck, failed and was renamed Bison by Lt Gen K.M. Cariappa, the Western Army commander.

The tanks left earlier. The Asian Age account by Yamuna R and Sindhiya Samuel gives the details: the turrets were removed and the hulls camouflaged at Akhnoor, and C Squadron set out at 0500 on 5 October on a 278-mile run (about 447 km; Harvijay Singh gives 445 km). It reached Srinagar at 2100 on 9 October and left on the night of 14 October. At the bridges the engines were switched off and the tanks were winched across with 15-cwt winch trucks. They reached Baltal, at the foot of the pass, on 15 October, and the turrets went back on there.

Jagatbir Singh adds that the tanks travelled only at night and sat under tarpaulins by day. Harvijay Singh says the stripped hulls were disguised as Bren gun carriers, small tracked troop vehicles.

The track blasted out of the mountain

Between Baltal and the pass there was only a mule track. Two field companies of the Madras Sappers, an Army engineer corps, widened it into something a tank could use. Harvijay Singh puts the result at an 8 km battle track built in about a month. The official history, as the Tribune cites it, says the track was finished by 15 October.

The Gazette of India of 21 June 1950 carries one of the citations for this work. Jemadar R. Thangavelu of 13 Field Company, Engineers, was detailed on 14 October 1948 with four other ranks to blast rocks on the Baltal-Gumri road so that tanks and heavy vehicles could pass. The citation says the enemy fired on the party with six 3-inch mortars and bursts of machine guns, and that he finished the demolition at about 0500 on 15 October. He received the Vir Chakra.

1 November: snow, fog and a D-Day that did not move

The attack was meant to go in on 20 October. The Tribune says snow and a slippery track pushed it to 25 October and then 29 October, and that Atal was told the attack would be abandoned if it could not start on 1 November. Brar says Thimayya fixed 1 November as D-Day whatever the weather. On 29 October 7 Cavalry, less its B Squadron, began the climb in heavy snow, the same Asian Age account records, with the tanks winched up and pushed by men at about 20 degrees below zero.

The artillery opened up in the morning, at 10 am by Harvijay Singh’s account and at 10.30 by the Tribune’s, in fog, snow and strong winds. The guns were two regiments of 25-pounders and a third regiment (3.7-inch in Jagatbir Singh’s account, 3.5-inch in Harvijay Singh’s); Harvijay Singh also lists Tempest aircraft. He counts 11 tanks in the attack, the only figure for the number I found in the accounts I opened. Thimayya rode in the lead tank, as ThePrint, Harvijay Singh and Jagatbir Singh all report.

The tanks reached the Gumri basin at 1440 by ThePrint’s and Harvijay Singh’s timing (Jagatbir Singh and the Asian Age account say 1400). Capt S.D.S. Jamwal, who commanded C Squadron, sent a radio message at 3 pm, according to his own narrative as the Tribune reproduces it. The Asian Age account says the three lead tanks knocked out bunkers at two enemy positions, Mukand and Chabutra, and a mountain gun on the north ridge.

The Gazette of India records one of the men inside. Jemadar Kartar Singh of 7 Light Cavalry commanded the leading troop into the Gumri basin, against opposition all the way from the pass. His citation says he kept his head out of the turret under small arms fire because the targets were hard to see through the periscope, and that he destroyed a number of bunkers. It also says he had gone into enemy-held ground to reconnoitre several times before the attack. He received the Vir Chakra.

The infantry, and the road to Kargil and Leh

Three infantry units followed the armour: 1/5 Gorkha Rifles, 1 Patiala and 4 Rajput. The Asian Age account says C Squadron supported 1 Patiala’s capture of Machhoi on 2 November, “opening the road to Dras and Kargil.” The Gazette carries two Vir Chakra citations from that night and the next day. Jemadar Balwant Singh of 1 Patiala led a platoon on a four-hour climb over snow on the night of 1 and 2 November, encircled an enemy post and cleared its caves at dawn, capturing a gun, a Bren gun and rifles. Havildar Amrut Gamre of the Mahar machine-gun battalion silenced enemy automatics in the hutted area during the attack on Machhoi on 2 November.

According to ThePrint, 4 Rajput took Matayan, 18 km beyond the pass, on 4 November. Dras was captured on 15 and 16 November in Brar’s account, ThePrint’s and Harvijay Singh’s; the Tribune’s summary of the official history says Dras was secured the day after the pass. On the night of 14 and 15 November 1/5 Gorkha Rifles attacked a fortified feature the Gazette calls Anant, and its commander, Lt Col Anant Singh Pathania, received the Maha Vir Chakra.

Kargil came next. The Union Territory of Ladakh marks 23 November 1948 as the date Kargil was freed, and its 75th anniversary programme in 2023 thanked the Army for entering the district via Zojila. Harvijay Singh dates the capture to 21 November, and ThePrint puts the clearing of the road to Kargil on 22 and 23 November. A column from Leh joined the forces at Kargil on 24 November in Harvijay Singh’s account, on 23 and 24 November in Jagatbir Singh’s. Brar says the link-up restored the road between Srinagar and Leh. Skardu, Baltistan and Gilgit stayed under Pakistan, Harvijay Singh notes.

The battle honour “Zojila” went to 1 Patiala, 5 Gorkha Rifles, 4 Rajput and 7 Cavalry, he writes. Jagatbir Singh says Rajinder Singh received his first Maha Vir Chakra for the advance on Jhangar and the capture of Zoji La. Harvijay Singh quotes the historian Dr Sudhir Bloeria as ranking the break through at Zojila among the three most important battles the Indian Army fought in 1947-48. For tank fighting on the plains, see Asal Uttar in 1965 and Basantar in 1971. For the Kargil district in 1999, see the separate account.

Where the accounts differ

None of the accounts I opened gives Indian or enemy casualties for 1 November, or any tank losses. The tank count of 11 rests on one source. The altitude, the start time, the arrival time at Gumri, the capture dates for Dras and Kargil and the date of the Leh link-up all vary by an hour, a day or a few hundred feet between authors. The Ministry of Defence’s official history, which the Tribune quotes, was not available online to the editors, so each date above rests on the secondary account named beside it.

The pass today

The region the tunnel serves is described in Ladakh at a glance, and another Himalayan road tunnel, built for the same all-weather purpose, in the Atal Tunnel.

The road over the Zoji La is often closed in winter by heavy snowfall, and Outlook Traveller’s report of the June 2026 breakthrough says the region’s winter isolation can last up to six months. The Zojila tunnel under the pass is 13.153 km long, at about 11,578 feet according to the Free Press Journal, and had its breakthrough blast on 9 June 2026. The Free Press Journal reports that the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways pressed the button, with the Lieutenant Governor and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir present, and that the Authority Engineer put the work at about 85 per cent complete.

The National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation is the implementing body and Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited is building it. In a written Lok Sabha reply on 31 July 2025 the minister gave the cost as Rs 6,809 crore, progress as 64 per cent and the completion date as February 2028, moved from 29 September 2026, and gave the Covid-19 pandemic, a terrorist attack at the nearby Sonamarg tunnel project and prolonged severe weather as the reasons for the delay, as the Tribune reported on 2 August 2025. The February 2028 date is still the opening target in the 2026 reports.