Russell King Haight Jr. | |
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Born | January 25, 1922 Mount Kisco, New York, United States |
Died | May 13, 2006 Norman, Oklahoma |
Buried | |
Allegiance | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Service/ | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Years of service | 1939-1967 |
Rank | Sergeant major |
Battles/wars | World War II First Kashmir War Korean War Vietnam War |
Awards | ![]() ![]() |
Russell K. Haight Jr. was an American G.I. who had served as a U.S. Army Air Force sergeant during World War II. After the war, he became "famous" by serving as a mercenary commander of the rebel forces of Azad Kashmir for a few months in 1947. [1] His testimony about Pakistan's involvement in the hostilities was cited in the United Nations debates on the Kashmir dispute. [2]
Haight was born in Mount Kisco, New York on Jan. 25, 1922. At the age of 17, he joined the Canadian Army and was stationed in England, where he had married Doris Wright of West Hartlepool, in 1943. [3]
By his own account, Haight served in three armies during the World War II. He first served with the Canadians, then switched to the British and participated in the commando raid on Dieppe. Finally, he joined the American Army after the US joined the war. [4]
After the war, Haight went to Afghanistan and worked as a surveyor for the American construction company Morrison–Knudsen, which was engaged in building roads there. After having a fall from a cliff, he left the job, and was intending to head back to the US with various stops in Pakistan and India along the way. [4]
In Rawalpindi, then the hotbed of the First Kashmir War raging in 1947, Haight ran into the British correspondent Bill Sydney Smith of the Daily Express , who suggested to him that he could utilise his expertise in commanding the Pakistani tribal raiders engaged in the Kashmir War. Haight was sold on the idea. [5] [lower-alpha 1]
He signed up with the Azad Kashmir provisional government, then based in Rawalpindi. He was given a commission as a captain and sent to the Poonch front. After he criticised the Azad Kashmir commanders there for their "boy scout tactics", the government apparently promoted him to the rank of a "brigadier general". [1] [lower-alpha 2] He later claimed to have commanded 8,000 troops. [7] According to a New York Times report by Robert Trumbull, Haight was able to successfully discharge his command by playing on the vanity of the tribesmen and exploiting their tribal rivalries. [1] By the end of 1947, Haight's engagement with the Kashmir War was over. While he claimed to have quit because of inadequate resources, scuffles with some of the fighters from Dir had played a role. The fighters are said to have attempted to steal Haight's truck and some captured guns, and he ended up killing a couple of them in the ensuing firefight. Trumbull states that, he was effectively a fugitive by the time he left Pakistan. He took a flight to the US with only $2.00 in his pocket. [1] [8] [2]
According to a Soviet writer, I. Andronov, Haight was "actively assisted by several resident agents of the British Intelligence Service and top-flight British representatives in India and Pakistan". [9] [10] According to journalist G. K. Reddy, then a PR official in the Azad Kashmir government, Russell K. Haight was "a senior officer of the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS)". [11] [lower-alpha 3] He is said to have operated in Azad Kashmir under the code name 'General Tariq'. [11] [lower-alpha 4]
Haight estimated that there were 15,000 tribal fighters in Kashmir, and a similar number on the move ("coming and going on dispersed along the border"). There were also said to be a fair number of Pakistani officers on leave involved in the war. [13] Robert Trumbull narrated:
Although he insisted that the Kashmir fighting broke out in rebellion against atrocities committed upon Moslems by the Hindu Maharajah’s Dogra troops, Mr Haight characterized the Azad Kashmir Provisional Government ... as 'Pakistan puppets'. He also deeply implicated high Pakistan Government officials, notably the Premier of the North-West Frontier Province. [14]
After returning from South Asia, Haight went back to the US Army. He served in Korea, Germany, Bolivia and Vietnam, and retired from U.S. army in 1967 as a sergeant-major. He had seven rows of decorations and ribbons and numerous injuries from the various theatres in which he fought. [15]
Azad Jammu and Kashmir, abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir, is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entity and constituting the western portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947. Azad Kashmir also shares borders with the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the south and west, respectively. On its eastern side, Azad Kashmir is separated from the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir by the Line of Control (LoC), which serves as the de facto border between the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir. Geographically, it covers a total area of 13,297 km2 (5,134 sq mi) and has a total population of 4,045,366 as per the 2017 national census.
The Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948, also known as the first Kashmir war, was a war fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four Indo-Pakistani wars between the two newly independent nations. Pakistan precipitated the war a few weeks after its independence by launching tribal lashkar (militias) from Waziristan, in an effort to capture Kashmir and to preempt the possibility of its ruler joining India.
Baramulla district or Varmul is one of the 20 districts in the Indian-administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region. Baramulla town is the administrative headquarters of this district. The district covered an area of 4,588 km2 (1,771 sq mi) in 2001, but it was reduced to 4,243 km2 (1,638 sq mi) at the time of 2011 census. In 2016, the district administration said that the area was 4,190 km2 (1,620 sq mi). Muslims constitute about 98% of the population.
Mirpur, officially known as New Mirpur City, is the capital of Mirpur district located in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan which has been subject of the larger Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India since 1947. It is the second largest city of Azad Kashmir and the 74th largest city in Pakistan.
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Baramula, also known as Varmul in Kashmiri, is a City and municipality of the Baramula district of the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region. It is also the administrative headquarters of the Baramulla district, located on the banks of the River Jhelum downstream from Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. The town is known as gateway of Kashmir, serving as the major distribution centre for goods arriving in Kashmir valley through the Jhelum valley cart road.
The following is a timeline of the Kashmir conflict, a territorial conflict between India, Pakistan and, to a lesser degree, China. India and Pakistan have been involved in four wars and several border skirmishes over the issue.
Sudhan is one of the major tribes from the districts of Poonch, Sudhanoti, Bagh and Kotli in Azad Kashmir, allegedly originating from Pashtun areas. The Sudhan Pathans who settled in Azad Kashmir are mainly an important and major branch of the Saduzai tribe who migrated from Afghanistan in the 14th century AD and founded the present-day Azad Kashmir region of Sudhanoti and ruled here for hundreds of years.
Kotli is a city in Kotli District of Azad Kashmir in Pakistan. It lies on the Poonch River, and the river contains several waterfalls, including the Lala Waterfall near the town of Kotli, and the Gulpur Waterfalls at the village of Gulpur to the southwest. As per the 2017 Census of Pakistan, Kotli had a population of 46,907.
The Sudhanoti District, meaning the "heartland of Sudhans" or "Sudhan heartland"),
Major General Mohammed Zaman Kiani was an officer of the British Indian Army who later joined the Indian National Army (INA), led by Subhas Chandra Bose, and commanded its 1st Division.
The history of Azad Kashmir, a part of the Kashmir region administered by Pakistan, is related to the history of the Kashmir region during the Dogra rule. Azad Kashmir borders the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the south and west respectively, Gilgit–Baltistan to the north, and the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir to the east.
Poonch Airport is an airport located in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Though no scheduled flights operate from Poonch, in 2005, then Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad made a suggestion to Air Deccan that they start flying small aircraft to Poonch. The then Chairman of Air Deccan, Captain Gopinath said that Air Deccan would consider flying helicopters to Poonch.
The Azad Kashmir Regular Force (AKRF), formerly known as the Kashmir Liberation Forces(KLF), were the irregular forces of Azad Kashmir until 1948. They then were taken over by the government of Pakistan and converted into a regular force. In this form, the unit became part of the country's paramilitary forces, operating out of the nominally self-governing territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The AKRF was altered from a functioning paramilitary force and merged into the Pakistan Army as an infantry regiment following the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Khurshid Anwar was a member of Indian National Army and an activist of All-India Muslim League, heading its private militia, the Muslim League National Guard. Described as a "shadowy figure" and "complete adventurer", he is generally addressed as a "Major" in Pakistani sources. He was a key figure in the rise of the Muslim League during 1946–47, organising its campaigns in Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, prior to India's partition. After the independence of Pakistan, he was instrumental in organising the tribal invasion of Kashmir, leading to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947.
In spring 1947, an uprising against the Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir broke out in the Poonch jagir, an area bordering the Rawalpindi district of West Punjab and the Hazara district of the North-West Frontier Province in the future Pakistan. It was driven by grievances such as high taxes, the Maharaja's neglect of World War veterans, and above all, Muslim nationalism with a desire to join Pakistan. The leader of the rebellion, Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, escaped to Lahore by the end of August 1947 and persuaded the Pakistani authorities to back the rebellion. In addition to the backing, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan authorised an invasion of the state, by the ex-Indian National Army personnel in the south and a force led by Major Khurshid Anwar in the north. These invasions eventually led to the First Kashmir War fought between India and Pakistan, and the formation of Azad Kashmir provisional government. The Poonch jagir has since been divided across Azad Kashmir, administered by Pakistan and the state of Jammu and Kashmir, administered by India.
Justice Muhammad Yusuf Saraf was the Chief Justice of the Azad Kashmir High Court and the author of the voluminous work, Kashmiris Fight for Freedom. He was born in Baramulla in the then princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, but migrated to Pakistan prior to the Partition of India. He started practising law in Mirpur in 1949, rising to the bench in 1969. He served as the Chief Justice of Azad Kashmir from 1975 to 1980.
Brigadier Muhammad Aslam Khan (1918–1994) was a Pakistani military officer, who led the Gilgit Scouts and Azad rebels in the First Kashmir War. Using the nom de guerre of 'Colonel Pasha', he organised a force of 1200 rebels and local recruits in Gilgit, and led an attack on the Indian Army and the State Forces from the north, conquering Skardu and Kargil and advancing within 30 miles of Leh. Even though the Indian Army eventually repulsed the attack beyond Kargil, Skardu remained part of the rebel territory, coming under Pakistani control at the end of the war.
The Battle of Muzaffarabad was fought between Pakistani-backed Pashtun tribesmen and pro-Pakistani Kashmiri rebels, and the Jammu and Kashmir State Forces in the town of Muzaffarabad on 22 October 1947. The battle saw the swift defeat of the Jammu and Kashmir State Forces and the capture of Muzaffarabad by these tribesmen.
The Battle of Shalateng was a military engagement on 7 November 1947, during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948. It was a decisive battle that resulted in the halting of the Pakistani offensive and the beginning of the Indian counter offensive.