1. Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, known as Sam Bahadur or Sam the Brave, was an Indian Army general officer who was the chief of the army staff during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, and the first Indian to be promoted to the rank of field marshal.
Sam Manekshaw was commissioned into the 4th Battalion, 12th Frontier Force Regiment.
Sam Manekshaw was seconded to a planning role during the 1947 Indo-Pakistani War and the Hyderabad crisis, and as a result, he never commanded an infantry battalion.
Sam Manekshaw was promoted to the rank of brigadier while serving at the Military Operations Directorate.
Sam Manekshaw became the commander of 167 Infantry Brigade in 1952 and served in this position until 1954 when he took over as the director of military training at the Army Headquarters.
Sam Manekshaw served as the commandant of the Defence Services Staff College.
In 1963, Sam Manekshaw was promoted to the rank of army commander and took over Western Command, then was transferred in 1964 to Eastern Command.
Sam Manekshaw was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, in 1968 for responding to the insurgencies in Nagaland and Mizoram.
Sam Manekshaw became the seventh chief of army staff in 1969.
Sam Manekshaw was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of India, in 1972 for his services to the nation.
Sam Manekshaw died on 27 June 2008, at the age of 94, due to respiratory problems.
Sam Manekshaw was born on 3 April 1914 in Amritsar to Hormizd, a doctor, and Hilla, nee Mehta.
Sam Manekshaw's parents had left Mumbai in 1903 for Lahore, where his father was going to start practising medicine.
Jami joined his elder brother, Sam Manekshaw, in becoming a flag officer, and retired as an air vice marshal in the Indian Air Force.
Sam Manekshaw completed his primary schooling in Punjab, and then joined Sherwood College, Nainital.
Sam Manekshaw then asked his father to send him to London to study medicine, but his father refused as he was not old enough.
Sam Manekshaw's father was already supporting Sam's elder brothers who were studying engineering in London.
Sam Manekshaw instead enrolled at the Hindu Sabha College and graduated in April 1932.
Sam Manekshaw was part of the first batch of cadets at the IMA.
Many of Sam Manekshaw's batchmates were captured by Japan during World War II and would fight in the Indian National Army, which mostly drew its troops from Indian prisoners of war in Axis camps.
When Sam Manekshaw was commissioned, it was standard practice for newly commissioned Indian officers to be initially assigned to a British regiment before being sent to an Indian unit.
Sam Manekshaw thus joined the 2nd Battalion, Royal Scots, stationed at Lahore.
Sam Manekshaw was later posted to the 4th Battalion, 12th Frontier Force Regiment, stationed in Burma.
Therefore, for the first two years of the conflict, Sam Manekshaw was temporarily appointed to the ranks of captain and major before being promoted to the substantive rank of captain on 4 February 1942.
Sam Manekshaw was evacuated from the battlefield by Sher Singh, his orderly, who took him to an Australian surgeon.
The surgeon initially declined to treat Sam Manekshaw, saying that he had been too badly wounded.
Sam Manekshaw regained consciousness, and when the surgeon asked what had happened to him, he replied that he had been "kicked by a mule".
Sam Manekshaw served in that post until 22 October 1944, after which he joined the 9th Battalion, 12th Frontier Force Regiment, part of the 14th Army commanded by General William Slim.
Sam Manekshaw was promoted to the acting rank of lieutenant colonel on 5 May 1946, and completed a six-month lecture tour of Australia.
Sam Manekshaw was promoted to the substantive rank of major on 4 February 1947, and on his return from Australia was appointed a Grade 1 General Staff Officer in the Military Operations Directorate.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's first Governor General, considered the founder of that nation, had reportedly asked Sam Manekshaw to join the Pakistani Army, but Sam Manekshaw had refused.
In October 1947, Sam Manekshaw was posted as the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, 5 Gorkha Rifles.
Sam Manekshaw was then appointed the director of military operations.
Sam Manekshaw was one of the three army officers who represented India at the 1949 Karachi Conference.
Sam Manekshaw was promoted to the rank of colonel on 4 February 1952, and in April was appointed the commander of 167 Infantry Brigade, headquartered at Firozpur.
Sam Manekshaw was appointed the commandant of the Infantry School at Mhow on 14 January 1955, and became the colonel of both the 8th Gorkha Rifles and the 61st Cavalry.
Sam Manekshaw was promoted to the substantive rank of brigadier on 4 February 1957.
Sam Manekshaw replied that it was improper to evaluate his superior, and told Menon not to ask anybody again.
Sam Manekshaw was promoted to substantive major general on 1 March 1959.
In November 1962, Nehru asked Sam Manekshaw to take over the command of IV Corps.
Sam Manekshaw told Nehru that the court action against him was a conspiracy, and that his promotion had been due for almost eighteen months; Nehru apologised.
Shortly after, on 2 December 1962, Sam Manekshaw was promoted to acting lieutenant general and appointed the GOC of IV Corps at Tezpur.
Sam Manekshaw felt the first course of action was to improve the morale of his soldiers.
Sam Manekshaw identified the root cause of the low morale to be panicked withdrawals, ordered without allowing the soldiers to fight back.
Sam Manekshaw ordered there to be no more retreats without his written permission.
The next task Sam Manekshaw took up was to reorganise the troops in the North-East Frontier Agency, where he alleviated the shortages of equipment, accommodation and clothing.
Sam Manekshaw was appointed as the eighth chief of the army staff on 8 June 1969.
Sam Manekshaw asked an orderly if he knew the name of his chief.
Sam Manekshaw reportedly said, "As soon as General Westmoreland takes over your country".
Sam Manekshaw replied that most of his armoured and infantry divisions were deployed elsewhere, only twelve of his tanks were combat-ready, and they would be competing for rail carriages with the grain harvest.
Sam Manekshaw pointed out that the Himalayan passes would soon open up with the forthcoming monsoon, which would result in heavy flooding.
Sam Manekshaw said he could guarantee victory if she would allow him to handle the conflict on his own terms, and set a date for its initiation; Gandhi agreed.
The Army Headquarters under Sam Manekshaw's leadership formulated the following strategy: II Corps commanded by Lt.
Sam Manekshaw prevented any further supplies by summoning the military attache at the US embassy in India and asking him to stop the drops which were in contravention of US public policy.
Sam Manekshaw made provisions for the prisoners to be supplied with the copies of the Quran, and allowed them to celebrate festivals and receive letters and parcels from their loved ones.
Sam Manekshaw was India's official representative for the negotiations held on 28 November 1972 to demarcate the Line of Control in Kashmir after the war.
Sam Manekshaw retired from active service on 15 January 1973 after a career of nearly four decades.
Sam Manekshaw moved with his family to Coonoor, the civilian town next to Wellington Cantonment, where he had served as commandant of the Defence Services Staff College early on in his career.
In May 2007, Gohar Ayub, the son of the Pakistani Field Marshal Ayub Khan, claimed that Sam Manekshaw had sold Indian Army secrets to Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 for 20,000 rupees, but his accusations were dismissed by the Indian defence establishment.
Sam Manekshaw visited hospitalised soldiers during the Kargil War and was cited by COAS Ved Prakash Malik, the commander during the war, as his icon.
Sam Manekshaw married Silloo Bode on 22 April 1939 in Bombay.
Sam Manekshaw's funeral lacked governmental representation, which the media argued was a result of the civilian establishment's apathy towards the military, who feared that the military would stage a coup if it became too popular with the citizenry.
Sam Manekshaw was survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.
Sam Manekshaw was charismatic and known to be capable of charm.
Sam Manekshaw commanded great loyalty from his troops, particularly the Gorkhas, due to his reputation for personal bravery, fairness and his avoidance of punishments.
Sam Manekshaw came into conflict with politicians because he stood up to their often unreasonable or unethical demands.
Sam Manekshaw dealt with politicians' demands through sarcasm, which however was recognised by figures such as Indira Gandhi.
Sam Manekshaw did not hesitate from advocating for better strategies than those developed by the civilian establishment, a trait rarely found in the military brass today, according to Admiral Arun Prakash.
Sam Manekshaw's statue is on the Maneckji Mehta Road in Pune Cantonment.
Sam Manekshaw is featured conversing with his Pakistani adversary and former Burma war colleague Tiger Niazi in Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, in the chapter entitled "Sam and the Tiger".
Sam Manekshaw convinced the government to apply the 3rd Pay Commission's recommendations for military personnel and set pay scales for them proportionate to their service conditions, a practice which continues to this day.
Sam Manekshaw said the following about the campaign: "To say that it was something like what Rommel did would be ridiculous".
On 12 October 1966, while on a flight from Delhi to Kolkata, Manekshaw was a co passenger with William K Hitchcock, the Consul General of the USA in Kolkata.
Sam Manekshaw was an advocate for a strong domestic defence industrial base and procurement reforms, which he believed could shorten the long order and delivery cycles of the Indian Armed Forces.
Sam Manekshaw was a critic of defence equipment imports and over reliance on the Soviet Union and its successor state, Russia.