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Vice Admiral Rustom Ghandi

Discussion in 'WWII Obituaries' started by GRW, Jan 25, 2015.

  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    "Vice-Admiral Rustom Ghandhi, who has died aged 90, was aide-de-camp to the last Viceroy of India and is the only officer to have commanded ships in all the wars fought by India since Independence.
    On December 18 1961 Ghandhi was commanding the Indian frigate Betwa during Operation Vijay, the brief campaign which ended 451 years of Portuguese rule of Goa. The colony was bravely defended by the Portuguese sloop Afonso de Albuquerque, which was outgunned and outnumbered by the Indian ships; but in a four-hour battle she was so badly damaged that she was run aground on a reef, where the crew abandoned ship.
    Four years later Ghandhi was in command of the destroyer Khukri and senior officer of the 14th Frigate Squadron during the Indo-Pakistan War. His squadron was deployed to the Gulf of Kutch, on the coast of Gujarat in western India, when the order came to withdraw southward and not to engage the Pakistani Navy unless attacked first. Ghandhi reluctantly obeyed, but resentment lingered in his squadron and within the Indian Navy.
    In 1971 he was commanding the light cruiser Mysore, flagship of India’s Western Fleet, and was at sea during the Second Indo-Pakistan war. In December Mysore covered the surprise attacks on Karachi with missile-firing patrol boats. Ghandhi was awarded the Vir Chakra (VrC) for his inspiring leadership and devotion to duty.
    The son of a businessman, Rustom Khushro Shapoorjee Ghandhi (known as “Rusi”) was born at Jabalpur in Central India. Although a Parsee, he was educated at St Joseph’s College, a Roman Catholic school at Nainital in northern India. In 1942 he travelled to Britain and joined the Royal Naval College at Eaton Hall.
    As a midshipman in the cruiser Suffolk in 1943-44, he hunted German raiders in the Atlantic, and in the destroyer Wakeful he saw action in January 1945 during the Royal Navy’s attacks on Japanese-held refineries in Indonesia. In August that year he witnessed the British Pacific Fleet’s bombardment of the Japanese mainland, and he was in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese formally surrendered."
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