Battle of Walong

01The Lohit front

Walong sits on a terrace above the Lohit, a few kilometres from the border, with a small airstrip that was its only quick link to the plains. When the Chinese struck on 21 October the forward posts near Kibithu fell back on it. Troops were flown in battalion by battalion, and 11 Infantry Brigade under Brigadier N. C. Rawlley dug in on the ridges around the strip. Through late October and early November they fought back patrol clashes and probing attacks, and in mid-November counter-attacked toward a feature the soldiers called Yellow Pimple.

0216 November

The counter-attack drew the Chinese main force onto the brigade. On 16 November, the same days that Se La and Bomdila were falling to the west, they attacked in strength across the ridges. Companies of 6 Kumaon and the Sikh, Dogra and Gorkha battalions fought until their positions were overrun, and the brigade withdrew down the Lohit. Walong became the one sector of 1962 that the army remembers as a stand. The Walong war memorial now stands above the river, and the anniversary is kept there every November.