RECRUITMENT IN THE TERRITORIAL ARMY AS AN OFFICER - JUNE 2013

Dear All
The advertisement for TA recruitment as an officer is out and one may click the following link to get more details:-

http://www.jobsindia2013.com/2013/05/15/territorial-army-ta-of-india-jobs-vacancies-2013/

Last date for filling the application is 30 June 2013 and application may be downloaded from the Indian Army Website. Following is the link for published advertisement:-

http://indianarmy.nic.in/writereaddata/WhatsNew/405/taadd070512.pdf

Best wishes.....


Published by the team of TERRITORIALS.

ONE OF THE GREATEST SOLDIERS OF THE UNITED STATES................. NOT REGULAR BUT A PART-TIMER

Audie Leon Murphy (June 20, 1925 – May 28, 1971) was one of the most famous and decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He served in the Mediterranean and European Theater of Operations where he was presented the Medal of Honor and several other decorations for heroism in combat including decorations from France and Belgium"


Kindly click the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy



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CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

Preface and Acknowledgement

Foreword by Major General A K Siwach, YSM, VSM, Additional Director General Territorial Army

List of Tables

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. The Concept of Amateur Soldiery

3. Development of Part-Time Forces under the English

4. Part-Time Forces After 1857

5. Amateur Soldiers between the Wars

6. Brief Histories of the AF(I) Units, 1940

7. The TA Since Independence

8. Volunteer Forces Medal and Awards

9. Appendix

Appendix - I

Rules for Government and Public Sector Undertaking Employees While Joining

Territorial Army

Appendix II

Territorial Army Act, 1948

Appendix III

Indian Territorial Force Act, 1920

Indian Territorial Force Rules, 1921 ACT No. XLVII of 1920

Appendix - IV

Madras Volunteer Guard

Appendix V

Song of the Madras Volunteers Guard

Appendix VI

Topical Song of the Lumsden’s Horse

10. Bibliography

Index 

click the link to know more.

https://www.facebook.com/TERRITORIALS

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BOOK RELEASE

Dear All.....
My book is now available from Ocean Books Pvt Ltd at the address mentioned below.
One may also mail at (prabhatbooks@gmail.com) to order, mentioning address and no of copies. It will be responded promptly. Priced at Rupees 400/-.
Best Regards
Surender.

Prabhat Prakashan
4/19 Asaf Ali Road
New Delhi-110002 (India)

Phs. : +91-11-23289777
Fax : +91-11-23253233
www.prabhatbooks.com
www.hindibooks.org

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Territorial Army - History of India's Part-Time Soldiers

The Book authored by Surender Singh is now ready for publication and would hit the stands within few days...

The Subject

An Important facet concerning military matters in India has eluded the scrutiny of policy makers since independence. Equally so, within the military organization; it has not been subject to an informed debate despite a great scope for restructuring in the present manning structure of Indian army. My reference here is to the Territorial Army which forms an integral part of the Indian Army and which is also popularly described as the Citizens’ Army. The conceptual framework for the TA is based on the fundamental idea that it should exist for war-time employment, and should be maintainable at the lowest cost during peace time. The concept encompasses the employment of disciplined, dedicated and a low cost force of gainfully employed citizens from all walks of life to supplement and augment the resources of Regular Army. These citizens on joining undergo a short period of rigorous training, which makes them reasonably competent soldiers. Subsequently, they join units from 14 days to a maximum of 60 days every year for refresher training to keep in touch with the art of soldiering and are liable to be called for an active duty during hostilities. 

Publishers
http://www.oceanbooks.in/

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Book on Territorial Army

Dear Readers

My book titled "TERRITORIAL ARMY - HISTORY OF INDIA'S PART-TIME FORCES" is almost done and would be published very soon. Stay in touch with the blog to grab your copy.

Happy Reading.....

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East India Railway Volunteers (Volunteer Force of India)

Following excerpts have been taken from a book titled Among the Railway Folks written by Rudyard Kipling in 1888 (See chapter one, pp 3-4).

The author while describing Jamalpur (a small township in the Indian state of Bihar) narrates about a part-time territorial unit stationed there. He vividly mentions how the unit was so important to the spirit of the town.

 

"In the hot weather it splashes in the swimming bath, or reads, for it has a library of several thousand books. One of the most flourishing lodges in the Bengal jurisdiction —‘St. George in the East’— lives at Jamalpur, and meets twice a month. Its members point out with justifiable pride that all the fittings were made by their own hands; and the lodge in its accoutrements and the energy of the craftsmen can compare with any in India. But the institute is the central gathering place, and its half-dozen tennis-courts and neatlylaid-out grounds seem to be always full. Here, if a stranger could judge, the greater part of the flirtation of Jamalpur is carried out, and here the dashing apprentice — the apprentices are the liveliest of all — learns that there are problems harder than any he studies at the night school, and that the heart of a maiden is more inscrutable than the mechanism of a locomotive. On Tuesdays and Fridays the volunteers parade. A and B Companies, 150 strong in all, of the E.I.R. Volunteers, are stationed here with the band. Their uniform, grey with red facings, is not lovely, but they know how to shoot and drill. They have to. The ‘Company’ makes it a condition of service that a man must be a volunteer; and volunteer in something more than name he must be, or someone will ask the reason why. Seeing that there are no regulars between Howrah and Dinapore, the ‘Company’ does well in exacting this toll. Some of the old soldiers are wearied of drill, some of the youngsters don’t like it, but — the way they entrain and detrain is worth seeing. They are as mobile a corps as can be desired, and perhaps ten or twelve years hence the Government may possibly be led to take a real interest in them and spend a few thousand rupees in providing them with real soldiers’ kits — not uniform and rifle merely. Their ranks include all sorts and conditions of men — heads of the ‘Loco.’ and ‘Traffic,’— the Company is no respecter of rank — clerks in the ‘audit,’ boys from mercantile firms at home, fighting with the intricacies of time, fare, and freight tables; guards who have grown grey in the service of the Company; mail and passenger drivers with nerves of cast-iron, who can shoot through a long afternoon without losing temper or flurrying; light-blue East Indians; Tyne-side men, slow of speech and uncommonly strong in the arm; lathy apprentices who have not yet ‘filled out’; fitters, turners, foremen, full, assistant, and sub-assistant station masters, and a host of others. In the hands of the younger men the regulation Martini-Henry naturally goes off the line occasionally on hunting expeditions.

There is a twelve hundred yards range running down one side of the station, and the condition of the grass by the firing butts tells its own tale. Scattered in the ranks of the volunteers are a fair number of old soldiers, for the Company has a weakness for recruiting from the Army for its guards who may, in time, become stationmasters. A good man from the Army, with his papers all correct and certificates from his commanding officer, can, after depositing twenty pounds to pay his home passage, in the event of his services being dispensed with, enter the Company’s service on something less than one hundred rupees a month and rise in time to four hundred as a stationmaster. A railway bungalow — and they are as substantially built as the engines — will cost him more than one-ninth of the pay of his grade, and the Provident Fund provides for his latter end."

Refer the link to know more about Rudyard Kipling:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling

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Indian Republic Day

Wishing all my friends... Happy Republic Day.................

Reserve & Auxiliary Air Force

(Popularly known as the ‘Citizens’ Air Force’ or the ‘Weekend Flyers’)

Three categories of Reserves to the Indian Air Force were set up in pursuance of the Reserve & Auxiliary Air Force Act - August 1952. This Act was passed by the parliament on 14 August 1952 and received president’s assent five days later.

The first category of Reserve was known as the Regular Reserves. As the name implies, it comprised officers and airmen who at one time or the other served in the regular Air Force and were out of service on release of retirement.

The second type of Reserves was known as the Air Defence Reserves. It consisted of all technical and flying personnel associated with aviation in the country, but not directly connected with the regular Air Force. This force had General Duty (Pilots and Navigators) and Ground Duty officers and technical personnel. The Act made it obligatory for all citizens who held qualifications, either as aircrew or as aeronautical engineers, to register themselves by 30 April 1956. Civil Aviation from which source the members of this category of Reserves were drawn was nationalized and therefore became automatically complimentary to the Air Force under the Act.

The third type was the Auxiliary Air Force. It was an exact counterpart of the Regular Air Force as the Territorial Army to the Regular Army. This Citizens’ Air Force as it was popularly called provided flying and technical training so that, apart from the benefit the members may derive from military aviation, they can, in a national emergency, contribute their bit in defending the country.

The Auxiliary Air Force was composed of squadrons located at major towns of the country. Apart from a small number of a regular Air Force officers and airmen, to be employed on instructional duties, these squadrons were manned entirely by civilian personnel. Drawn from amongst the permanent residents of the city or locality, the members of these squadrons continued to follow their normal professions. 

Seven Auxiliary Air Force Squadrons were raised during the early fifties namely:-

• No. 51 Squadron, Safdarjang, New Delhi
• No. 52 Squadron, Juhu, Bombay
•   No. 53 Squadron, Meenambakam, Madras
• No. 54 Squadron, Manauri, Allahabad
• No. 55 Squadron, Barrack pore, Calcutta
• No. 56 Squadron, Bhubaneshwar
• No. 57 Squadron, Chandigarh

These squadrons were equipped with the HAL-designed HT-2 trainer - officially introduced into service on 10 January 1955 - and the Harvard, although Vampire FB Mk. 52s were added in 1959.

Recruitment was open to all Indian national on part time basis from airmen to a fighter pilot. It immediately caught the imagination of entire nation especially of the technicians and civilian pilots flying with various commercial airlines. Many serving Regular Air Force pilots even left to join this part time force. The part time nature was a win win situation for our country in terms of saving a huge amount of money which otherwise, would have been spent in training fresh pilots. For commercial pilots, it was merely a conversion to military aviation at a very minimal cost.

Training was so devised as not to interfere as far as possible, with the normal profession or work of the trainees. It included an annual training camp of about four weeks, during which squadrons used to exercise in their normal role. After successfully completing their general and flying training on basic and advanced trainer aircraft, the pupil pilots were awarded the coveted ‘Air Force Wings’. Similarly the airmen trainees used to become full fledged tradesmen after successful completion of their technical ground training. The members of the Auxiliary Air Force were provided with a uniform, identical to that of the regular Air Force but with a distinguishing Auxiliary badge.

Members were not liable to be transferred from one squadron to another due to their civil professions. The Auxiliary Air Force provided an ideal platform to the youth of our country to augment country’s growing air power by serving as an Active Air Force Reserve along with their civil professions.

A Central Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Minister of Defence, Government of India was set up under the Reserve and Auxiliary Air Force Act to advise the Government of India on all matters concerning the Auxiliary Air Force and how to make it more popular and effective?

Shortly after the war with China in 1962, a decision was taken to convert the Auxiliary Air Force squadrons of 'weekend' flyers to regular Indian Air Force Squadrons. These units were to form the training organizations where young pilot graduates of the Air Force Academy and Jet Training Wing would be sent for operational training and to be conferred ‘Fully Ops’ status. Resultantly, five Auxiliary squadrons were converted into two regular fighter or bomber squadrons, hence 220 and 221 Squadrons (both flying Vampires), came into being at Poona and Barrackpore respectively. 

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