Army Chiefs

General Satyawant Mallannah Shrinagesh

COAS
14 May 1955 - 07 May 1957
Infantry, Kumaon Regiment

General Satyawant Mallannah Shrinagesh assumed charge of the Indian Army, as the 3rd Chief of Army Staff, on 14 May 1955. He was the eldest son of Dr Shrinagesh Mallannah, who was the personal physician to the Nizam of Hyderabad. Born in 1903 at Kolhapur, Maharashtra he went to a public school in England and entered Cambridge University in 1921.

Among the earliest batches of Indians to be nominated for the Sandhurst Military Academy in the U.K., he won the Quetta Cup for the best man at arms entering the Indian Army in 1923. He was subsequently commissioned into the 19th Hyderabad Regiment (presently known as the Kumaon Regiment) on 30 August 1923. After a brief association with the North Staffordshire Regiment, he was posted to the 2/1 Madras Pioneers with which he served mostly in Burma until it was disbanded. In 1933, he joined the 4/19th Hyderabad Regiment and served in Singapore as its adjutant. In December 1939, he was posted as an Instructor at the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun.

From 17 December 1942 till 28 August 1945, he was the Commanding Officer of the 6/19th Hyderabad Regiment (now 6th Kumaon). He then officiated as the Brigade Commander of the 64th Indian Infantry Brigade of the 19th Indian (Dagger) Division in Burma from August 1945. He was then appointed as the first Indian Commandant of the Kumaon Regimental Centre in Agra on 02 October 1946 and served in that capacity till 12 December 1946. He was then chosen to lead the 268th Infantry Brigade British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in post World War II Japan and served in that post till 1947. He was also Brigade Commander of the famous Lushai Brigade in Burma in 1947. He was selected to go to Germany as Deputy Chief of the Indian Military Mission in November 1945. In that capacity, he also worked as the Economic Adviser & Consul looking after the interests of Indian nationals in Germany and locating missing Prisoners of War (POWs).

On his return from Japan, he was promoted to Major General and was appointed the General Officer Commanding of the Madras Area. From January 1948, he was appointed as the Adjutant General at the Army Headquarters and held that post till August of the same year. He also commanded the 5th Corps (later designated as 15th Corps). He was appointed the overall commander of all troops in Jammu & Kashmir during the 1947-48 Indo-Pak War and held this command till the ceasefire on 01 January 1949. Promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General in 1950, he was chosen as the GOC-in-C Western Command on 15 January 1949. He was then appointed as the GOC-in-C Southern Command and held that post, till he assumed charge as the Army Chief on 14 May 1955. General Shrinagesh retired on 07 May 1957, completing 34 years of distinguished military service. Post retirement, he served as the Governor of Assam from 1959 to 1962, then as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh from 1962 to 1964 and finally as Governor of Mysore (now Karnataka) from 1964 to 1965. From 1959 to 1957, he also served as the Principal of the Administrative Staff College in Hyderabad. He passed away on 27 December 1977