Glimpses
As Lieutenant General
General
P.P.
Kumaramangalam, DSO
COAS, 07 June 1966 - 07 June 1969
Regiment of Artillery
General Paramasiva Prabhakar Kumaramangalam assumed charge of the Indian Army, as the 7th Chief of Army Staff, on 07 June 1966. Born on 01 July 1913, he completed his early education at Eton College and graduated from Woolwich College in England. He was the last of the King's Commissioned Indian Officers trained at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and was the second Indian Officer to be commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery on 19 August 1933.
During the Second World War, he participated in the operations in the Middle East and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) as a Major for action in Libya on 27 May 1942. He was taken Prisoner of War (POW) in Italy in 1942, however he did not stay long and escaped. However his luck ran out and he was caught again and imprisoned, this time in Germany. At the end of the war in 1945, he returned to India and become a Brigadier in 1948.
General Kumaramangalam took over as the General Officer Commanding–in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Eastern Command in May 1963. In November 1964, he was appointed as the Deputy Chief of Army Staff (DCAS) and on 15 January 1965, he became the Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCAS). He also served as the Adjutant General and the Commandant of the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) at Wellington, before becoming the Army Chief on 07 June 1966.
General Kumaramangalam was the first gunner from the Regiment of Artillery, to serve as the Army Chief. His tenure as Army Chief was marked by an unpublicised, but exhaustive, re-organisation of the Indian Army which included up-gradation of weapons and training & tactics based on the lessons learned from the 1965 Indo-Pak War. He served in the Indian Army with distinction for 36 years till his retirement on 07 June 1969. For his services to the nation, he was presented with the Padma Vibhushan - India's second highest civilian honour - by the President of India in 1970.
General Kumaramangalam was an avid polo player and a keen cricketer. He was also a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, a prestigious cricket club in England; the President of the Indian Polo Association and Equestrian Federation of India and a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. He was the Senior Colonel Commandant of the Regiment of Artillery from 05 July 1959 to 04 July 1969 and the Honorary Colonel Commandant from 05 July 1969 to 30 June 1975. On retirement as Army Chief, he was elected President of the World Wildlife Fund - India during its formative stages. He passed away on 13 March 2000, following cardio respiratory failure, at the age of 87.