Head of the Indian Army who fought with the British in WWII and defeated Pakistan in 1971

Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, who died on 27 June, 2008, was Chief of Staff of the Indian Army during Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 which saw a convincing win for India.

It was the culmination of a 40-year military campaign in which he saw action during British occupation, the Second World War, and campaigns in Burma, Indochina and Kashmir.

He was widely regarded as a hero and was the first Indian to receive the rank of Field Marshall. However, his last years were dogged by allegations that he had sold war plans to enemy forces, allegations widely disputed by his supporters.

Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw was born on 3 April, 1914 in the Punjab region of North India. In October 1932 he became one of the first batch of cadets of the Indian Military Academy (founded by the British Army) and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the army two years later.

Under British rule he served attached to the Royal Scots and during the Second World War he was in the Frontier Force Regiment, part of General Slim's multinational Fourteenth Army fighting the Japanese in Burma.

During the Burma campaign he was wounded by gun fire on the battle field where Major General D T Cowan gave him the impromptu honour of a Military Cross for gallantry, pinning his own medal to Manekshaw saying, “A dead person cannot be awarded a Military Cross.”

Despite the seriousness of his injuries he did recover and returned to the front, but he was wounded for a second time. After recovering again he was posted to Indochina where he helped rehabilitate POWs following the Japanese surrender. After the war he spent six months lecturing about his experiences in Australia.

As a Staff Officer he demonstrated his talents for administration during independence from British rule and the subsequent partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. He was then given command of the Infantry Brigade during conflicts in Jammu and Kashmir in the north east of the country and earned promotion to the roles of Commandant of the Infantry School and Colonel of 8 Gorkha Rifles.

In 1968 he squashed an insurgency in Nagaland and was given the Padma Bhushan civilian decoration. The following year he was made Chief of Army Staff and was soon called upon to deal with the problem of large numbers of refugees crossing the border from troubled Pakistan as a result of the Bangladesh Liberation War.

By 1971 the diplomatic situation between Pakistan and India had degenerated completely and in December a full-scale war started. Manekshaw's sophisticated tactical awareness and leadership saw his army quickly repel the Pakistani forces. Within two weeks of their attack on the border, Pakistan had surrendered and independence for Bangladesh was negotiated.

After the 1971 war, Manekshaw was made Field Marshall, still one of only two Indian army chiefs to be given that rank. He also received the Padma Vibhushan civilian award. Shortly afterwards he retired from military service after 40 years. He went on to successful directorships of several companies.

In May 2007, Gohar Ayub Khan, son of former Pakistani President Ayub Khan, alleged during a television interview that a high ranking Indian general had sold war plans to Pakistan during a 1965 conflict between the two nations, giving strong hints that the man in question was Sam Manekshaw.

However, many commentators dismissed Khan's claims as spurious and felt the allegations were an attempt to discredit Field Marshal Manekshaw in revenge for the humiliation the Pakistani Army suffered in 1971 at a time when he was too ill to defend himself.

Field Marshal Manekshaw died at a military hospital in Tamil Nadu after a bout of pneumonia. He was 94 and still regarded as a military hero by the vast majority in India.