Joginder Singh, AC

Biography

Joginder Singh was born on 30 November 1922 in Datevas village, Bhatinda district, Punjab, to Sardar Sham Singh, a farmer. He enlisted in the Indian Army on 30 November 1940, on his eighteenth birthday, and was posted to the 2nd Battalion of the Sikh Regiment. An exceptional soldier from the outset, he consistently earned top grades in his military courses and saw active service abroad, including deployments in Greece and Africa during the Second World War years. On 24 April 1956, during counter-insurgency operations to suppress the Naga rebellion in the Naga Hills, Havildar Joginder Singh was leading a three-jeep supply convoy through the Khujami area near Phek when the convoy was ambushed by a large group of hostile insurgents. In the ensuing firefight he was shot in the leg and the abdomen, yet he refused to fall back. Bleeding heavily and in great pain, he crawled forward toward the enemy position and hurled hand grenades into it, silencing the hostile fire and enabling the rest of his unit to close in and destroy the militant post. He succumbed to his wounds at the battle site. For his conspicuous gallantry, indomitable spirit, and supreme sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds, Havildar Joginder Singh was posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra, the nation's highest peacetime gallantry award, on 26 January 1957.