Gul Hassan Khan

Lieutenant General Gul Hassan Khan (Urdu: ; 9 June 1921 – 10 October 1999) known secretly as George, was a three-star rank Pakistan Army general and diplomat who served as the 6th and last Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, serving from 20 December 1971 until 3 March 1972, the shortest tenure.

Gul Hassan resigned along with Abdur Rahim Khan after they refused Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's request to use their forces to end a police strike protesting for a pay increase against Bhutto's government.

The office was renamed to Chief of Army Staff and Gul Hassan was succeeded by Tikka Khan.

Gul Hassan held the positions of ADC to General Viscount Slim and Governor-General Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Directing Staff Pakistan Command and Staff College, Commander 1 Armoured Division, Chief of General Staff, Director Military Operations, and Commander 100 Independent Armoured Brigade Group.

Gul Hassan was known for leading from the front.

Notably, during training army officers, he wanted the artillery practice to mimic real war conditions.

He had a bunker built at the target end of the Muzaffargarh range, which offered some security but wasn't completely safe, as a direct hit could destroy it.

Despite the risk, Gul Hassan entered the bunker himself and instructed the gunners to fire with a narrow margin of error to test their training.

He insisted that each artillery regiment take turns firing at the bunker to assess their skills.

Colonel EAS Bokhari writes that "Luckily the units fired perfectly - and though Gen Gul was shaken in the bunker and came out of it with a lot of dust and fear of God in him - but he was quite safe. I have never seen any General Officer do this and ask for fire on a target where he himself was located."

Gul Hassan Khan was born in Quetta, Balochistan, into a middle-class Pashtun family on 9 June 1921.

His father was the Superintendent of the Government Railway Police.

Gul Hassan had three brothers and a sister, of which he was the second oldest.

He has relatives still residing in Pabbi Nowshera District and in Quetta, Pakistan.

In 1939, he joined the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College.

In March 1940, Gul Hassan appeared for the competitive entrance examination into the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun but failed, not because of his academics, but because Hassan was late to his interview which was worth 500 marks on the exam.

In January 1941, Gul Hassan took the exam again and got into the academy.

He was an excellent Hockey player and gained fame as a boxer at the Military Academy.

Gul Hassan was fluent in Urdu, Pashto, Punjabi, English, and Persian.

On 22 February 1942, Gul Hassan was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the British Indian Army into the 9th battalion of the Frontier Force Rifles and was later transferred to the Armoured Corps.

Gul Hassan attended an Intelligence course in March 1943 at Karachi where his commandant was Lieutenant Colonel J Campbell.

Gul Hassan was stationed in Assam with Assam Rifles and participated in the Burma Campaign in 1944–45.

He recalled the stench of the dead bodies of Japanese soldiers and that he witnessed the British Indian Army burning bodies of the Japanese.

Gul Hassan attended the Pakistan Command and Staff College in 1950.

In September 1951, Gul Hassan was posted to the Military Training Directorate GHQ under director Brigadier Jerrad, who he had met in Burma.

Gul Hassan was the Directing Staff at Pakistan Command and Staff College from 30 June 1957 to 16 June 1959.

During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Gul Hassan was the Director of Military Operations in the GHQ.

His actions of valor won him the nomination of prestigious Sitara-e-Pakistan by the President.

After the 1965 war, he was promoted to major general and was made the GOC of the 1st Armoured Division headquartered in Multan, Punjab.

In September 1968, Gul Hassan was appointed as Colonel Commandant of the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers.

On 20 December 1968, Gul Hassan was posted to General Headquarters as the Chief of General Staff (CGS).

Gul Hassan was promoted to Lieutenant General while serving in this post in 1971.

According to the testimony provided by Major General A.O. Mitha, it was Gul Hassan's lobbying at the Army GHQ which saved then Brigadier Zia-ul-Haq (Chief of Pakistan's military mission) from being sacked.

Brigadier Zia, who was in Jordan in 1971, was recommended to be court-martialed by Major General Nawazish in his submission to President Yahya Khan for disobeying GHQ orders by commanding a Jordanian armoured division against the Palestinians, as part of "Operation Black September" in which thousands were killed.

It was Gul Hasan who interceded for Zia ultimately leading to Yahya Khan letting Zia off the hook.

Gul Hassan was married and had one son, Sher Hassan Khan, born in 1982.

When his wife came from Vienna to see him in the hospital, he had given her 1.1 million rupees and his son a similar amount.

The last 100,000 rupees he had left, he had instructed his family to use for his funeral.

Towards the end of the war, Gul Hassan was appointed as the aide-de-camp to General Viscount Slim who commanded the 14th Army in Burma.

After the Partition of British India, Gul Hassan opted for Pakistan and served as aide-de-camp to Muhammad Ali Jinnah.