Thoise is not an acronym

MILITARIES have a penchant for preserving their heritage. The commemoration takes various forms — naming buildings in academies to motivate recruits, installing statues of iconic leaders and showcasing their famous words on boards and walls, naming roads after warriors, etc.

Some armed forces dedicate defence installations to their heroes. The US has the Joint Base Andrews from where the President flies out; it is named after Lt Gen Frank Andrews of the US Army Air Force who advocated for an independent US Air Force. The Pakistanis call some airbases after airmen whom they consider heroes — Rafiqui, Minhas, Nur Khan (all hit by the IAF during Op Sindoor). The Royal Air Force names its bases after towns where they are located, and so does the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Some IAF bases have become household names. For those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, Pathankot, Ambala, Adampur, Halwara and Jaisalmer are synonymous with air force stations from where the IAF flew missions into Pakistan in the 1965 and 1971 wars. In the East, Tezpur and Hasimara are well known, but the reality is that many important strikes, including those on the Governor’s palace at Dacca in 1971 that made him surrender, operated from (IAF Station) Gauhati. Listeners and readers got the news from All India Radio and the print media; so, there were official sources or those correspondents who were in the thick of action.

In the 21st century, social media and private websites have taken centre stage. Some, like Wikipedia, can be edited by readers and armchair warriors leading to corruption of facts — both intentional (to manipulate news and history) and unintentional, which comes from misinformation. Misinformation has unintended consequences, and over time gets accepted as truth.

One such wrong ‘truth’ is that the name of a very important IAF airfield — Thoise — is an acronym for Transit Halt Of Indian Soldiers Enroute (to Siachen) — google ‘Thoise acronym’ and you would get this expansion. This has got accepted, including in official military briefings! Nothing can be further from the truth.

A kutcha airstrip was hewed out of rocks on the banks of the Shyok river in 1960 by the civil administration, employing locals who toiled manually; it was named Thoise. The first landing was by a Dakota on September 26, 1960, captained by Sqn Ldr CK Raje. Thereafter, Packet aircraft landed regularly with supplies for our Army deployed on the Chinese border in northern Ladakh. There was not a single soldier on the Siachen Glacier then. Siachen operations started on April 13, 1984, a quarter century after the airstrip was constructed!

So, folks (and Wikipedia), Thoise is NOT an acronym; but then, where did the name come from? It’s probably a mispronunciation of the name of a nearby village Terchey, from where local labour was drafted to make the kutcha airstrip. Let those Ladakhis of Terchey, hardworking but unsung, get due credit for the name Thoise!