‘Hand of God’: How a young Indian Navy sailor returned from the dead in Australia in 1951

Captain Ajitendu Chakraverti, who celebrated his 37th birthday on board the destroyer INS Rajput in February 1951, was no stranger to crises. The man who would later be promoted to rear admiral had seen action in World War II in operations off Burma and the Malacca Straits. On the morning of February 5, two days after his birthday, Chakraverti was informed that an 18-year-old member of his crew was “missing, presumably drowned” in the waters off Point Lonsdale at the entrance of Port Phillip Bay, near Melbourne, Australia.

The Indian Navy had bought INS Rajput, formerly the HMS Rotherham, from Britain in 1948. The ship, which had a company of 250 officers and sailors, arrived in Australia at Darwin and sailed to Brisbane, Sydney and Hobart, before heading towards Melbourne. It was sent Down Under by the Indian Navy for the golden jubilee celebrations of the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia.

It sailed without any untoward incident until that fateful morning when Chakraverti was told that a young stoker by the name of Terence Glasford (also spelled in some reports as Glasfurd) could not be found. The Australian authorities were immediately approached for help to rescue Glasford, but a search that went on...

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