The 347th Session of Memory Night-4

Like Chamran

Adjusted by Leyla Rostami
Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2024-2-29

The 347^th session of memory night titled “Like Chamran” was held in the hall of the educational vice-chancellor of the art field (Hozeh Honari) organization of Islamic Revolution on Thursday, June 22, 2022. As well as, Martyr Chamran Educational Hall was also opened after the session. 5 narrators of martyr Chamran's comrades were in this program: Fereydoun Ganjour, Mohammad Nokhostin, two brothers Hassan and Ismail Shahhosseini, and Sayyid Abbas Heidar Rabouki. Davoud Salehi hosted this memory night.

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Ismail Shahhosseini, the fourth narrator of the session, said at the beginning of his narration, “I had a high class motorcycle. Since the beginning of the revolution, under the supervision of Dr. Chamran, I have been protecting Firuzeh Palace, Khojir[1] , the palaces of Valiahd (means Crown Prince) and several other places. Two years passed and the war started. My brother called one night and said, “I will send someone for you at eight in the morning. Come to Ahvaz with your motorcycle. We have a duty to do.” My brother who was early in Kurdistan, had talked with Dr. Chamran about motorcyclists; but he had replied, “We don't need motorcyclists in Kurdistan. It may be necessary later.” They came at eight o'clock in the evening and took me, with my motorcycle, to Ahvaz on a Toyota. My first task was to take one of the artillery colonels to a place near the embankment between road of Hamidiyeh Garrison and Susangerd. I was assigned to protect mountain of the dam. Dr. Chamran said, “If that dam had been built 24 hours later, we would have lost Ahvaz and it was not clear what would have happened to us!” The colonel came at 8 in the morning. The Iraqis had blocked the road and were firing us. “How do you ride sir?” the colonel said when he first got on my motorcycle. I said, “You just have to hold my waist and stick to me; what movement I do, you will also become the same.” The Iraqis had built a bridge for the movement of troops on Karkheh. We encountered the bridge guard force. Because the grenade was attached to us, I left the motor in a corner. I said, “it seems this is their headquarters.” About 50-60 meters ahead was a large cabin. I saw someone had stood with his back to us. He had put one hand on the arch above the door of the room. He was also two meters tall. Like a guerrilla, the gun was on his shoulder and he was talking. Immediately, we placed in a distance about 10-15 meters away from him. He turned and saw us. I brandished my gun. He jumped into the room. I also said to the colonel, “Run.” We jumped on the motorbike and went back from the way we had come. They were afraid to come out.

  Now we had passed their embankment and came forward. The colonel hugged me and said, “What are you doing?!” “You just hug me,” I said. You yourself asked me to come and help you.” This was the first motorized artillery observation for AJA (the army), which was ordered by Dr. Chamran and my brother coordinated with me. I jumped from the small canals on the wheat fields of Ahvaz people. All had been destroyed. I stopped after about a kilometer. I said, “Colonel! Now look and see what's coming after us?!” I was young then. I didn't need a camera. I saw them looking the motorbike line in the fourth column way with RPGs, machine guns, etc. and were coming forward. “What shall we do?” said the colonel. I said, “Now, I will take you to the back of the embankment.”

One path like a trail was next to Karkheh Kur. Because they had built a dam on Karkheh Kur, I came from the side of that line to the back of the Iraqi embankment and turned. When I went a little, I jumped again from a small water canal, about one meter, one and a half meters away, into the wheat fields. I turned and returned to our path. When I went one kilometer, I said to the colonel, “Come on, let's sit here and see how far they will follow us?” He said, “Where are they going?” I said, “They go to the back of their own embankment.” He said, "Is it possible? They are coming.” “Look,” I said. After looking for four or five minutes, he said, “Yes, they turned left, to the back of their own embankment. Why?!” I said: “Well, it is what it is! They saw a straight line, the second one is turned to back of their embankment, and they are following us.” The colonel said, “What should we do?!” I took him next to a tree. I was tired and laid down. The colonel climbed the tree. There were ten to the left, twenty to the right. I got up and looked, I saw he was routing them. There were tanks that exploded. There were people who rolled and left. That embankment disappeared. Anywhere the artillery would calibrate they hit quickly, that means it would no longer existed.

The narrator continued, “I went several times in the beginning with a motorcycle for watchdogging and other tasks. Because I was a member of the Iranian motorcycle team, they wanted to send me to Japan's Yamaha company for training. I said to Dr. Chamran, “These motorcycles and their rear shock absorbers are only useful for jumping over the five, six, and ten meter canals.” I connected Dr. Chamran to Mr. Tavasoli, the contact of Yamaha company. He sent twenty motorbikes to Ahvaz and after that other guys joined. I trained a number of people, one of whom was Mr. Abbas [Sayyid Abbas Heidar Rabouki (the fifth narrator)].

In the end, Ismail Shahhosseini said, “By God, those who went to the front were not idle. They were not deportees. They sold their factories. Their brothers were martyred. They had a life and a wife and children. The very my brother came to Tehran two or three times. He was sitting at home and his children were there. When his little three-year-old son came in, he ran and sat on my knee. I said Baba (daddy) Hassan! Baba Hasan! But he sat on my knee and did not hug Baba Hasan! (choke and cry). For them, first Islam, then Namus, and homeland had been internalized.

To be continued…