The battle at Asal Uttar had tilted the balance in India's favour.
Punjab will pay homage to the martyrs of the 1965 war at a little village in Taran Taran on Wednesday.
It was the battle a few miles from Amarkot -- Asal Uttar - which had tilted the balance in India's favour. It was where the Pakistani army had suffered its worst losses.
On September 8, 1965, Pakistan had launched its ultimate offensive in Punjab's Khemkaran sector. Its armoured and infantry divisions were moving towards the bridges on Beas river. Their targets: Amritsar, Jalandhar and ultimately Delhi.
The backbone of this attack -- the newly acquired Patton tanks from America.
"The Patton tanks were the most advanced then... their fire power better, their armour thicker," said Major Vikramaditya of Third cavalry regiment which took on the Pattons. "But despite all this, it is not the machine that wins you the war. It is the men behind those machines."
The Indian Army took on the Pattons with World War II era tanks.
The Pakistani army had met with initial success and captured Khemkaran. The Indian contingent fell back, and as part of a tactical maneuver, assumed a horseshoe shaped defensive position with Asal Uttar as its focal point.
That night, they troops flooded the sugarcane field and the next morning, on September 9, Pakistani tanks were lured into this trap.
Daya Singh, who took part in the battle of Asal Uttar, said: "Our squadron commander had instructed us not to go closer than a 2 km range of the Pattons... but we went as close as 300 to 400 meters and destroyed the enemy tanks."
By the next day, the Pakistani forces were in a disarray. On September 11, the Indian army completed victory formalities.
Pakistan suffered a crushing defeat. It lost 97 tanks -- including 72 Pattons; 32 tanks were captured in running condition -- some of them were kept as war trophies by the victor regiments. India lost only 5 tanks.