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Journalism of Courage
For someone who has served for half a life in the Indian Air Force (IAF) during nearly half of the latter’s existence, introspection on the IAF’s 70th birthday is inevitable. During these seven decades, the IAF has been called upon time and again to meet national emergencies, whether generated by natural disasters or by an aggression from across the borders. What often goes unnoticed is the extensive role that the air force has played in aid to civil authorities. From evacuating the Everest hero Sir Edmund Hillary, fighting for his life in remote mountains, to bringing in sick children through treacherous weather and difficult mountain ranges to medical aid; from air maintenance year after year to remote hamlets in the Himalayas, the IAF has quietly and professionally kept tryst with its destiny as one of the most professional air forces in the world.
The fledgling air force played a key role in the Northwest frontier in the early days after it was created by an executive order of the Viceroy in Council as an independent service on October 8, 1932. But it was during the Second World War, especially when the war came to our own borders, that the force grew and acquitted itself with glory.
The siege of Imphal, the Battle of the Box, and the victory for control of the air are already legends. But the crucial challenge came almost along with independence when the IAF had to use its minuscule airlift capability to evacuate refugees from difficult places, while repositioning the army for boundary control and ensuring law and order when the country was aflame with riots. Interestingly, air force technical people concurrently re-created new aeroplanes by putting together bits and pieces from the aircraft ‘‘graveyards’’ left all over the country by the British.
Things had not begun to settle down when Pakistan invaded Jammu & Kashmir in violation of its agreements. The invading forces (covert and overt) were on the gates of Srinagar when New Delhi decided to send military into the state after it formally and legally acceded to India. A few hours later it would have been almost impossible to position the army to defend the capital or the valley. The road link over the Bannihal Pass (there was no tunnel in those days) was tenuous at best, and rapidly made more impassable by the onset of winter. The history of the subcontinent would have been different if the IAF had not been able to position the troops in Srinagar on that fateful day in October 1947.
By early next year, Pakistan army, now formally involved, after capturing Kargil and laying a siege to Skardu, had started its advance on Leh and the Shyok valley to the north. The Indian army garrison in Leh was extremely small and with the road from Srinagar via Kargil in Pakistani control, it would have taken months to move any reasonable force on the mule track via Manali. By that time, Pakistan would have consolidated its hold over Ladakh. Under the circumstances the only possibility of saving Ladakh was sending reinforcements by air.
But the IAF’s only transport aircraft, the Dakota Mk III, was simply not designed for operating at such heights on uncharted routes to unprepared strip at 11,000 ft altitude. The commander of No I Operational Group, Air Commodore Mehar Singh, undertook the pioneering flight himself and reinforcements with gallant jawans over the following days saved Ladakh.
Similarly, the army garrison at Poonch remained under heavy attack with a serious risk of being over-run if reinforcements could not be sent in time. The army engineers performed a miracle in preparing a small landing strip while being constantly shelled by Pakistani artillery and mortar fire. Air Force transport aircraft continued to fly in troops and equipment (often at night in the hills) while bringing back refugees. Some aircraft were even hit by artillery fire while coming in to land! But shortage of assets did not permit support to the garrison besieged by Pakistan army for six months at Skardu although fighter aircraft were used to drop ammunition to the beleaguered troops.
The next test came in 1962. Transport aircraft were used extensively to position reinforcements and equipment for the army. Unfortunately fighter and bomber aircraft, available and trained for the type of role they would have to perform, were not used in that war for reasons that were never fully understood. This indeed was a missed opportunity in spite of the fact that fighter squadrons had been training over the Himalayas at least since 1959. Interestingly, a US White House intelligence summary of that period clearly concluded that if the IAF were to be used in combat role, it would have made a ‘‘material difference’’ to the ground battle!
The war imposed on us three years later provided a major opportunity for the IAF once again. When Pakistan launched its ‘Operation Grand Slam’ on September 1, 1965, it caught us by surprise. The sheer momentum of the armour offensive in Akhnoor sector of Jammu created a perilous situation, and the IAF was called in late in the evening to provide support against the enemy’s advancing tanks. This is when the controversial action took place when the first four slow moving 1940s vintage Vampire aircraft were shot down by high-technology Pakistani Sabres and F-104 Starfighters.
The following waves of Mystere aircraft also suffered some losses; but the Pakistani armour offensive was stopped in its tracks. Akhnoor, and hence Jammu, was saved. The lessons were well learnt and applied effectively to enable the dramatic and unambiguous defeat of Pakistan in the war for liberation of Bangladesh in December 1971.
The battle of Longewala, where the air force fighters decimated the Pakistani armour offensive in a vulnerable sector of the border is legend. This was a classical fighter aircraft versus tank battle that has few parallels in history. Pakistan’s premier armoured strike force trying to assemble for a thrust through the Suleimanki salient was stopped by air strikes.
And the story goes on. The last of the shows came in Kargil sector in the summer of 1999 when the army defeated Pakistan at the place and time of its choosing; and the IAF made it possible to do so.
