Air Commodore Nitin Sathe discovers how the IAF skilled Pakistani air pressure pilots, throughout the 1971 Warfare, which led to the delivery of the Bangladesh air pressure.
IMAGE: An Alouette helicopter fitted with a lightweight machine gun and rocket pods supplied cowl in Sylhet, December 7, 1971. {Photograph}: Sort courtesy Bangladesh Air Drive
My affiliation with this Indian Air Drive veteran — who doesn’t want to be named for this function — goes again a good distance. Though he was very senior to me within the IAF, we spent many an fascinating hour collectively out and in of the cockpit over time.
Calling him sensible in flying and lecturers could be an understatement… however the one downside with this man was that he cherished, and nonetheless likes to, stay out of the highlight!
Publish-retirement and out of the cockpit, his quest for data solely elevated manifold and it was not lengthy earlier than he turned a wizard of types.
With dates and names at his fingertips, he may rattle out tales about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s, Erwin Rommel’s and Bernard St Regulation Montgomery’s army campaigns and methods. He has researched the various wars India has fought in current occasions.
Ask him a query and he dives into reminiscence (which he says is fading!) — and in a couple of seconds, you hear fascinating tales from historical past.
And that’s precisely what occurred. I used to be researching a e book that I’m considering writing and determined to name the guru for data.
Within the subsequent hour or so, he left me spellbound with a fascinating story, which I share with you right here.
IMAGE: An Indian Air Drive Chetak helicopter throughout the 1971 Warfare. {Photograph}: Sort courtesy bharat-rakshak.com
The IAF veteran first quoted from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s speech to the nation on December 3, 1971.
“That is related to what I’m going to say subsequently,” the guru tells me.
‘I converse to you at a second of grave peril to our nation and our folks. Some hours in the past, quickly after 5:30 pm on December 3, Pakistan launched a full‐scale struggle in opposition to us.‘
‘The Pakistan air pressure abruptly struck at our airfields in Amritsar, Pathankot, Srinagar, Avantipur, Utterlai, Jodhpur, Ambala and Agra.‘
‘Their floor forces are shelling our defence positions in Sulemankhi, Khemkaran, Poonch and different sectors.‘
‘Since final March we now have borne the heaviest of burdens and withstood the best of stress and an amazing effort to induce the world to assist in bringing about peaceable resolution…‘
‘…As we speak, the struggle in Bangladesh has change into a struggle on India, and this imposes upon me, my Authorities and the folks of India an superior duty. We’ve got no different choice however to place our nation on a struggle footing. Our courageous officers and jawans are at their posts, mobilized for the defence of the nation. Emergency has been declared… we’re ready for any eventualities.‘
‘…I don’t doubt that it’s the united will of our people who this wanton and unprovoked aggression of Pakistan must be decisively and eventually repelled. On this resolve, the Authorities is assured of the total and unflinching help of all political events and each Indian citizen.‘
‘We should be ready for a protracted interval of hardship and sacrifice. We’re a peace-loving folks, however we all know that peace can’t final if we don’t guard our freedom, our democracy and our lifestyle. ‘
‘So in the present day we combat, not merely for territorial integrity, however for the essential concepts which have given energy to this nation, and on this alone we will progress to a greater future.‘
‘Aggression should be met and the folks of India will meet it with fortitude and willpower, with self-discipline and the utmost unity.‘
Mrs Gandhi needed to wait to make this declaration virtually until the midnight of December 3, the IAF explains.
Bengali pilots from the Pakistan air pressure skilled by the IAF, flying an Indian helicopter and transport airplane (unexpectedly modified for delivering armaments) from airfields in India, have been used to fireplace the primary pictures in East Pakistan on the evening of December 3.
As quickly because the information of the secure restoration of those plane after their profitable mission reached Delhi, as if on cue, Mrs Gandhi declared struggle, the clouds of which have been looming massive from the start of 1971 itself.
The Bengali PAF pilots have been skilled by the IAF at a number of bases positioned alongside the japanese border of that nation.
‘Kilo Flight’, because it was known as, was a small a part of the bigger ‘Kilo Drive’ fashioned from the massive inhabitants of East Pakistanis (of Bengali origin) fleeing their nation into India.
This story is how these pilots have been skilled by the IAF and achieved the unattainable, braving all odds. They went on to change into the pioneers of the quickly to be Bangladesh air pressure.
“However earlier than we get to know extra concerning the Kilo Flight, it will be pertinent to know the way the ‘Kilo Drive’ was fashioned and we have to return in time,” the guru stated to me because the chat warmed up.
IMAGE: The bridge on the highway resulting in Dacca bombed by the Indian Air Drive.
In early 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman introduced on Chittagong radio that East Pakistan was separating from West Pakistan and a brand new nation was to be fashioned. He was making an attempt to garner as a lot native help inside and outdoors the armed forces deployed in East Pakistan.
This led to a common revolt among the many Bengali inhabitants in East Pakistan and a retaliatory crackdown — Operation Searchlight — was launched by the Pakistan military.
This led to a mass exodus from East Pakistan into India.
Additionally fleeing the brutal Pakistani military repression have been authorities officers and troopers of the Pakistan armed forces of Bengali origin.
Though the simplest path to India was to return westwards in the direction of Calcutta, it was discovered to be simpler to flee by penetrating the porous border within the east round Agartala at that time of time.
“We had numerous dissidents coming in,” remembers the IAF veteran, “Of those, 40 odd VIP dissidents have been taken to Calcutta. They fashioned the core group of the federal government in exile. They have been housed in a constructing named Ramkutir in Tollygunj close to the Hoogly. The military sign unit positioned alongside supplied them with a lot wanted safety.”
“Thoughts you, there have been a whole lot of Pakistani jasoos (enemy brokers) in Calcutta then, whose job was to get rid of these so-called traitors,” the veteran remembers.
IMAGE: Indian troops advance into East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) space throughout the 1971 Warfare. {Photograph}: Central Press/Getty Photographs
There have been these two excellent army officers amongst these 40 VIPs — Colonel M A G (Muhammad Ataul Goni) Osmani and Wing Commander Abdul Karim Khondker.
Moreover them, we additionally had civil servants and highly effective politicians like Tajuddin Ahmed, Nazrul Islam, Mansoor Ali and Qamruzzaman who labored tirelessly manning varied portfolios of the federal government in exile.
A few of these males have been arrested and murdered within the 1975 rebellion which noticed Sheikh Mujib and most of his household (barring present Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her sister who have been overseas then) assassinated.
“Colonel Osmani was quickly despatched again into Bangladesh. He had a superb native following and was tasked to begin the resistance motion,” the IAF veteran tells me.
Khondker was tasked to work out methods to take care of the Pakistani military in East Pakistan. He was additionally assigned to create a combating pressure by recruiting able-bodied Bengalis and practice them at ten-odd camps arrange all alongside the japanese border with India.
Wing Commander Khondker was a distinguished fighter pilot who had been head of Pakistan’s air pressure academy.
He was appointed deputy chief of the nascent Bangladesh air pressure throughout the 1971 Warfare and later took on the mantle of the BAF’s chief of air workers.
After retirement, he turned Bangladesh’s planning minister earlier than retiring from public life within the Nineteen Nineties.
The thought of offering guerrilla coaching to the Bangladeshis in exile was lastly accepted amidst scepticism that India shouldn’t find yourself arming the East Bengali dissidents so closely that they turned an issue to deal with at a later stage.
The requirement at the moment was to create sufficient hassle for the Pakistan military and pressure them to withdraw from East Pakistan thus resulting in a democratic setup and native governance to take over peacefully.
IMAGE: Lieutenant Normal A A Ok Niazi, the Pakistan military commander in East Pakistan, indicators the Instrument of Give up earlier than Lieutenant Normal Jagjit Singh Aurora, Normal Officer Commanding in Chief, Jap Command, December 16, 1971. {Photograph}: DPR Picture Division Archives
Normal Jagjit Singh Aurora, the Jap Military Commander, was given full duty for coaching the cadres whereas the duty of working of the Jap Military was left to his deputy, Normal J F R Jacob.
“A brigadier was assigned to go every of the ten coaching camps which they did admirably. We have been churning out fairly a handful of motivated combating ‘troopers’ each three months and the numbers saved rising because the inflow of refugees elevated,” the IAF veteran remembers.
Led by and conceptualised by Wing Commander Khondker, the pressure that was thus fashioned was known as the Kilo Drive.
I used to be instructed about an occasion when Air Chief Marshal Pratap Chandra Lal, the then chief of the air workers, solved a teething downside of command and management in fast time.
“An enormous variety of calls for was positioned on the IAF by the military for tackling duties associated to the Kilo Drive in addition to taking care of military necessities,” the IAF veteran remembers. “Normal Jacob was sad with the twin command and management of property in his space; the Central and the Jap Air Instructions supplied the air property at the moment in help of all operations within the Jap theatre.”
This was inflicting pointless confusion and delays and affecting the sleek working of operations, Normal Jacob felt.
At a gathering with the three chiefs who got here to Fort William in Calcutta to see how issues have been progressing, Normal Jacob and Wing Commander Khondker took Air Chief Marshal P C Lal apart and briefed him on the identical.
Normal Jacob then requested the chief of air workers, ‘Are you able to make my life less complicated sir?’
Pronto, orders have been issued by the air chief and the Superior Headquarters at Fort William got here into being beneath Air Commodore Solomon Purushottam.
Air Chief Marshal Lal truly ‘neutered’ the Command HQs who have been to now solely give administrative help when it comes to provisioning of rations, army {hardware} and males as and when required.
Group Captain (later Air Vice Marshal) Chandan Singh, Mahavir Chakra, AVSM, Vir Chakra.
Equally, throughout precise operations beginning December 3, then Group Captain Chandan Singh was handed over operational management of the helicopter and transport operations.
“It turned so simple as that. The military requested for help to the IAF who have been positioned throughout the identical HQ and it was authorised there after which!” exclaims the IAF veteran.
Throughout the assembly with Air Chief Marshal Lal, Wing Commander Khondker additionally requested the IAF to half with the Mystere plane which have been being phased out of service within the IAF for the Bangladesh air pressure. However Air Chief Marshal Lal was not in favour of arming the fledgling Bangladesh air pressure with fighters simply then.
With one armed Chetak, one armed Otter and one Dakota, 9 officers and 57 males, the Bangladesh air pressure got here into being on September 28, 1971, a day it celebrated as its Air Drive Day.
It was on at the present time that coaching commenced in Dimapur beneath the IAF for the Kilo flight.
After the December 16, 1971 give up and the borth of Bangladesh, the Kilo flight plane — riddled with bullets however nonetheless fly-worthy — have been handed over to the Bangladeshis at Dacca.
Extra concerning the Kilo Flight subsequent time!
Air Commodore Nitin Sathe retired from the Indian Air Drive in February 2020 after a distinguished 35 yr profession.
The writer of three books, you’ll be able to learn Air Commodore Sathe’s earlier contributions right here.
Characteristic Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com