Air Commodore Nitin Sathe discovers how the IAF trained Pakistani air drive pilots, throughout the 1971 War, which led to the delivery of the Bangladesh air drive.
IMAGE: An Alouette helicopter fitted with a light-weight machine gun and rocket pods supplied cowl in Sylhet, December 7, 1971. Photograph: Kind courtesy Bangladesh Air Force
My affiliation with this Indian Air Force veteran — who doesn’t want to be named for this characteristic — goes again a good distance. Although he was very senior to me in the IAF, we spent many an fascinating hour collectively out and in of the cockpit over the years.
Calling him good in flying and teachers can be an understatement… however the solely drawback with this man was that he beloved, and nonetheless likes to, stay out of the highlight!
Post-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 kinds.
With dates and names at his fingertips, he may rattle out tales about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s, Erwin Rommel’s and Bernard St Law Montgomery’s army campaigns and methods. He has researched the many wars India has fought in latest 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 guide that I’m considering writing and determined to name the guru for info.
In the subsequent hour or so, he left me spellbound with a fascinating story, which I share with you right here.
IMAGE: An Indian Air Force Chetak helicopter throughout the 1971 War. Photograph: Kind courtesy bharat-rakshak.com
The IAF veteran first quoted from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s speech to the nation on December 3, 1971.
“This is related to what I’m going to say subsequently,” the guru tells me.
‘I communicate 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 battle towards us.‘
‘The Pakistan air drive instantly 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’ve borne the heaviest of burdens and withstood the biggest of strain and an incredible effort to induce the world to assist in bringing about peaceable answer…‘
‘…Today, the battle in Bangladesh has develop into a battle on India, and this imposes upon me, my Government and the folks of India an superior duty. We don’t have any different choice however to place our nation on a battle 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 those that this wanton and unprovoked aggression of Pakistan must be decisively and at last repelled. In this resolve, the Government is assured of the full and unflinching help of all political events and each Indian citizen.‘
‘We have to be ready for a protracted interval of hardship and sacrifice. We are a peace-loving folks, however we all know that peace can not final if we don’t guard our freedom, our democracy and our lifestyle. ‘
‘So in the present day we battle, not merely for territorial integrity, however for the fundamental concepts which have given power to this nation, and on this alone we will progress to a greater future.‘
‘Aggression have to 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 nearly until the midnight of December 3, the IAF explains.
Bengali pilots from the Pakistan air drive trained by the IAF, flying an Indian helicopter and transport aircraft (unexpectedly modified for delivering armaments) from airfields in India, had been used to fireplace the first pictures in East Pakistan on the evening of December 3.
As quickly as the information of the secure restoration of those plane after their profitable mission reached Delhi, as if on cue, Mrs Gandhi declared battle, the clouds of which had been looming massive from the starting of 1971 itself.
The Bengali PAF pilots had been trained by the IAF at a number of bases situated alongside the jap border of that nation.
‘Kilo Flight’, because it was referred to as, was a small a part of the bigger ‘Kilo Force’ shaped from the massive inhabitants of East Pakistanis (of Bengali origin) fleeing their nation into India.
This story is how these pilots had been trained by the IAF and achieved the unimaginable, braving all odds. They went on to develop into the pioneers of the quickly to be Bangladesh air drive.
“But earlier than we get to know extra about the Kilo Flight, it might be pertinent to understand how the ‘Kilo Force’ was shaped and we have to return in time,” the guru mentioned to me as the chat warmed up.
IMAGE: The bridge on the street resulting in Dacca bombed by the Indian Air Force.
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 shaped. He was making an attempt to garner as a lot native help inside and out of doors the armed forces deployed in East Pakistan.
This led to a normal revolt amongst the 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.
Also fleeing the brutal Pakistani military repression had been authorities officers and troopers of the Pakistan armed forces of Bengali origin.
Although the best path to India was to return westwards in direction of Calcutta, it was discovered to be simpler to flee by penetrating the porous border in the east round Agartala at that time of time.
“We had a lot of dissidents coming in,” recollects the IAF veteran, “Of these, 40 odd VIP dissidents had been taken to Calcutta. They shaped the core group of the authorities in exile. They had been housed in a constructing named Ramkutir in Tollygunj close to the Hoogly. The military sign unit situated alongside supplied them with a lot wanted safety.”
“Mind you, there have been lots of Pakistani jasoos (enemy brokers) in Calcutta then, whose process was to remove these so-called traitors,” the veteran remembers.
IMAGE: Indian troops advance into East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) space throughout the 1971 War. Photograph: Central Press/Getty Images
There had been these two excellent army officers amongst these 40 VIPs — Colonel M A G (Muhammad Ataul Goni) Osmani and Wing Commander Abdul Karim Khondker.
Besides 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 authorities in exile.
Some of those males had been arrested and murdered in the 1975 rebellion which noticed Sheikh Mujib and most of his household (barring present Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her sister who had been overseas then) assassinated.
“Colonel Osmani was quickly despatched again into Bangladesh. He had native following and was tasked to begin the resistance motion,” the IAF veteran tells me.
Khondker was tasked to work out methods to cope with the Pakistani military in East Pakistan. He was additionally assigned to create a preventing drive by recruiting able-bodied Bengalis and practice them at ten-odd camps arrange all alongside the jap border with India.
Wing Commander Khondker was a distinguished fighter pilot who had been head of Pakistan’s air drive academy.
He was appointed deputy chief of the nascent Bangladesh air drive throughout the 1971 War 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 in the Nineteen Nineties.
The thought of offering guerrilla coaching to the Bangladeshis in exile was lastly accepted amidst scepticism that India mustn’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 bother for the Pakistan military and drive them to withdraw from East Pakistan thus resulting in a democratic setup and native governance to take over peacefully.
IMAGE: Lieutenant General A A Okay Niazi, the Pakistan military commander in East Pakistan, indicators the Instrument of Surrender earlier than Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, General Officer Commanding in Chief, Eastern Command, December 16, 1971. Photograph: DPR Photo Division Archives
General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the Eastern Army Commander, was given full duty for coaching the cadres whereas the duty of working of the Eastern Army was left to his deputy, General J F R Jacob.
“A brigadier was assigned to move every of the ten coaching camps which they did admirably. We had been churning out fairly a handful of motivated preventing ‘troopers’ each three months and the numbers saved rising as the inflow of refugees elevated,” the IAF veteran remembers.
Led by and conceptualised by Wing Commander Khondker, the drive that was thus shaped was referred to as the Kilo Force.
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 drawback 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 Force in addition to taking care of military necessities,” the IAF veteran recollects. “General Jacob was sad with the twin command and management of property in his space; the Central and the Eastern Air Commands supplied the air property at the moment in help of all operations in the Eastern theatre.”
This was inflicting pointless confusion and delays and affecting the clean working of operations, General Jacob felt.
At a gathering with the three chiefs who got here to Fort William in Calcutta to see how issues had been progressing, General Jacob and Wing Commander Khondker took Air Chief Marshal P C Lal apart and briefed him on the similar.
General Jacob then requested the chief of air workers, ‘Can you make my life less complicated sir?’
Pronto, orders had been issued by the air chief and the Advanced Headquarters at Fort William got here into being below Air Commodore Solomon Purushottam.
Air Chief Marshal Lal really ‘neutered’ the Command HQs who had 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.
Similarly, 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 had been positioned inside the similar HQ and it was authorised there after which!” exclaims the IAF veteran.
During the assembly with Air Chief Marshal Lal, Wing Commander Khondker additionally requested the IAF to half with the Mystere plane which had been being phased out of service in the IAF for the Bangladesh air drive. But Air Chief Marshal Lal was not in favour of arming the fledgling Bangladesh air drive with fighters simply then.
With one armed Chetak, one armed Otter and one Dakota, 9 officers and 57 males, the Bangladesh air drive got here into being on September 28, 1971, a day it celebrated as its Air Force Day.
It was on at the present time that coaching commenced in Dimapur below 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 — had been handed over to the Bangladeshis at Dacca.
More about the Kilo Flight subsequent time!
Air Commodore Nitin Sathe retired from the Indian Air Force in February 2020 after a distinguished 35 12 months profession.
The writer of three books, you possibly can learn Air Commodore Sathe’s earlier contributions right here.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
