December 16 is a significant day for the Indian subcontinent. In 1971, India won the war against Pakistan that resulted in the birth of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan).
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3 The statue of Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon at the Mini Secretariat in Ludhiana. Tribune photo: Inderjeet Verma
Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam (Retd)
Sprinting out of an underground shelter as the tannoy (a term used to denote a public address system in older colloquial British English) blares is bread and butter stuff for fighter pilots in the Indian Air Force as they respond to a scramble order to intercept intruding enemy aircraft. Not many, however, would have imagined in the wildest of their dreams that they would have to scramble their jets during an enemy bombing raid that involved four aircraft already in the process of dropping their bombs over targets on the airfield. This is exactly the situation that young Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon found himself in on December 14, 1971, at Srinagar airfield as part of an air defence detachment of four Gnat fighters from 18 Squadron, also called the Flying Bullets.
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3 The statue of Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon at the Mini Secretariat in Ludhiana. Tribune photo: Inderjeet Verma
Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam (Retd)
Sprinting out of an underground shelter as the tannoy (a term used to denote a public address system in older colloquial British English) blares is bread and butter stuff for fighter pilots in the Indian Air Force as they respond to a scramble order to intercept intruding enemy aircraft. Not many, however, would have imagined in the wildest of their dreams that they would have to scramble their jets during an enemy bombing raid that involved four aircraft already in the process of dropping their bombs over targets on the airfield. This is exactly the situation that young Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon found himself in on December 14, 1971, at Srinagar airfield as part of an air defence detachment of four Gnat fighters from 18 Squadron, also called the Flying Bullets.
The Sunday Tribune, December 5, 1971
What was significant in the steady build-up of IAF capability was the fact that its chief, Air Chief Marshal Lal, had a ringside view of all the mistakes made during the 1965 war he was the Vice Chief during the period. In his quiet and unassuming way, Lal went about addressing the major deficiencies using a systems approach. His strategy vis-à-vis Pakistan prior to the 1971 war was simple: build asymmetry by widening both the qualitative and quantitative gap between the two air forces.
While the Gnats continued to dominate the Sabres, the enhanced ground-attack punch provided by the upgraded Hunters and the relatively new Sukhoi-7s gave the IAF a decisive qualitative and quantitative advantage. Most importantly, the coercive impact of the MiG-21s in the air defence role meant that the PAF was not going to have a free run as it attacked IAF airfields and other ground targets. While in 1965, the IAF was somewhat surprised by PAF tactics, it wa
UPDATED: February 3, 2021 18:05 IST
Fire Power: Indian Army tanks near the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, Sept. 2020 (Photo: ANI) It takes a war to make our people work together. Peace breaks them up into narrow sectional pieces. We must learn to rise above sectional interests and work for what is best for the country.
These words by Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal from his memoirs are as relevant today as they were when they were written 36 years ago. Air Chief Marshal Lal was the chief of air staff during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, the last conflict all three armed forces fought together. Last year, the government instituted the most comprehensive and sweeping reform of the armed forces since Independence. The most significant shake-up of the Indian armed forces took place after the 1962 border war with China. A country dependent on food imports to feed its people had to ramp up military spending and make the difficult choice of building factories and shipyards to produ