In photo: Pilot officers and ground crew officers of No. 37 Squadron (India), photo taken just before the breakout of war.
Introduction:
In the historiography, and indeed the non-textual coverage, surrounding the 1971 India-Pakistan War, much attention is paid to the actions undertaken by the Indian Army and the Indian Navy. This website, for instance, has written no small amount about the Indian Army’s offensive into East Pakistan or the Indian Navy’s multidimensional blockade of Pakistan or the latter’s assault on the Pakistan Navy. India’s victory over Pakistan, however, was not born of these two factors. The Indian Air Force played a significant role in this 16-day war; its part in the campaign has, for a variety of reasons, been largely ignored in retellings and recounts of the course of the war and its most famous encounters.
If one was to ignore the Battle of Longewala (4-7th December, 1971), in which Indian Air Force ground attack aircraft (the British built Hawker Hunter and the Indian built HF-24 “Marut”) destroyed the Pakistani 38th Cavalry Regiment and the Battle over Boyra (22nd November, 1971), in which 4 British built Folland Gnat fighters downed 2 out of 3 of the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) American/Canadian F-86 Sabres,[i] the conversation surrounding the Indian Air Force’s role in the war stagnates around the multiple airlift missions flown by IAF helicopters in the East.[ii] As is revealed by the collection of pilots’ and crews’ accounts compiled in Air Marshal Jagjeet Singh’s and Group Captain Shailendra Mohan’s Indo-Pak War 1971: Reminiscences of Air Warriors and the Indian Ministry of Defence’s official history on the war, the IAF conducted rather more operations than was previously publicised. That is to say, though these operations were not classified or secret, they were not present in the public eye as the IAF never had instant decisive victories.
That is not to say that the IAF did not win such a victory, rather that the decisive victories of the IAF were more long term. As will be explained in this article and its successor, the IAF’s victories in the Eastern and Western theatre were slow burns; such is the nature of aerial warfare. At the outset of 1971, the Indian and Pakistani Air Forces were equal in capability, numbers and pilot training. Furthermore, and arguably, the PAF had come out on top of the IAF in the 1965 India-Pakistan War, grounding the majority of India’s new MiG-21 fighters and shooting down a larger number of IAF aircraft than they lost of their own. This meant that, in December of 1971, the IAF was facing a well armed, well trained and highly experienced force; defeating and dismantling such a force would not be easy and it would certainly not be a quick series of victories (as was the case for the Navy and Army). But, by December 16th, 1971, the once might PAF had been grounded; it had been virtually destroyed in the East and in the West it was rendered incapable of launching any meaningful operations.
This article and the next will look at how the Indian Air Force conquered the skies over the subcontinent. To start with, we will be examining the Eastern Theatre and the dates December 3rd to December 6th; the 3 days it took the Indian Air Force to demolish any potential resistance that the PAF could have put up.
Order of Battle; Indian Air Force Eastern Command vs Pakistan Air Force Eastern Command:
On the Western front, as will be enumerated on in the next article, the Indian and Pakistan Air Forces were at a numeric and technological parity. Brand new American F-104 Starfighters were field by the PAF against the IAF’s equally brand new Soviet built MiG-21FLs, for instance. On the Eastern theatre, however, there was no such comfort for the PAF. It remained at a numeric and technological disadvantage for the duration of the war.
Indian Air Force, Order of Battle
- MiG-21 Squadrons:
- Nos. 4, 28, and 30 Squadrons
- Hawker Hunter Squadrons:
- Nos. 7, 14, 17, and 37 Squadrons
- Folland Gnat Squadrons:
- Nos. 15, 22, and 24 Squadrons
- Sukhoi Su-7 “Fitter” in No. 221 Squadron
- English Electric Canberra in No. 16 Squadron
The Indian Air Force had deployed to its Eastern Air Command 10 fighter squadrons, 1 squadron of ground attack aircraft (Su-7) and 1 squadron of heavy bombers (English Electric Canberra). Each squadron had between 12-18 aircraft, giving us a total number of between 144-216 aircraft combat aircraft deployed against the Pakistan Air Force’s Eastern Command.
Pakistan Air Force
The PAF Eastern Air Command, on the other hand, was significantly smaller. Aside from a large fleet of unarmed utility helicopters, the PAF had deployed a total of a single fighter squadron at its Eastern Command HQ in Dhaka.[iii] This squadron, No. 14 Squadron, was equipped with 19 fairly modern F-86F and Canadair Sabres. 3 of these had been lost on November 22nd during the Battle over Boyra (2 shot down, 1 crash landed) and at the start of the war on December 3rd, 1971, only 16 remained operational. By the sunrise of December 4th, the 16 remaining PAF Sabres would be thrust into the heart of combat.
The Course of the War:
One of the few Pakistani primary sources available to study the war, Brigadier Siddiq Salik’s Witness to Surrender describes the moment the air war began with a great level of detail.
‘I was disturbed from my sleep at around 2:40 am [4th Dec.] by the noise of anti-aircraft guns and Indian Canberras. I watched the tracer bullets for an hour from the window of my bedroom. The enemy aircraft tried to bomb the airport with full fury.’[iv]
Here, and it should perhaps come as no surprise, the official Indian and Pakistani accounts differ on what would transpire over the next two days. For instance, the official Indian history of the war states that no IAF bombing raid on the airfield at Tezgaon (Dhaka) was mounted until 0705hrs of December 4th; and so whatever it was that Brigadier Salik saw Pakistani anti-air gunners fire at could not have been IAF Canberra bombers. It is likely that the Pakistani AA gunners had gotten jumpy and opened fire at nothing in particular – this is not an uncommon occurrence. It is also likely that they heard an IAF fighter, perhaps a MiG-21 or Hawker Hunter, conducting a reconnaissance overflight and opened fire at it. At any rate, this pre-dawn engagement saw no damage done to either side.
What both Brigadier Salik and the official Indian history do agree on, however, is that from the 4th onwards, the IAF maintained a constant amount of pressure on the PAF airfields at Tezgaon and Kurmitola. Hawker Hunters would act as strike aircraft while the much more modern MiG-21FLs would escort them in and engaged the PAF F-86s. This tactic proved to be extremely effective; by the 5th of December, the IAF had shot down 7 PAF F-86F Sabres for the loss of 3 Hawker Hunters and had cratered the airfields at Tezgaon and Kurmitola; effectively grounding the PAF.[v]
By December 7th, the PAF could no longer offer any resistance. Peter R. Kann, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, found himself in Dhaka (or, as it was known then, Dacca) as the PAF response fell apart. His diary of 1971, known as the Dacca Diary, gives excellent insight into what it was like to be in Dhaka in the middle of the IAF’s intensifying aerial campaign.[vi]
‘DACCA, East Pakistan —
From an upper-story window in the Hotel Intercontinental[vii] here, one could look out and see the Indian MIGs making almost hourly rocket runs on Dacca airport a mile or so away.
The blue sky sporadically was sprinkled with tiny white clouds from Pakistani antiaircraft fire. Several pillars of black smoke rose from the direction of the airport—Indian rockets that found a flammable target or the burning wreckage of the Indian planes that were shot down in the first morning of the war.
It was like watching an old World War II movie in three-dimensional color and Cinemascope, with the sky as the wide screen.
Full-scale war clearly was here.’
The PAF’s inability to fend off IAF air attacks resulted in perhaps the most “offensive” offensive action carried out by the IAF in the Eastern Theatre. By the 14th of December, the IAF had been routinely doing significant amounts of damage to the Pak Army; the Indian Army was a dozen or so kilometres outside Dhaka, the Indian Navy had destroyed the Pakistani Navy and the noose was tightening around the provincial capital. However, the Pakistani forces did not seem to be ready or willing to surrender. The IAF figured that this was because the Indian forces had so far not deliberately targeted the Pakistani civilian or military leadership.
The IAF sought to change that on the 14th of December. 4 MiG-21s, led by Flight Lieutenant Hemant Sardesai, armed with 32 57mm rockets each, from No. 28 Squadron were tasked with destroying the Governor’s House in Dhaka. That afternoon, mere minutes after a high level meeting of civilian and military leadership had ended, the 4 MiG-21s tore to shreds the massive bungalow. Amazingly, and only because of sheer luck, no one was killed. However, that event was more than enough to warrant the total surrender and resignation of the East Pakistani civilian government, with the Governor of East Pakistan, A. M. Malik, writing out his resignation on the back of a napkin.[viii]
Though the Pakistani military leadership would hold out for another 36 hours, East Pakistan would cease to exist by the 16th of December.
[i] Yes, technically the PAF was flying Canadair Sabres (a license-built version for the Royal Canadian Air Force), but these were more or less identical to the F-86 Sabres.
[ii] Regarding the Battle of Longewala, Air Marshal Bharat Kumar, PVSM, AVSM, has – in fact – released a book, The Epic Battle of Longewala (IMR; 2021), detailing the role of the IAF in the battle.
[iii] Technically at Tezgaon Airfield as Dhaka Airport was a civilian airport.
[iv] Brig. Siddiq Salik, Witness to Surrender (Oxford University Press; 1979), p. 130
[v] History Division, MoD, Official History of the 1971 Indo-Pak War, p. 598
[vi] The Dacca Diary, and excerpts from Kann’s reporting on the war, can be found here: https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/peter-r-kann
[vii] The Hotel Intercontinental became a safe haven for all international citizens still trapped in Dacca; everyone from diplomats to reporters was welcome here. It was designated a neutral zone by the UN and the Red Cross and suffered no damage, with both Indian and Pakistani forces giving the place a clear berth, except to convey messages.
[viii] Flt. Lt. Hemant Sardesai, ‘Ruling the Skies: Absolute Air Superiority in Bangladesh, 1971’, in Air Marshal Jagjeet Singh (ed.), Group Captain Shailendra Mohan (ed.), Indo-Pak War 1971: Reminiscences of Air Warriors (AFA; 2022), pp. 164-166
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