Remembering the 1971 war

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shiv
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by shiv »

So much is written and spoken about Longewala - but perhaps one of the least known and least talked about stories is that of Major Atma Singh - a daring AOP pilot who actually guided the Hunters to their targets. His plane was crippled and he landed right in the middle of the battle zone in Longewala. This is a terrific story - read it all from these pages - scanned from Vayu

1st page
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2nd page
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shiv
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by shiv »

Yesterday the 12th Dec would have been Wingco Suresh's 68th birthday. 39 years ago when he had just turned 29 - this incident occurred:

It's on BR: http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/1971/Dec13/Art02.htm
No sooner had the returning Hunters been tucked away in their pens than two Pakistani F-104 Starfighters appeared. What happened next is again history. The PAF Starfighters were pounced on by the MiGs and one was shot down while the other fled to safety without firing a shot in anger. (Click for that story) Suresh went to bed on the night of the 12th December 1971 not knowing that his birthday gift was going to be a day late.

On the 13th, Four Hunters were to attack a new Pakistani airfield at Talhar, a base for Sabres, but from which the previous day's F-104s might possibly have come. Due to a technical problem - only 3 Hunters went on that mission. Sqn Ldr Farook Mehta and his wingman Flt. Lt. Pawan Kumar were accompanied by Flt. Lt Suresh in a lone Hunter 1000 metres away.

They approached the airfield very low - at 100 feet and were about to peel off and commence their attack when Suresh suddenly saw something in the sky, 200 feet above them and to the left. "Bogeys at 11 O clock!" he shouted into the R/T, "Two Sabres.. going for them!" Suresh got on to the tail of the lead Sabre - but the Sabre has a better turning radius and wriggled free.

As Suresh gained height for a second try he saw an orange ball of flame. "Who was that?" he asked. "It's OK," came the reassuring reply from Flt.Lt. Pawan - "Farouk got one". Suresh closed in on his target again and felt that his plane was a bit sluggish. He realized that in the heat of the battle he was still carrying his auxiliary fuel tanks. Quick as a flash he stretched out his left hand and flipped the switch to jettison his tanks. His Hunter, lighter now, seemed to surge ahead. Adrenalin pumping - he closed in for the kill. Suresh was a dead shot in his aircraft. He had always got very high scores while shooting - but until now they had only been practice targets.

He closed in on the desperately weaving Sabre, wriggling like a fly caught in a web. From less than 100 metres behind he squeezed the trigger. His plane shook with the vibration of four 30 mm cannon spewing 60 rounds per second. The Sabre, almost in slow motion, gently turned upside down and buried itself in the ground with a massive explosion. Suresh pulled up - he was almost at ground level now - perhaps 50 feet, and climbed to rejoin the other two. Another day. Another small piece of history written by the IAF. But Suresh had got his birthday present.
shiv
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by shiv »

Indian Navy in 1971 - Courtesy Vayu
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Amber G.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Amber G. »

Shiv (and others)... Thanks for the thread. I have not gone through all the posts (I intend to). I was in US in 1971 and some of the reports and TV coverage are still vivid in the memory. I still have NY Times (Front page) of the surrender date.

I wonder if some one here knew Wing Commandor P. Gautam (MVC recipient). I heard some very interesting stories, a few first hand but mainly from his brother (A professor of Physics - I think at time in U of Wisconsin).

One thing which he told us was about complete air superiority, in just over a few days after the start of hostilities, over the sky (not only in the east but also in West ) - He told that PAF had very little will, just after into a few days, to engage IAF in 1971..


What a shame his life was taken away post 1971 in silly mig21 accident.

(Small reported tid-bit in the news papers here - Pakis had more civilian deaths because of traffic accidents caused by black-out than IAF misses. The reporters in a hotel in Dhaka (which was very close to the air-strip) had no fear in reporting on locations pretty close to airstrips etc because they trusted the accuracy of IAF (and reported it as such on CBS/ABC/NBC)
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by ramana »

AmberG, A friend of mine used to tell me about his student days at that time. He was studying in Chicago and had to drive to kansas city for the break. Midway he stopped at a rural town and went for beer with his friend. At the bar a huge guy asked "You Pakistani?" so my friend said "No India!" The guy hugged him and bought the beer! So despite HK and his boss's tilt mainstream US knew what was going on.
shiv
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by shiv »

Amber G. wrote: I wonder if some one here knew Wing Commandor P. Gautam (MVC recipient). I heard some very interesting stories, a few first hand but mainly from his brother (A professor of Physics - I think at time in U of Wisconsin).
Need to search from what I have Amber. It turns out I have a copy of a Hindi 1971 war special magazine "Dharmayug" from 1972. I also have a 1972 issue of the Kannada magazine "Prajamata" . Both are too large (page size) to be scanned by my A4 scanner so I need to find the time this week to photograph every page and upload the images of the pages.

I suddenly had an idea. BRF does not have a regional language friendly page. I was wondering of scanned pages of Indian language publications could go into a separate thread for Indian language publications of interest to BRFites. I might do that - but need to scan the pages first. It matters little if only a minority can read Kannada or Bengali. Thise who can can read and enjoy - and translate if it is important.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Jagan »

Doesnt hurt to post this once again.

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News report from Dec 71 from a Pakistani paper.
Lalmohan
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Lalmohan »

There was a stark contrast between US political and public opinion in 71. WHilst Nixon/Kissinger continued with appeasing war criminal genocidal maniacs, the American people - well informed by investigative journalists like Pilger, etc. were very sympathetic to the plight of east bengalis and India's efforts. Despite their (the establishment's) best efforts to paint us as pro-Soviet 'evil' people, everyone knew that we were the good guys
brihaspati
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by brihaspati »

I am still wondering as to why none of the Pakistani army were tried for genocide and war crimes. What excuses can be given for that thing not to have happened? Just because of US pressure? Just because teh Soviets were too tired?

Who gave the leaders the right to barter away the shame and pain of millions in the name of real politik? I shut my eyes and ears whenever 16th December approaches on the media connected to BD. I remember vaguely the horrors being described by adults around me [many participants in the liberation struggle, or involved in rear support] to my parents or others when I had hardly learnt language. Books and private journals or docs that came my dad's way also were less locked up then for I was supposed to be too young to read and understand. Many words I really wondered about - but was shrewd enough not to ask about. The "common" Bengali villager/fighter often used dialect words for parts of the body that I had great difficulty in understanding. Only much later have I connected the dots. I have seen girls and boys as victims of torture and sexual abuse when sometimes I was taken in company of my parents.

It is unfinished business. Maybe in some future time the great symbol of British Imperialism - the current Rashtrapati Bhavan will be turned into a National Museum of Liberation, with one wing turned into a Hall of Shame. That includes records of genocides and sadism carried out by the British and the Pakis on Indian soil. That also includes what Pakis have done in BD and Baluchistan, and elsewhere. There should be open air monuments in the grounds that declare in bold letters what specific individuals have done from the Brit and Paki side.

Perhaps in another 20 years time we will still have many surviving Paki army and related personnel who danced in BD in '71. All Muslims and therefore can be subjected to Sharia approved penalties. Each and every Paki army survivor of the time should be rounded up, tried and subjected to exactly the treatment they are proved to be guilty of. Even the rape of the women and girls and children can be returned - yes, on the men. Medical science has advanced far enough.

I hope we also remember those who fought and suffered and resisted - without uniforms, while we remember the fallen from the army.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by James B »

Operation Jackpot – Part 1
Operation Jackpot was a Bangladeshi naval commando operation, the objective was to take on Naval Special Service Group of the Pakistani Navy.

Initial planning of Operation

Nine crewmen decided to take control of the submarine PNS Mangro (which was commissioned first on 5th August, 1970) . However, their plan was disclosed causing them to flee from death threats made by Pakistan’s Naval Intelligence. Out of the 9 crewmen, one was killed by Pakistan Naval Intelligence, but the others managed to travel to the Indian Embassy in Geneva, Switzerland. From Geneva, embassy officials brought them to New Delhi on April 9, 1971 where they began a program of top-secret naval training.

After initial training in Delhi under commander Sharma and Brg. Gupta, from April 25 to May 15,1971, the 8 Bangladeshi submariners started recruiting volunteers from different Mukti Bahini reception camps to form a strong naval commando unit with help of Indian Navy.
More in the link.

Aminur Rehman
The author was a Marine Commando during the 1971 Liberation war of Bangladesh
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by rajanb »

shiv wrote:
Austin wrote: There was probably no way for Indian Navy to know the bigger games being played by USN and USSR in the open sea during or prior to war.

At the highest political level IG would be aware of the help Soviet gave us Diplomatically and Militarily
I recall my own feelings of some anxiety over news reports of the 7th fleet sailing into the Bay of Bengal. I think there was a national sense of outrage. After the war I recall asking Suresh - "What would we have done if the Americans had attacked?" and his reply with a nonchalant smile was "We would have hit them back and sunk their carrier". Whatever people may want to quibble about this reply the one take way lesson from that reply for me was a strong sense of absolutely no SDRE dhoti shivering here. That reflected the mood of Indians in general.
Shiv, this is what I heard from a close friend of mine, a MiG21 pilot. Absolutely matter of fact and with a smile and a dismissive look. It reminded me about the Kamikaze pilots of WWII
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Austin »

Transcript of US President Richard Nixon is on the phone with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, hours after Pakistan launched simultaneous attacks on six Indian airfields, a reckless act that prompted India to declare war.

1971 War: How Russia sank Nixon’s gunboat diplomacy
Austin
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Austin »

December 1971: When The US Sent Its Naval Ships Into Bay Of Bengal, And USSR Responded

http://swarajyamag.com/world/december-1 ... -responded
During the 1971 War, as the Indian Army launched its blitzkrieg into East Pakistan – present day Bangladesh – US President Richard Nixon had a terrible idea. Under the pretext of evacuating American citizens from the warzone, Nixon ordered the US Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 74, led by the nuclear powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, to proceed towards the Bay of Bengal. He was spurred on by Henry Kissinger, his National Security Advisor.

Nixon’s rash move – which became America’s greatest PR disaster in India – was dictated by the condition of the Pakistani military, which was taking a hammering in East Pakistan. More than 100,000 Pakistani soldiers were trapped between the Bay of Bengal and the rampaging Indian Army. Of these 97,000 would soon surrender, making it the largest capitulation since World War II.

The Indian Army had not yet made any major attacks in the western sector, but a CIA mole in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s cabinet had leaked her plan to bomb Pakistani military capability into the Stone Age. Hassan Abbas writes in ‘Pakistan's Drift into Extremism’ that “India's plans possibly included the final destruction of the country, as a CIA report had indicated".

Nixon – who was working to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough in China, with Pakistan acting as the middleman – asked Beijing to mobilise troops on the Indian border. He even contemplated “lobbing nuclear weapons” at the Russians if they retaliated by going to war with China. But as Moscow had moved its crack army divisions to the Chinese border, Beijing decided it was not going to sacrifice itself at Nixon’s bidding. At any rate China considered East Pakistan a lost cause.

A livid Nixon stressed he would not allow India to break up Pakistan’s core territories in the west. He warned the Indian ambassador L.K. Jha in Washington: “If the Indians continue their military operations (against West Pakistan), we must inevitably look toward a confrontation between the USSR and the US. The Soviet Union has a treaty with India; we have one with Pakistan.”

Not satisfied with the envoy’s reply, Nixon ordered the USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal.

Enterprise steams towards India


Former Indian Navy Commander Raghavendra Mishra, a research fellow at the New Delhi-based National Maritime Foundation writes in a paper titled ‘Revisiting the 1971 USS Enterprise Incident’ that the nuclear powered, nuclear capable carrier’s entry was an instance of gunboat diplomacy.

In the paper, published by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, he writes: “A broad plan of action emerged which included cutting off economic aid to India, and transfer of military equipment from other US regional allies to West Pakistan. These were to be supported by a possible naval deployment and a simultaneous move by the Chinese military along the border. The aim was to put pressure on the Soviet Union which, in turn, would prevail upon India from expanding the conflict. Nixon directed Kissinger to explore the option of US naval deployment with Chinese representatives before taking a final decision.”

The first mention of an aircraft carrier deployment comes up in Kissinger’s memorandum to Nixon on December 8, 1971. That was the night when the Indian Navy had made a bonfire of Karachi, with its second successive missile strike on coastal installations. The Pakistani port had been burning since December 4 after being hit by the Indian Navy’s Russian missile boats. These strikes in the west plus news about the collapse of the Pakistan Army in the east had greatly upset the Nixon-Kissinger duo.

Kissinger suggested that Nixon should direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the highest-ranking and senior most military officer in the United States armed forces – to move naval Task Force 74, then deployed in the South East Asian theatre, to the Bay of Bengal immediately via the Singapore Straits under the pretext of “prudent contingency measures”.

On December 9, Nixon wanted the US and China to jointly move against India. That same day, during his meeting with the Chinese delegation led by Huang Hua, China’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Ambassador to Canada (as the US did not have diplomatic relations with China), Kissinger apprised his counterpart about the US naval task force move through a map showing the deployment of the US and Soviet forces.

Mishra writes: “Kissinger agreed the Pakistani military had collapsed in the East and the same was anticipated within two weeks in the West. Emphasising the importance of West Pakistan’s continued existence for regional dynamics, Kissinger sought military moves by China along the border to restrain India and the Soviet Union. Huang Hua, while expressing solidarity for the common cause, made no formal commitment, stating that he would convey the US proposal for consideration of Beijing.”

By December 11 the carrier Task Force 74 led by the Enterprise was moving as scheduled and the first media reports about its possible deployment in the Bay of Bengal had started circulating in India.

On the same day, a major development took place. Around 4.00pm, an Indian parachute brigade was dropped at Tangail and the race for Dhaka had begun. With the Pakistani military and political leadership in panic mode, Kissinger informed Pakistani Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that Task Force 74 would be crossing the Straits of Malacca by December 12-13.

War in the east


A week into the war, it was clear the Pakistan Army in the East was about to capitulate. The Americans also realised to their dismay that China was not prepared to move even a column of trucks on the Himalayan border.

Overcame by his hatred, the reckless Nixon was even prepared to sacrifice the concept of détente that would soon be the cornerstone of US-Russia ties. He asked Kissinger to inform the Russians about the increasing probability of a major war involving both the superpowers. Moscow was told that its continued backing of New Delhi would endanger the planned strategic arms reduction talks.

It is unclear if Nixon’s threat worked or whether the Russian leadership was unduly sensitive about global opinion, but soon Russian ambassadorial staff informed Kissinger that a delegation from Moscow had arrived in New Delhi for consultations, and that India had agreed not to expand its military operations in the Western theatre.

During his meeting with Chou En-Lai in Beijing in February 1972, Nixon had said that in the early stages of the conflict the Russians “were doing nothing to discourage India in its actions against Pakistan. It was only after we made a very strong stand – I personally intervened with (Russian President Leonid) Brezhnev, and Dr Kissinger made a statement that was widely quoted in this respect – they took a more reasonable attitude and a more moderate position in the United Nations.”

Commander Mishra adds: “At this stage, the US administration possessed reasonable proof that West Pakistan would not be attacked by India. However, in a meeting attended by senior state and defence department officials, Kissinger decided to go ahead with the naval deployment, which was expected to traverse the Straits of Malacca in the evening and could arrive off East Bangladesh on the morning of December 16.”

On December 13, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, General Raza, requested the US Seventh Fleet deployment in the Bay of Bengal as well as in the North Arabian Sea to deter further attacks by the Indian Navy. This proposal was repeated by the President of Pakistan to Nixon, stating: “The Seventh Fleet does not only have to come to our shores but also to relieve certain pressures which (we are) not in a position to cope with. (We) have sent a specific proposal…about the role the Seventh Fleet could play at Karachi which, I hope, is receiving your attention.”

(This excerpt from the conversation between Nixon and his assistants is from December 15, 1971, 8:45-11:30 am.)

Kissinger: The Russians came in yesterday giving us their own guarantee that there would be no attack on West Pakistan.

Nixon: A letter from Brezhnev.

Kissinger: An addition – an explanation of the letter to – of Brezhnev saying, they, the Soviet Union, "guarantees there will be no military action against West Pakistan". So we are home, now it’s done. It’s just a question what legal way we choose.

Nixon:
Well, what the UN does is really irrelevant.

Kissinger:
Well, it’d be, the ******** (he’s referring to the Indians), of course, have broken promises before. It’d be better to have it on public record. We might be able to do it in an exchange of letters between Brezhnev and you. That is made public, in which you say you express your concern, and he says he wants to assure you.

Nixon:
Well, what does that do now to the Chinese?

Kissinger:
Oh, the Chinese would be thrilled if West Pakistan were guaranteed.

Nuclear standoff: Enter the Russian Navy


Based on an Indian intercept of US communications, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) prepared a six-page note, which said: “The assessment of our embassy reveals that the decision to brand India as an 'aggressor' and to send the 7th Fleet to the Bay of Bengal was takenpersonally by Nixon.”

The MEA felt that “the bomber force aboard the Enterprise had the US President's authority to undertake bombing of Indian Army's communications, if necessary”.

Following this assessment, India secretly activated a provision in the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty, according to which either party would come to the defence of the other. A Russian naval task force from the Pacific Fleet based in Vladivostok, consisting of a cruiser, a destroyer and two attack submarines under the command of Admiral Vladimir Kruglyakov intercepted Task Force 74.

Sebastien Roblin writes in War is Boring that Kruglyakov revealed in a Russian TV interview about “encircling” the task force, surfacing his submarines in front of the Enterprise, opening the missile tubes and “blocking” the American ships.

Mishra notes: “The Soviet Indian Ocean naval component also got a lucky break with three of their ships near the Straits of Malacca, on their return passage to their Pacific homeport when the information about the possible US naval deployment to the Indian Ocean became general knowledge. These were retained and reinforced by two further task groups that arrived in the Indian Ocean on December 18 and 26. These Soviet naval assets continued to shadow the TF 74 off Sri Lanka until its return passage to the Pacific theatre on January 8, 1972.”

In addition, 12 other Soviet naval ships were present in the Indian Ocean. However, none of these Russian vessels were in the vicinity or heading for the Bay of Bengal or North Arabian Sea, where the Indian Navy was continuing with its operations.

It is an indication of how serious the Russians were about defending India that Moscow started despatching naval detachments from across the globe to Indian waters. Kissinger referred to unconfirmed reports about Soviet Mediterranean Fleet units being directed to the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, but these warships were unlikely to arrive in time.

The reason Russia was able to quickly direct all this heavy naval firepower into the warzone was the Soviet Navy had rapidly grown into an impressive blue water force under Admiral of the Fleet Sergei Gorshkov.

John B. Hattendorf writes in ‘US Naval Strategy in the 1970s’ that the year 1970 was a seminal one as the Soviet Navy carried out the first of its OKEAN global war games that involved combined and joint forces for defensive, offensive and expeditionary operations. “The 200-ship exercise covered the four major theatres of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea. This was also period that the majority of the US Navy was approaching en masse obsolescence. The increase in Soviet naval presence was especially notable in the Indian Ocean which far outstripped the US Navy deployments, although it is qualified that most of these deployments were in the North and South-West Indian Oceans.”

With such massive forces at its disposal, the Russian military forces were confident of repelling any American adventurism. Mishra says the Russian ambassador to India had dismissed the possibilities of the US or China intervening by emphasising that the Russian fleet was also in the Indian Ocean and would not allow the Seventh Fleet to interfere; and if China moved in Ladakh, Russia would respond in Xinjiang. As Nixon raged in the White House, a million Russian troops were stationed on the Chinese border.

At this point, Task Force 74 was east off Sri Lanka and this naval deployment had generated considerable anti-US feeling in India. Indian Foreign Minister Swaran Singh said that if the US invaded, the Indians would trap the Americans in a disaster greater than Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani media was still publishing speculative reports about a possible naval intervention.

Nuclear threat: Real or imagined?


There are military experts – both Indian and foreign – who deny the US had plans to launch military attacks, let alone a nuclear strike, on India. However, before second guessing Nixon’s intentions, let’s look at the components of Task Force 74.

Commander Mishra lists the following:

1 Nuclear powered strike carrier – USS Enterprise, 90 aircraft

4 Gearing class destroyers

3 Missile destroyers

2 Amphibious assault ships with 2000 Marines

1 Nitro class ammunition ship

1. Replenishment oiler

1 Nuclear attack submarine (SSN)

There are several reasons pointing to the seriousness of the threat. One, the availability of such potent assets was itself a temptation for the use of force by proto-neocons like Nixon and Kissinger.

Secondly, both Kissinger and Nixon were consumed by an intolerable hatred of India. Ironically, while Nixon was personally fond of Pakistani President Yahya Khan, who had massacred 3 million of his own Bengali citizens, the US President referred to Indians as “slippery, treacherous people”. Of Indira Gandhi, he was recorded as saying, “The old bitch. I don’t know why the hell anybody would reproduce in that damn country, but they do.”

Kissinger liked Yahya as he had been the intermediary who had helped the Americans reach out to China. It was clearly a role the Pakistani dictator relished. “Yahya hasn’t had such fun since the last Hindu massacre!” Kissinger remarked.

Thirdly, Nixon and Kissinger were mired in the Vietnam War which was proving to be a meat grinder for Americans troops. Massive US strategic bombing hadn’t broken the spirit of the Vietnamese but had in fact steeled their resolve to hit back harder. Because of this, Nixon’s popularity had plummeted at home. India had backed a number of UN resolutions condemning the US bombing of Vietnam, and Nixon was looking for a way to pay New Delhi back.

However, the biggest factor was China. Nixon knew that only a breakthrough in Beijing would salvage his presidency and rescue him from the proverbial dustbin. He was, therefore, prepared to bet the farm on this one factor. Besides, in his view, the humiliation of an American ally by a Russian ally would send the wrong signals to the rest of the world.

To get an idea of Nixon’s intent in despatching the Enterprise, see this still partly censored excerpt from the Nixon-Chou meeting.

Nixon:
"In December when the situation was getting very sensitive in the subcontinent – I'm using understatement – I was prepared..... (Sanitised)."

Since Nixon was by all standards a crook and a braggart, he may have well said he was prepared to nuke India.

(During their December 15 conversation in Washington DC, Nixon and Kissinger had given plenty of indication of their desperate intent. Having received a guarantee from Brezhnev that the Indian Army won’t advance into West Pakistan, the US duo is in a triumphant mood.)

Nixon: How do you do it?

Kissinger: It’s a miracle.

Nixon:
How do you get the formalisation of letters between Brezhnev and me [unclear].

Kissinger: It’s an absolute miracle, Mr President.

Nixon: Did you try to work that out? That we – I’d like to do it in a certain way that pisses on the Indians without, you know what I mean? I mean, we can’t [unclear] we have an understanding, an understanding with West Pakistan. Well, I don’t know. If you think it’s a good idea. I – don’t ask me.

Kissinger: No, I think it’s a good idea. But we have – I have this whole file of intelligence reports, which makes it unmistakably clear that the Indian strategy was –

Nixon: To knock – oh, sure.

Kissinger: –
to knock over West Pakistan.

Nixon:
Over the line of control here. Most people were ready to stand by and let her do it, bombing Calcutta [sic] and all.

Kissinger:
They really are ********.

Nixon:
The son-of-a-bitch [unclear] –

Kissinger:
Now, after this is over we ought to do something about that goddamned Indian Ambassador here going on television every day –

Nixon:
He’s really something.

Kissinger: – attacking American policy. And –

Nixon:
Why haven’t we done something already?

Kissinger: And I – I’d like to call State (Department) to call him in. He says he has unmistakable proof that we are planning a landing on the Bay of Bengal. Well, that’s okay with me.

Nixon:
Yeah, that scares them.

Kissinger:
That carrier move is good. That –

Nixon: Why, hell yes. That never bothers me. I mean it’s a, the point about the carrier move, we just say fine, we had a majority. And we’ve got to be there for the purpose of their moving there. Look, these people are savages.

Kissinger:
Mr President, an aggregate –

Nixon: ….we cannot, the United Nations cannot survive and we cannot have a stable world if we allow one member of the United Nations to cannibalise another. Cannibalise, that’s the word. I should have thought of it earlier. You see, that really puts it to the Indians. It has, the connotation is savages. To cannibalise –

Gunboat diplomacy


The Enterprise incident reinforced the image of the “Ugly American” in Indian minds. The political leadership became intensely anti-US too. The incident is reminiscent of the behaviour of former colonial powers.

Commander Mishra wonders whether the US could have gained much more by doing nothing. “Considering the international milieu where its stock was low by the Vietnam overhang, the emergence of a technologically improved and numerically robust Soviet Navy under Admiral Gorshkov, and the necessity of sending a reassuring signal to its allies, mandated some visible proof. The naval deployment was a gesture of solidarity for a formal ally (Pakistan) and an indicator to a future partner (China), that the US could be relied upon to abide by its formal commitments.”

At the same time, the incident highlights the impotence of US sea power against the gains made by a determined India on the ground. “Another takeaway from 1971 is that ‘strategic punditry is no substitute for tactical aggressiveness’ and, hence the importance of professional skill sets,” Mishra notes. “The importance of a cogent national/military strategy is paramount; nevertheless, it needs to be complemented in equal measure by decisive force application at operational and tactical levels.”
Strategic spinoffs

The 1971 War had several strategic lessons – especially in the area of sea power – for India. The brilliant performance of the Indian Navy in setting ablaze Karachi led to a sea change in the political leadership’s thinking regarding sea power. The navy had hit Karachi not once but twice. A third strike to completely obliterate the port didn’t happen as the war ended too quickly.

Task Force 74’s menacing move convinced India about the need to have assets at sea to counter a threat of this nature. Observing how effectively the Russian subs had enforced a naval blockade and stopped the American fleet, India’s political leadership quietly gave the green light to the nuclear submarine project.

There were other valuable spinoffs from the war. Not only did it change the political geography of South Asia with the creation of Bangladesh, but according to Mishra, it gave a jolt to the supremacist psyche harboured by the Pakistan military vis-à-vis the Indian armed forces.
Austin
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Austin »

The National Interest : The War That Made India a Great Power (and Destroyed Pakistan)
Michael Peck

Image

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s humiliation in 1971 spurred it into developing an atomic bomb. With India also armed with atomic weapons, South Asia now lives under the shadow of nuclear war.

This is what happens when you chop a nation in half.
Before December 3, 1971, Pakistan was a country suffering from a split personality disorder. When British India became independent in 1947, the country was divided into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The problem was that East Pakistan and West Pakistan were almost a thousand miles apart, and wedged in between them [3] was archenemy India. Imagine if the United States only consisted of the East Coast and West Coast, and Russia controlled all of North America in between.

Thirteen days later, Pakistan had been amputated. Indian troops had conquered East Pakistan, which became the new nation of Bangladesh. More than ninety thousand Pakistani soldiers were taken prisoner, half the Pakistani Navy had been sunk and the Indian Air Force came out on top. It was total humiliation, and not just for Pakistan. The United States and Britain sent aircraft carriers in a futile attempt to intimidate India, and ended up facing off against Soviet warships. Pakistan’s defeat also spurred its rulers to begin development of nuclear weapons.

The 1971 India-Pakistan War, the third major conflict between the two nations in twenty-five years, was sparked by unrest in East Pakistan. The Bengalis of East Pakistan, who constituted 54 percent of Pakistan’s population at the time, chafed under the rule of West Pakistan. The two Pakistans belonged to different ethnic groups and spoke different languages.

Bengali demands for autonomy were rebuffed. By mid-1971, an East Pakistan guerrilla movement had emerged, supported by India. Pakistan’s military-controlled government cracked down hard, killing up to three million Bengalis in what has been described as a genocide. By November, both India and Pakistan were preparing for war.

On December 3, Pakistan launched a preemptive air strike against Indian airfields, ironically trying to emulate how the Israeli Air Force had destroyed Egyptian airpower in 1967. The difference was that the Israelis committed two hundred aircraft and wiped out nearly five hundred Egyptian aircraft in a few hours; Pakistan committed fifty aircraft and inflicted little damage. The air war featured the full panoply of Cold War jets, pitting Pakistani F-104 Starfighters, F-86 Sabres, MiG-19s and B-57 Canberras against Indian MiG-21s, Sukhoi-7s, Hawker Hunters and Folland Gnats, as well as Hawker Sea Hawks flying from the Indian carrier Vikrant.

Both sides claimed victory in the air war. Chuck Yeager, who was in Pakistan advising their air force, claimed the Pakistanis [4] “whipped their asses.” The Indians claim Yeager was crazy [5]. However, it does appear that India had the upper hand in the air, controlling the skies over East Pakistan and losing about forty-five aircraft to Pakistan’s seventy-five. The maneuverable little Indian Gnat, a British-made lightweight fighter (its predecessor was called the Midge), proved so successful against Pakistani F-86s that the Indians dubbed it the “Sabre Slayer.”

At sea, there is no question that India won. The Indian Navy dispatched missile boats, armed with Soviet-made Styx missiles, to strike the western port of Karachi, sinking or badly damaging two Pakistani destroyers and three merchant ships, as well as fuel tanks. Indian ships blockaded East Pakistan from reinforcements and supplies. Notable was India’s use of the carrier Vikrant to conduct air strikes on coastal targets, as well as conducting an amphibious landing on Pakistani territory.

Pakistan retaliated by dispatching the submarine Ghazi to mine Indian ports. While stalked by an Indian destroyer, the Ghazi mysteriously blew up. However, the submarine Hangor did sink the Indian frigate Khukri.

As for the ground war, the best that can be said is that if Napoleon himself had faced Pakistan’s strategic dilemma, he would have sulked off to St. Helena. Isolated by land and blockaded by sea, no army could have defended East Pakistan against even a moderately competent foe, let alone the nine Indian divisions that quickly captured the East Pakistan capital of Dhaka. East Pakistani forces surrendered on December 16.

To add insult to the defeat of Pakistan and its proudly Muslim rulers, the Indian campaign was planned by Maj. Gen. J. F. R. Jacob—an Indian Jew descended from a family that fled Baghdad in the eighteenth century.

One issue that hampered Pakistan’s war effort would soon become familiar in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other ethnically divided nations. In 1971, Bengalis comprised a significant part of the Pakistani military, especially in technical jobs.

Meanwhile, the superpowers were flexing their muscles. Despite its cruelty toward the Bengalis, and the opposition of U.S. diplomats, President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger backed Pakistan against pro-Soviet India (see the Nixon-Kissinger transcripts here [6]). Task Force 74, centered on the aircraft carrier Enterprise, steamed into the Bay of Bengal, as did the British carrier Eagle. Why India would have been intimidated into a cease-fire, even as its tanks were rolling into Dhaka, is a mystery. America’s attempt to deter India [7] from defeating Pakistan became a case study of the limitations of relying on the threat of force to compel other nations to change their behavior.

In fact, what the U.S. Navy accomplished was to chill U.S.-Indian relations for years. Even more disturbing were the Soviet cruisers, destroyers and submarines shadowing Task Force 74. A war between two Southwest Asian nations could have triggered a superpower showdown at sea, and perhaps World War III.

In the end, India had demonstrated its military superiority. Pakistan lost half its territory and population. Perhaps more important, Pakistani illusions that an Islamic army could rout the “weak” Hindus had been disproved. Following the 1947 and 1965 wars, the 1971 war was the third major conflict between India and Pakistan. It was also the last. Despite some hostilities in Kargil and other spots on the border, India and Pakistan have not fought a major war in forty-five years.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s humiliation in 1971 spurred it into developing an atomic bomb [8]. With India also armed with atomic weapons, South Asia now lives under the shadow of nuclear war. The next major India-Pakistan clash could be the last.

Michael Peck is a frequent contributor to the National Interest and is a regular writer for many outlets like WarIsBoring. He can be found on Twitter [9] and Facebook [10].
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

There are all kinds of sickos and perverts( don't think this Michael Peck is one of them, but can't say) who secretly even wish for some nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. That way, millions of Indians at least get killed, and India is set back in a huge way as a major power, and moreover, as a competitor for the world's resources and markets. Let's face it, that is the real issue, at its heart. It's not really about India's ties with Russia during the cold war, or India's traditional support to the Palestine Liberation Organisation, or caste and gender issues in the subcontinent.

What these kind of commentators, including not a few Indians, seem to miss, is that a nuclear exchange in South Asia, will not only affect India, but the larger region, and hence the world. So apart from the ethical issue of saving millions of lives, there is a practical one, of preventing the conflict from spreading to East and West Asia, and of a regional environmental catastrophe.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by chetak »

Forever remembered: The Forgotten 54

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_missing_54

On 16th of December 2016 India will celebrate the 45th anniversary of a landmark event in its modern history. It will celebrate the day on which during the 1971 India Pakistan war, the Pakistani forces in the east agreed to a complete and unconditional surrender. It is the day on which the 1971 war ended.
Well, it ended for most of the nation. But there are 54 families for whom the war and the waiting never ended. The agonizing wait goes on to this day. These are the families of the 54 Indian prisoners of war PoW who were never released by Pakistan after the war. Their names are as follows:-
Indian Army


1. Major SPS Waraich IC-12712 15 Punjab


2. Major Kanwaljit Singh Sandhu IC-14590 15 Punjab


3. 2/Lt Sudhir Mohan Sabharwal SS-23957 87 Lt Regiment


4. Capt Ravinder Kaura SS-20095 39 Med Regiment


5. Capt Giri Raj Singh IC-23283 5 Assam


6. Capt Om Prakash Dalal SS-22536 Grenadiers


7. Maj AK Ghosh IC-18790 15 Rajput


8. Maj AK Suri SS-19807 5 Assam


9. Capt Kalyan Singh Rathod IC-28148 5 Assam


10. Major Jaskiran Singh Malik IC-14457 8 Raj. Rifles


11. Major SC Guleri IC-20230 9 Jat


12. Lt Vijay Kumar Azad IC-58589 1/9 G R


13. Capt Kamal Bakshi IC-19294 5 Sikh


14. 2/ Lt Paras Ram Sharma SS-22490 5/8 G R


15. Capt Vashisht Nath


16. L/Hv. Krishna Lal Sharma 13719585 1 JAK RIF


17. Subedar Assa Singh JC-41339 5 Sikh


18. Subedar Kalidas JC-59 8 JAKLI


19. L/Nk Jagdish Raj 9208735 Mahar Regiment


20. L/Nk Hazoora Singh 682211303


21. Gunner Sujan Singh 1146819 14 Fd Regiment


22. Sepoy Daler Singh 2461830 15 Punjab


23. Gnr Pal Singh 1239603 181 Lt Regiment


24. Sepoy Jagir Singh 2459087 16 Punjab


25. Gnr Madan Mohan 1157419 94 Mountain Regiment


26. Gnr Gyan Chand Gnr Shyam Singh


27. L/Nk Balbir Singh S B S Chauhan


28. Capt DS Jamwal 81 Field Regiment


29. Capt Washisht Nath Attock


Indian Air Force





30. Sq Ldr Mohinder Kumar Jain 5327-F(P) 27 Sqn


31. Flt Lt Sudhir Kumar Goswami 8956-F(P) 5 Sqn


32. Flying Officer Sudhir Tyagi 10871-F(P) 27 Sqn


33. Flt Lt Vijay Vasant Tambay 7662 –F(P) 32 Sqn


34. Flt Lt Nagaswami Shanker 9773-F(P) 32 Sqn


35. Flt Lt Ram Metharam Advani 7812-F(P) JBCU


36. Flt Lt Manohar Purohit 10249(N) 5 Sqn


37. Flt Lt Tanmaya Singh Dandoss 8160-F(P) 26 Sqn


38. Wg Cdr Hersern Singh Gill 4657-F(P) 47 Sqn


39. Flt Lt Babul Guha 5105-F(P)


40. Flt Lt Suresh Chander Sandal 8659-F(P) 35 Sqn


41. Sqn. Ldr. Jal Manikshaw Mistry 5006-F(P)


42. Flt Lt Harvinder Singh 9441-F(P) 222 Sqn


43. Sqn Ldr Jatinder Das Kumar 4896-F(P) 3 Sqn


44. Flt Lt LM Sassoon 7419-F(P) JBCU


45. Flt Lt Kushalpal Singh Nanda 7819-F(N) 35 Sqn


46. Flg Offr. Krishan L Malkani 10576-F(P) 27 Sqn


47. Flt Lt Ashok Balwant Dhavale 9030-F(P) 1 Sqn


48. Flt Lt Shrikant C Mahajan 10239-F(P) 5 Sqn


49. Flt Lt Gurdev Singh Rai 9015-F(P) 27 Sqn


50. Flt Lt Ramesh G Kadam 8404-F(P) TACDE


51. Flg Offr. KP Murlidharan 10575-F(P) 20 Sqn


52. Sqn Ldr Devaprasad Chatterjee


53. Plt Offr Tejinder Singh Sethi





Indian Navy


54. Lt. Cdr Ashok Roy


Every single name that you read here is a soldier who fought for India. They were captured in action and spent the rest of their lives rotting in Pakistani jails. Can you imagine the type of mental agony that they must have undergone there? They must have lived in hope that one day they will be released and slowly the hope faded away. It has been 45 years. How many of them will be alive and in what condition? What kind of miserable existence they must have endured over there? What kind of physical and mental torture they must have endured there?


Imagine a loved one from your family in that position. What do you feel? Multiply that feeling a thousand times over. That is what these 54 families have felt every day for the last 45 years.





The evidence


There is ample evidence for the existence of these 54 prisoners in the Pakistani jails. Consider some of the evidence:-


· Then on December 26, 1974, R.S. Suri received a hand-written note dated December 7, 1974 from his son. The letter contained a slip in which his son had written, "I am okay here." The covering note read, "Sahib, valaikumsalam, I cannot meet you in person. Your son is alive and he is in Pakistan. I could only bring his slip, which I am sending you. Now going back to Pak." Signed M. Abdul Hamid. In August, 1975, he received another missive postmark dated ‘June 14/15/16, 1975, Karachi.’ The letter said, "Dear Daddy, Ashok touches thy feet to get your benediction. I am quite ok here. Please try to contact the Indian Army or Government of India about us. We are 20 officers here. Don’t worry about me. Pay my regards to everybody at home, specially to mummy, grandfather – Indian government can contact Pakistan government for our freedom." The then Defence Secretary had the handwriting confirmed as Ashok’s and changed the official statement from "killed in action" to "missing in action"!


· Maj AK Ghosh’s photograph was published in Time Magazine dated 27-12-1971 The photograph is proof that Maj AK Ghosh was in Pakistani custody when the war ended on 17 December 1971. He did not return with the POWs in 1972 at the time of the Simla agreement. He may have died in the interim period in a Pakistani jail. Surely there must be some record of that. The Indian and Pakistan governments can work together to find out what happened to such men. Why were some names not included in the POW list is again a moot point.


· Mohanlal Bhaskar repatriated on 09.12.1974 writes “Main Bharat ka jasoos tha” or “ I spied for India” Mohanlal Bhaskar, who was in a jail between 1968 and 1974 and repatriated on 09.12.1974 wrote a book in Hindi ( I was a spy for India) and gave a signed affidavit stating that he met a Col Asif Shafi of Second Punjab regt of Pakistan and a Maj Ayaaz Ahmed Sipra in Fort of Attock imprisoned for conspiring against Bhutto in the infamous “Attock conspiracy” . The Pakistani Major Ayaaz Ahmed Sipra spoke of his befriending a Gill of the Indian Air Force and a Captain Singh of the Indian Army as well as mentioning that there were around 40 Pows of the 1965 and 1971 wars in that jail who had no chances of release


· In the Attock Conspiracy, several officers of Pakistan's army and air force were arrested on March 30, 1973, on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. The detainees included Major Farooq Adam, Major Nadir Pervez (who later became a federal minister in the Nawaz Sharif government), Brigadier Wajid Ali Shah, Colonel Hamdani, and Major Ayaz Sipra, and a total of 59 officers were declared conspirators. The case is well known as the Attock conspiracy. Fifteen army and four air-force officers were found guilty of conspiracy and were handed jail terms ranging from three months to life. In this conspiracy, 15 officers were sentenced to terms in prison – among them Maj Ayaaz Ahmed Sipra and Col Asif Shafi. Others such as Farooq Adam (a Gallian, i.e. from Lawrence school, Ghoraghali) were also sentenced in the Attock conspiracy. Ayaaz Ahmed and Shafi later apparently moved to the US where Shafi was again traced by Manish Jain (son in law of Sqn Ldr Jain, another Indian officer missing and believed to be in Pakistani jails since the 1971 war) and Shafi confirmed to Jain unofficially that he had met Wg Cdr Gill in Attock in 2000 in a telephonic conversation.


· A Pakistani General, General Riaz, Governor NWFP who subsequently died in an accident informed Mr Ashwini Kumar, then IG of the Border Security Force as a personal favour to him at the Munich Olympics in 1972 that Major Waraich was being held in Dargai jail, NWFP.


· In her biography of Benazir Bhutto, British historian Victoria Schoffield reported that a Pakistani lawyer had been told that Kot Lakhpat prison in Lahore was housing Indian prisoners of war from the 1971 war. They could be heard screaming from behind a wall, according to an eyewitness within the prison.


· Pakistani media outlets have also alluded to the men’s existence. The shooting down of Wing Commander Heresen Gill’s Mig 21 on 3 December 1971 was followed that day by a radio broadcast in which military spokesperson claimed that an ‘ace Indian pilot’ had been captured.


· An American general Chuck Yeager also claimed in his autobiography that during the 1971 war, he personally interviewed Indian pilots captured by Pakistan. The airmen were of particular inertest to Americans because at the height of the cold war the men had attended training in Russia and were flying Russian designed and manufactured aircraft.


· The families also claimed that on the two occasions when they were allowed to visit the Pakistani jails, the jail guards privately attested to the men being alive – before being ushered away by the prison authorities.





Why?


The question is – Why were these men not released by Pakistan? Was it because Pakistan wanted to extract some sort of revenge for the loss in the 1971 war? Was it because these men had come to know of some secrets that Pakistan did not want the world to know? Did Pakistan want to use them as a bargaining chip of some sort for the future?


Maybe it is all of the above reasons. But the biggest reason is that India forgot them. These men are the forgotten 54 of India. The ruling elite and the bureaucracy of the nation did not find it fit or suitable to keep these men and their release on their agenda. It was because this was not an issue strong enough to dictate the political, professional or financial fate of any politician or bureaucrat. Nobody in the decision making echelons had time for them.





Who is responsible?


What sort a nation are we that forgets it’s soldiers after the war is over? Was it not the collective responsibility of the nation to pressurize the governments to take this issue more seriously? After all, these PoW are somebody’s sons, brothers, husbands and fathers. Every nation and society is morally obliged to ensure that those fighting for it’s independence are looked after well in their hour of need. There can be no need more urgent than being released from the inhuman captivity of an enemy like Pakistan.
After the war the ruling class and he elite got busy trying to ‘improve relations’, they very conveniently swept this issue under the carpet. Over the years the self appointed elite that has dictated the agenda of the nation has all but deleted this issue from the collective consciousness of the nation. We are too busy trying to prove that ‘art has no borders’ ‘sports has no borders’ and such nonsense that will never find any reciprocity from across the border. To uphold such thrash, issues like the prisoners of war had to be forgotten and they were forgotten.
The military top brass too should have followed up more aggressively on this issue with the government. They were and are in a position to exert pressure on the government for this. Agreed, there were other pressing issues but this issue too is equally pressing and urgent.
All in all, the entire nation is responsible for this and this is an unforgivable fault. Nothing can be done for these 54 now except making Pakistan acknowledge that such a thing has happened. But we can and must ensure that such a thing never happens again.
Please do this
Share this as much as you can till the entire nation knows about it.


Share it till the 54 are no longer forgotten.
Varoon Shekhar
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

There should have been some kind of operation soon after the war, preceded by immense diplomatic and economic pressure, to locate and liberate these prisoners. Damn Pakistan.
chetak
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by chetak »

Varoon Shekhar wrote:There should have been some kind of operation soon after the war, preceded by immense diplomatic and economic pressure, to locate and liberate these prisoners. Damn Pakistan.
why were we so eager to release the POWs without securing our interests both with the pakis and the bangladeshis??

prithviraj chauhan syndrome??
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Lalmohan »

american pressure
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by ramana »

Do we know from squadron histories where those pilots were flying?
And what happened to the planes?
What do the squadron mates say about these missing pilots?
30. Sq Ldr Mohinder Kumar Jain 5327-F(P) 27 Sqn


31. Flt Lt Sudhir Kumar Goswami 8956-F(P) 5 Sqn


32. Flying Officer Sudhir Tyagi 10871-F(P) 27 Sqn


33. Flt Lt Vijay Vasant Tambay 7662 –F(P) 32 Sqn


34. Flt Lt Nagaswami Shanker 9773-F(P) 32 Sqn


35. Flt Lt Ram Metharam Advani 7812-F(P) JBCU


36. Flt Lt Manohar Purohit 10249(N) 5 Sqn


37. Flt Lt Tanmaya Singh Dandoss 8160-F(P) 26 Sqn


38. Wg Cdr Hersern Singh Gill 4657-F(P) 47 Sqn


39. Flt Lt Babul Guha 5105-F(P)


40. Flt Lt Suresh Chander Sandal 8659-F(P) 35 Sqn


41. Sqn. Ldr. Jal Manikshaw Mistry 5006-F(P)


42. Flt Lt Harvinder Singh 9441-F(P) 222 Sqn


43. Sqn Ldr Jatinder Das Kumar 4896-F(P) 3 Sqn


44. Flt Lt LM Sassoon 7419-F(P) JBCU


45. Flt Lt Kushalpal Singh Nanda 7819-F(N) 35 Sqn


46. Flg Offr. Krishan L Malkani 10576-F(P) 27 Sqn


47. Flt Lt Ashok Balwant Dhavale 9030-F(P) 1 Sqn


48. Flt Lt Shrikant C Mahajan 10239-F(P) 5 Sqn


49. Flt Lt Gurdev Singh Rai 9015-F(P) 27 Sqn


50. Flt Lt Ramesh G Kadam 8404-F(P) TACDE


51. Flg Offr. KP Murlidharan 10575-F(P) 20 Sqn


52. Sqn Ldr Devaprasad Chatterjee


53. Plt Offr Tejinder Singh Sethi

Also only one IN officer is listed? What do we know where he was last seen?

Did the services think these were killed or missing in action and in euphoria of victory did not press for release at Shimla Agreement?
Who was the military attaché for those talks?
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by ramana »

Listed squadrons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._5_Squadron_IAF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._27_Squadron_IAF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._32_Squadron_IAF

Looks like Su-7 at that time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._35_Squadron_IAF

This is a Canberra squadron which flew over Karachi. It acknowledges losing Flt Lts. SC Sandal and KS Nanda who is listed above.
While the squadron lost an aircraft and two pilots (Flt Lt SC Sandal and Flt Lt KS Nanda) over Karachi,
Please add.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by rsingh »

This summer I had chance to meet a guy who was navigator on the missile boat that attacked Karachi. Some very curious things he mentioned
Missile boats were fueled by private filling stations owned by pious birathers. Oil was mixed with water. After firing the loads the boats started back ward journey and it was noticed that fuel tank had water. They had SOP for such eventualities but it took time and boat was not moving. Lights were off because baki planes were looking for boats. Meanwhile one guy shouting constantly "target sighted,permission to shoot".
Last edited by rsingh on 21 Dec 2016 23:37, edited 1 time in total.
ramana
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by ramana »

One boat having the leader had to be towed back.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Lalmohan »

i believe that those boats also had very short legs and needed a lot of careful logistics to get them there and back
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by g.sarkar »

Amber G. wrote:Shiv (and others)... Thanks for the thread. I have not gone through all the posts (I intend to). I was in US in 1971 and some of the reports and TV coverage are still vivid in the memory. I still have NY Times (Front page) of the surrender date.
One thing which he told us was about complete air superiority, in just over a few days after the start of hostilities, over the sky (not only in the east but also in West ) - He told that PAF had very little will, just after into a few days, to engage IAF in 1971..
I was in Durgapur, staying in a hotel. The panwalla in front had the radio on a mike for everyone to hear. He often had either AIR or the Pak radio on and Pak radio said that the industrial town of Durgapur has been totally destroyed. I looked up and saw that everything was OK and no sign of Pak aircraft. At that time Bengal and Bihar were under strict blackout. Then all of a sudden the black out was lifted in whole of Eastern India, clearly by then IAF had complete mastery of the skies. I think North Western India continued with the blackout.
My father at this time was in Moscow on a delegation. It was there rumored through the Indian consulate that India was loosing the war badly. Even his plane to Bombay took a longer approach, coming in from the South and everyone was worried. In Bombay they were all relieved when they got the news that we were winning everywhere.
Gautam
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Lalmohan »

one esteemed member of my family was in the oberoi in kolkata propping the bar up one evening during the war (business trip) and ended up having a few pegs with a sardar-afsar. end of evening sardarji said his byes and grinned. next time my relative saw aforementioned afsar was on the cover of a well known newspaper with a photo taken in dhaka ;-)
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Rakesh »

The Chachro Raid of 1971 – India's Most Daring Surgical Strike in Pakistan
http://www.news18.com/news/india/the-ch ... 36153.html
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Rakesh »

A CIA assessment of India of 1971. Have things changed?
https://twitter.com/Chopsyturvey/status ... 7127480320
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by rsingh »

^^^
Very accurate analysis. thanks God somebody said this.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Rakesh »

US thought India will capture PoK after Bangladesh war: CIA
http://www.defencenews.in/article.aspx?id=250140
As per CIA reports and minutes of high-level meetings in Washington on Indo-Pak tensions, it was clear that the US government was readying a strategy should India smash military power of West Pakistan.
Indira Gandhi was about to capture PoK after Bangladesh war, reveals CIA
http://www.india.com/news/india/indira- ... a-1790031/
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Austin »

Mukti | मुक्ति | Independence Day | Short Film | Milind Soman |Yashpal Sharma

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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by ashvin »

The short film Mukti, was excellent -- I loved it! I wish we had more films like these to highlight the achievements of our armed forces. The genocide by the Bakistan army and the perfidy of western nations in supporting the genocidal regime of Bakistan should be highlighted in movies like this!
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Austin »

ashvin wrote:The short film Mukti, was excellent -- I loved it! I wish we had more films like these to highlight the achievements of our armed forces. The genocide by the Bakistan army and the perfidy of western nations in supporting the genocidal regime of Bakistan should be highlighted in movies like this!

+ 100
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by rsingh »

Austin wrote:Mukti | मुक्ति | Independence Day | Short Film | Milind Soman |Yashpal Sharma

too short. full film mangta. :mrgreen:
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by UlanBatori »

I too hoped they would show TFTA amreeki Rear Admirals ranting as 7th phleet came up, plus Rooskies telling them nukes are primed. Plus some shots of the 93000 doing calisthenics to avoid the mercies of the Mokti Bahini.
A bit too much credit given to Gen. Jacob (brave man) ignoring contributions of Gen. Kher, Arora etc. Jacob's ADC seems a bit too dhoti-shivering.

I think the decision to force full surrender was taken at IG level, hence the race across rivers etc. straight to Dhaka. Nothing like "Then Sam will court-martial me".

But LOVED the scene where "Jacob" leans over the cowering Niazi and tells him it will be a public debriefing. Ooo! The scene oozes rage: Jacob looks as fearsome as T-Rex about to eat lunch. Superb directing and shooting.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by SSridhar »

Gen Jacob refers particularly about rape to AAK Niazi in Mukti. I am sure the film is true to what exactly transpired because rape was the tool of punishment adopted by Niazi.

Gen. A.A.K. Niazi, said of the rapes in East Pakistan insensitively: “You cannot expect a man to live, fight, and die in East Pakistan and go to Jhelum for sex, can you?”. This has been recounted by the Pakistani Brigadier A.R. Siddiqui. Another Pakistani Army officer, Capt. Khadim Hussain Raja, who was then serving in East Pakistan and who later rose to Major General’s position wrote a book after his retirement, “A Stranger in My Own Country: East Pakistan 1969-1971” in which he claims that Gen. Niazi vowed to change the race of East Pakistan by letting loose his men on the womenfolk of East Pakistan.
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by arun »

Can some kind soul advise where the full “Main” report of Hamood ur Rahman Commission is available :?:

While full text of the “Supplementary” report of Hamood ur Rahman Commission is available on the net, “Main” report seems to have vanished.

I had many years ago read it on Dawn and would like to re read.
Sanju
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Sanju »

arun wrote:Can some kind soul advise where the full “Main” report of Hamood ur Rahman Commission is available :?:

While full text of the “Supplementary” report of Hamood ur Rahman Commission is available on the net, “Main” report seems to have vanished.

I had many years ago read it on Dawn and would like to re read.
From what I have gathered so far in my search is that only the Supplementary copy was released.

This Paki website says that the Supplementary report was released by Pak:
Of the 12 copies submitted by Hamood-ur-Rehman, all but one was destroyed. Bhutto kept the final copy.

Ten years ago, India Today got a hold of the supplementary report. The report was later declassified by the Pakistani government–after being kept under wraps for 30 years. It is this supplementary report that we have access to today. And though it leaves out some key aspects (like the Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission’s analysis of the international and local context within which 1971 took place), it is nevertheless a fascinating, and telling, read.
This Bangla website says that the main report was never made public in Pakistan:
The War Inquiry Commission was appointed by the President of Pakistan in December 1971. In its secret report, never made public in Pakistan the commission, headed by then Chief Justice of Pakistan, Hamoodur Rahman, held widespread atrocities, other abuses of power by Pakistani generals and a complete failure in civilian and martial-law leadership responsible for the loss of East Pakistan.
Added later:
As per Wiki Chettan:
Initially, there were 12 copies of the report prepared by the Chief Justice Hamoodur Rahman; all over destroyed except one. That single report was handed over to Government, which forbade its publication at the time.
Originally, it was thought that the Government of Pakistan had declassified the Report in 2002 and was made it available to the public as public domain whereas it was free to download on the internet. However, it was reported to be a "Supplementary Report" which was created after the prisoners of war returned after two years.[4] The First Report is never published nor is accessible to anyone.
Austin
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by Austin »

Sharing as received

THE STORY OF KHUKRI AS TOLD BY CAPTAIN ALLAN RODRIGUES TO COMMEMORATE NAVY WEEk

23rd December 2010
Dear Ms Ameeta Mulla Wattal,

I am an ex- Indian naval officer who left the service honourably in 1994. I live in New Zealand, and work in Australia and New Zealand these days.

This email refers to an article you wrote some five years ago very poignantly, on your father the Late Captain Mulla, pondering why he chose to go down with his ship.
The article obviously struck a chord with many of your readers, and in the way of the internet, travelled the world before it entered my mail box a few days ago, via a social network maintained by the 42nd NDA and 51st IMA course.

I did not know your father personally, but I feel I have always known him and for what he stood for, all of my adult life. I missed the fighting in 1971 as I was cadet in the NDA at the time, and only passed out and joined a warship at sea in June 1972, six months after the war ended. In the event I became an Anti Submarine specialist and along the way, I ended up commanding three warships including INS Himgiri (also an anti submarine frigate, although a more modernised version of the original Khukri). I retired after 20 years, joined industry, and eventually moved across the Pacific and the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.

I only say this because it has some context to the comments I make below, on the decision by your father to go down with his ship. In doing so I hope to capture the circumstances (and perhaps the greater purpose) of why captains of warships in extreme circumstances, take such drastic actions that seem to lack purpose or reason (particularly to the public at large). I am sure many naval officers of senior rank and certainly more qualified than me, may well have commented at length after reading your article. I just felt I might throw some light on a take that has largely been neglected. I know the pain never goes away and I apologise for any anguish I might give you in the process, but I do believe that Captain Mulla did something for the service that night, that has not been either understood or recognised, by both the navy, and the public at large.

The Indian Navy of 1971 was a different beast from the one we have today. Little was known about Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) at the time. We commissioned our first submarine in 1968 in the then Soviet Union, and had barely begun operating a fledgling submarine arm by 1970. Pakistan by contrast, had been operating submarines since the early sixties. Ships like the Khukri and Kirpan supposedly specialised in ASW, formed the vanguard against the fight against Pakistani submarines. They had little in the way of operational experience against submarines, and even less knowledge about the ocean environment.

The physics of detection can be explained in simple non technical terms. The Khukri had sonar called the ‘Sonar 170’. which was the best we had at the time. It had a maximum range (in laboratory conditions) of only 1500 yards. We knew little about the harsh nature of the environment underwater.

The seas in the tropical waters off India’s coastline are heated up in the morning and afternoons, raising surface temperatures to ambient levels. The worst effect is in the afternoons. The laws of physics then apply. They literally bend the sonar waves downwards, severely limiting detection range. Since deeper waters are ice cold, there is meeting point of the warm waters on the top and the cold waters below. This meeting point is called the 'layer' where the sonar beam bounces off and is almost totally reflected upwards. There is very little penetration below the layer. These layers lie between 30 and 60 metres depth in tropical waters, and are exploited by expert submariners who are able to hide under it.

It took us another 15 years after the war, all which I was professionally involved with in one way or then other, to fully understand the nature of anti-submarine warfare, and to learn how to work with the physical limitations imposed by a hostile ocean underwater environment.
Submarines on the other hand are not as handicapped, as they do not need to transmit on their sonars to detect a ship. Their engines are silent. They can consequently listen out for a warship and even identify a type of ship and its signature from the sound of its engines. Skilled submariners hide beneath the layer and approach with stealth. They only transmit at the last possible moment when they need a final range to fire their torpedos.
Warships at sea in 1971 (and Captain Mulla in particular) would have been more than aware of these limitations. They would have known two simple facts

(a) That a submarine at sea would have already detected a surface ship long before the ship had even reached any kind of detection range;

(b) That even if the warship did detect the submarine, it would be at the penultimate moment, when the submarine had already fired, (or was on the verge of firing) its torpedoes, giving the warship a few minutes at best, to take avoiding action, let alone counterattack.
The Pak submarine that sank the Khukri used its environment to maximum advantage. In hind sight and over the years, we developed better sonars and better tactics. We employed dedicated ASW aircraft with sonobuoys and magnetic detectors, helicopter with dunking sonars, and yes we spent a lot of time learning the harsh facts of the ocean environment we were forced to operate in.

This is the context in which ships put to sea in 1971, against an adversary who was well versed in using submarines to maximum advantage. Our own ASW ships had little in the way of riposte or as much experience we would have liked to have had before the war of fighting submarines.

In the event every sailor at sea recognises a moment of truth, when all of his training and skills are put to the ultimate test. It is the moment when the ship beats to quarters and goes into action against an enemy in sight, or an enemy that has been detected.

Khukri and Kirpan were operating in submarine infested waters. The ship would have gone to 'action stations' against a submarine many times over, in the days and nights preceding the sinking of the Khukri, sometimes for genuine reasons, sometimes for false alarms. All of this would have exhausted the crew and formed the 'fog of war' that hindsight experts, armchair generals/admirals and the public at large never quite get.

Each time the crew of the Khukri beat to quarters and battened down for action, a clarion call would have been broadcast on its tannoy “Hands to action stations _ assume first degree anti-submarine readiness - assume damage control state one condition Zulu”. The crew of the Khukri would have known fully level, that they were going against a committed enemy, and that the dice were loaded against them. Each of them would have been wondering whether they were going to come out of the action alive or dead. This is an age old fear that men have, and then learn to conquer, when they go to sea and to war. It is the nature of the beast. The army and the air force face similar issues, which they deal with in their own inimitable way.

The people most at risk on board the Khukri that night would have been its technical departments; engineering and electrical officers and sailors, closed up at action stations in the bowels of the ship three and four decks below the waterline, keeping the engines and the machinery running, so that their captain could fight. Each of them knew if a torpedo were to hit, it would do so well above where they were located, and that the chances of them surviving would be a lot less than those sailors who were fortunate to be located on the upper decks, and above the waterline.


it takes a special kind of motivation to get these men to go down into the bowels of a fighting ship whilst in action against a submarine. they do so each time out of a sense of duty that the ship cannot fight without them and mostly because they recognise that one single unspoken truth… that their captain will not forsake them; that their captain will not leave them behind. that is the crux of the why, and the reason why captains at sea honour this unspoken agreement.

Captain mulla would have known that many of his boys were trapped (but yet alive) in the bowels of his ship when it went down, in the few minutes after the torpedoes hit. he tried to help as many as he could, but i suspect he could not bring himself to save himself, whilst his boys were dying down below. that he chose to go down is a personal decision, perhaps even a moral decision; but it was a decision that set a standard that will save lives in future actions. it forced all of us who came after him, and who were privileged to command men in peace and war, to recognise that undeniable and unspoken bond between fighting men … that you fight your ship against an enemy (or the ocean in a storm), with what you have, and to the best of your ability, and that come what may, you never forsake your troops or leave a man under your command, behind you.

What Captain Mulla did that fateful day has had an enormous and positive impact on the service he loved and on the men who continue to serve it to this day. It reminds every one of us chosen to command of the qualities of leadership needed under duress, and of the ultimate responsibility we have to the families of the men we command; "You never forsake your men – You never leave a man behind".

I know that this hardly helps when trying to explain all of this to the family of a captain who makes the ultimate sacrifice. Nor does it assuage the grief of a young girl trying to understand why her father chose to voluntarily die, rather than save himself. For a fledgling service post independent India trying to forge its own traditions independent of the Royal Indian Navy of yore, the impact was enormous. It was one of the many actions in the 1971 war that made us equal partners with the Army and Air force in the defence of independent India.

I am reminded of the last few stanzas of Ronald Hopwood?s classic poem 'Our Fathers' that I quote below.

“When we've raced the seagulls, run submerged across the Bay,

When we've tapped a conversation fifteen hundred miles away,

When the gyros spin superbly, when we've done away with coals,

And the tanks are full of fuel, and the targets full of holes,

When the margin's full of safety, when the weakest in the fleet

Is a Hyper-Super-Dreadnought, when the squadrons are complete,

Let us pause awhile and ponder, in the light of days gone by,

With their strange old ships and weapons, what our Fathers did, and why.

Then if still we dare to argue that we're just as good as they,

We can seek the God of Battles on our knees, and humbly pray

That the work we leave behind us, when our earthly race is run,

May be half as well completed as our Fathers' work was done”.

My wife Sharon and I wish you and your family a great Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year 2011. If you or your family do visit New Zealand do look us up.

Allan Rodrigues
DirectorNE
sanjaykumar
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Re: Remembering the 1971 war

Post by sanjaykumar »

My salute to you. Outstanding.
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