by Mike Edwards
Without thinking, Harjinder bellowed with his signature booming voice over the sound of the engine; ‘You idiot, don’t you know what you are doing?’
Pilot Officer Prithipal Singh was too stunned to react, his mind still waiting to land his plane. So Harjinder climbed up through the swirl of wind from the still rotating, shattered propeller stubs, to switch off the engine. In the meantime Jumbo Majumdar and Mehr ‘Baba’ Singh had driven up. Harjinder never saw Jumbo so furious. The poor pilot and RAF Corporal were taken away, still in a complete daze.
Harjinder studied the crash site. He sent his men off to gather equipment whilst he poked his head in, out, and around, the dirt-covered machine. He managed to get a jack under the wing to lift the Wapiti out of the dirt, high enough to remove the collapsed leg. He then used a flexible cable to tie the semi-detached engine to the struts that held the wings in place. It took them three hours to wheel the sad looking Wapiti to the hangar, a mile away.
The next day, a meeting took place in the Commanding Officer’s office. All the pilots were present; Mehr ‘Baba’ Singh, Nanda, Surjit Singh Majithia, Das, and the hangdog Prithipal Singh. That meeting was to form part of the legend that stayed with Harjinder throughout his career. Jumbo posed the question that started the ball rolling; ‘Harjinder; is it humanly possible to repair this aircraft?’
‘Sir, the damage is extensive, even the top longeron (the length of metal running from front to back of the fuselage) is broken in two. Although we will try, it appears doubtful.’
‘Even if there is one-in-a-million chance, you must try it. Our prestige is at stake. We cannot let the IAF down. If you do repair it, I promise not to let Air Headquarters at Delhi know about it. Thereafter, you will preside over a Subaltern’s Court Martial and I can assure you that Pilot Officer Prithipal Singh will have no choice in the matter but to yield to your decision.’
This was the boss of the IAF’s ‘C’ Flight, in front of all his pilots and his Chief Engineer, discussing the court martial offense of not reporting an accident. It was not just to save the career of poor Pilot Officer Singh. The war was on, and eyes were looking to the IAF to assist the Empire’s war effort, but the traditionalists still wanted them to fail, to know their place.
Harjinder knew that the stakes were high, he knew what he had to do; ‘If ever in my life I was determined to complete a job it was that day after hearing the Commanding Officer. I promised to repair the aircraft in three days.’
Harjinder rushed back to his office and sent a signal to Aircraft Depot, Karachi, requesting immediate despatch of a top front longeron for a Wapiti. He had a good look at the damage and found that the bottom beam underneath the main auxiliary tank had buckled too. Sergeant Pritam Singh was instructed to finish the job initiated by the pilot: the removal of the engine. Corporal Sharma, with Leading Aircraftsman (LAC) Mahboob, was to strip off all the cowlings. It was midnight before all the damage had been logged, because every single tubular rivet had to be checked for bending. Being the first all-metal aircraft, not much was known about the various components’ strengths. If it hadn’t before, it now became startlingly clear Harjinder that he was going to be extremely busy during the next two days. He arranged for the Flight to work round the clock in four shifts, with each getting only four hours sleep at night. The tea stall (you can’t perform miracles without tea!) was shifted to the hangar and cakes and pastries were in abundance; the tea on the boil all night.
Not surprisingly, the Aircraft Depot, Karachi, sent a signal in reply to Harjinder’s request, querying the IAF demand for the Wapiti spare part. It read; ‘No Unit has ever demanded a top longeron. It cannot be changed anywhere except in Aircraft Repair Depot, with the aircraft completely dismantled. Confirm your demand.’
Harjinder replied; ‘Demand confirmed; requirement top longeron. It is possible to change the longeron. Aircraft cannot be transhipped to Depot due to metre-gauge railway line connection between Fort Sandeman and Quetta.’ This last comment was a quick, if not entirely accurate, afterthought.
The die was cast. They had now officially notified the Aircraft depot of damage, but not of the crash. There was no going back, and no way out, other than this Wapiti, with the front snapped in half, taking to the air again. If the Depot refused to send the longeron, all the grafting in the hanger would have be in vain, and the whole unit would have been caught out by Air Headquarters. The very next day, their collective prayers were answered. Imagine the relief as they peered into the cargo wagon of the next passenger train to see the unmistakeable, long wooden boxes of the longeron and beam. As the parts trundled through the barren, brown, rocky landscape, every other damaged area on the aircraft had been repaired with the assistance of endless cups of tea. The fuselage was laid open, top and bottom, waiting for the new parts to arrive. The man whose engineering practical skills had been found lacking by Warrant Officer Newings stepped up to the plate. ‘During the fitting of the two parts I worked with my own hands and all the metal riggers watched. Leading Aircraftman Siddique, Aircraftman Daulat Ram and Corporal Sharma were surprised to see how fast I could work (so this Flight Sergeant wasn’t just a booming voice they thought!). All my practical training and my own-time Sunday courses were paying dividends.’
They were not only paying dividends, they were coming to the rescue of the IAF’s reputation.
Exactly seventy two hours after the crash, the haggard technicians stood back from a completed Wapiti, sitting back on its own undercarriage. One of the pilots climbed into the cockpit and started the engine on a test run. After the engine roar died away leaving the ticking and clicking of a cooling engine, Mehr ‘Baba’ Singh proclaimed Harjinder the ‘Technical Wizard’. As Harjinder looked upon the aircraft, he felt very proud of himself. All his college education and training in the Air Force had led up to this moment. He knew in his own mind, however, that this was just the beginning, that there were greater disasters to come.
The next day, Mehr ‘Baba’ Singh stepped forward, keen to test fly the repaired aircraft. As he was taxying out, Pilot Officer Das playfully joked with Harjinder; ‘I hope it will stand the taxying loads.’
However, Harjinder stood in silence, praying inwardly. Everyone around him seemed confident.
Then, all of a sudden, the aircraft’s engine opened up to full power for takeoff. It surged forward, but just when the tail lifted, the engine was suddenly throttled back. Mehr ‘Baba’ Singh turned the aircraft around and taxied back towards them. Harjinder groaned and all around him the shoulders of the technicians dropped. However, instead of bringing the Wapiti up to the group and shutting the engine down, Baba swung the aircraft back into wind and, without a pause, opened up to full power. This time the aircraft wheels left the ground in a cloud of dust. He banked the Wapiti into a turn and flew directly over their heads ‘like a white dove’. There, in the dust blown by the departing aircraft, the oily, tired, drawn faces were split with smiles, as relief and pride glowed on every face. The pilots standing near Harjinder also began to laugh. They had known what Mehr ‘Baba’ Singh had been up to; he had wanted to test the aircraft to see if it would stand the strain of a takeoff and whether the rigging was accurate before leaving the safety of terra firma. There had been nothing wrong with J 9735. It was back on the inventory and nobody outside this small group knew any different. As soon as Baba landed he climbed out of the cockpit with a face spliting smile, and congratulated each and every one of them on the excellent job done on J 9735. ‘C’ Flight, IAF, had all of the aircraft it had originally been issued with. There was no record of a crash and therefore, no crash had ever taken place. What doesn’t appear in Harjinder’s diary is what the RAF Corporal, who was in the crash, thought of the whole incident and what he was instructed to say! Would anybody have believed him on his return if he told stories of a crash that never happened, and an aircraft that was snapped in half, but flew him back to base three days later?
So, true to his word, Jumbo Majumdar asked Harjinder to convene
the ‘Subaltern’s Court Martial’, an unofficial form of discipline adopted from the Army. Harjinder headed the Court Martial the next morning and an hour later the verdict was conveyed to Jumbo: The pilot is fined 200 beer bottles and recommended to be posted away. The sentence was promptly carried out, and Pilot Officer Prithipal Singh was posted to Karachi. You would think the pilot would have been grateful for the act that saved his career, but Harjinder wrote; ‘I don’t think he ever forgave me, either for his punishment, or for calling him an idiot to his face.’
Prithipal Singh’s career was saved, and not only did it progress, but their paths we set to cross again soon.
In the RAF, things were heating up. A few tribes causing trouble on a remote border of the Empire, now seemed insignificant, and certainly not newsworthy. The headlines were full of the aerial battles in the fight that would become legend, the Battle of Britain. The pilots of the RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes were hurling themselves at the German fighters and bombers. Bombs were falling on Great Britain, and the possibility of a German invasion was at its highest. In British homes, pounded with bombs, and under the threat of invasion, the radio was the primary way in which the public could hear their news, and the Government used this as a mouthpiece to try and boost morale. The same was true in India. On the evening of 25th July 1940, Squadron leader Subroto Mukerjee broadcast a talk on the radio from Delhi, regaling his fellow countrymen about life in their fledgling Air Force. It was an unabashed recruiting drive. Subroto’s talk gave a brief history of the IAF Squadron, its achievements, its organisation and its movements. It was voted a very good talk by the whole Flight who listened, huddled in one room in utter silence. Then, as it drew to an end, the room exploded in wild cheering. This was the first time an IAF officer had spoken to his countrymen over the airwaves. The men listened, bursting with great pride.
Soon after the radio speech, the Flight received a signal from Air Headquarters authorising them to join in with the Royal Air Force with the issue of a new blue uniform. Their joy knew no bounds, but no directive from the RAF could be without a catch. The signal did state that old RAF uniforms held in store in India may be first used by being issued to the lower ranks of the IAF. Where the stock of the old uniform was nil, only then would the new versions be made under unit contracts. Jumbo took the word ‘may’ in the signal to heart and authorised the men to use new material. Leading Aircraftsman Suri, the Equipment Assistant, was instructed to issue the brand new RAF blue material from the Stores Section, employ a whole fleet of local darzis, and get a set of new uniforms made before anyone could stop them.
The uniformed numbers of personnel were soon swelling as the IAF Flight welcomed their first batch of Volunteer Reserve Airmen. They were met at the Railway Station, a group photograph taken, and much fuss made of them to boost their morale. They received a conducted tour of the Flight, where Harjinder told them about this being a nationalised unit, stressing that this was the first nationalised unit of the IAF, the sapling which would grow into a full-fledged tree one day if they nursed it diligently. Harjinder reported; ‘Among them Deb and Arunachalam were outstanding. Little Roy was a very smart and pleasant airman, Jaykant a little shabby!’
The air war in Europe was brutal. The RAF was reaching its ‘Finest Hour’. The ‘Few’ were inflicting more and more casualties on the German Luftwaffe. The civilians would suffer for the RAF Fighter Command to survive. As Churchill planned, Hitler was so enraged after a small, audacious, bombing raid on Berlin that he released his strangle hold on the RAF Fighter Command stations and turned his bombers loose on British cities. Few people realise that during this time, at the height of the Battle of Britain, twenty-four Indian pilots were sent to the UK to undergo conversion training and participate in Operations. Even though they could take part only after the Battle of Britain, many of them distinguished themselves flying operations with the Fighter, Bomber and Coastal commands soon after. Of the twenty four, eight were destined never to return. In Britain too, Indians fought to prove that they could fly and fight with aircraft.
However, back at ‘C’ Flight, IAF, bombing operations out of Fort Sandeman were being held in a more gentlemanly fashion. The tribesmen were still very hostile, and the IAF had no problem with machine gun attacks against the riflemen who took pot shots at them, but attacks on villages were viewed differently. When the IAF were tasked with an attack on a wayward village, messages were dropped beforehand, informing them that a lesson was about to be dished out with a little bombing. When the raids began, the crews would often see the villagers gathered in the surrounding hills like spectators in a football match; they seemed more confident of the pilots’ aim than some of the pilots themselves. Apparently, one village chief was so impressed by the accuracy of the bombing, that he sent a telegram of congratulations to Air Headquarters in Delhi. How very civilised!
As 1940 ended, and a new year began, the RAF had stopped the Germans in the air, and shattered their plans to invade. However, the halting of the German invasion plans was the only encouraging news to be had. Elsewhere, the Italians had invaded North Africa and marched into Egypt; the Japanese were doing their own expansion through China. The war seemed to be edging closer to Harjinder and his band of brothers.
In March 1941, the possibility of direct involvement in the wider war seemed a real possibility, so Squadron Leader Mukerjee visited the Flight to raise morale. His trip to metaphorically pat his men on the back very nearly became his last. It was normal procedure for visiting pilots to take an aircraft into the tribal territory to update themselves with the present location and movement of the tribes. Time ticked on past Mukerjee’s expected return estimate. The occasional glance at a watch turned into faces scanning the horizon for a sign of his Wapiti. No amount of staring, and wishing, would bring his plane into view, so when he was several hours overdue, the order went out to prepare all available aircraft for flight. Harjinder ordered the maintenance checks to be doubled whilst all crews gathered for briefing. The fort became swamped with noise as all the engines flashed into life. The search aircraft bumped along to point into wind and without delay they launched off in all directions, up to a radius of 100 miles. In hindsight they realised that letting their senior officer fly off over the horizon without leaving a copy of his intended route was foolish. The rear gunners hung over the rim of their cockpits, pulling against their monkey chains, in the hope of spotting the missing biplane. As eyes became exhausted, so did the aircrafts’ fuel supplies, so all homed back in to the airfield at the same time. The hope among the men gathered on the ground was soon dashed, as the aircraft drew up and shaking heads descended from them. By the time evening came the levels of concern had crept higher and higher. All personnel congregated at the airstrip, anxiety etched on their countenance. The uniform look on the faces was one of tension for their first Squadron Leader and a much-loved man.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the Airmen laid out the gooseneck flares on the airstrip. These petrol-filled pots were lit, adding to the shimmering heat haze. All the hangar lights remained on, a beacon for their returning leader. Then, Mother Nature stepped in to deliver the final blow. There rose one of those Frontier dust storms, the red-dust disturbance, in which even birds prefer to walk, and visibility drops to less than a hundred yards. The shoulders of the men dropped and even the small part of the faces left exposed after scarves were wound around for protection, illustrated the strain. They all felt that they were staring disaster in the face. Some prayed for his safety and some were actually heard sobbing. Flight Lieutenant Majumdar tried to console all who would listen; ‘I know him; he is an excellent pilot; he must have landed safely somewhere.’
However, the weather was atrocious, visibility was almost zero, and it seemed he was speaking out of nothing but blind optimism.
To keep the men focused, and keep them from spiralling into a dark place, Jumbo Majumdar gathered them together, outlining his plans to start the search in the morning again. Once Harjinder was s
atisfied with the mechanical readiness of all the machines, he wanted him to occupy the rear seat of his own Wapiti as Jumbo’s observer. The briefing over, the men reluctantly turned in for the night, though not many were able to sleep. Most were up after a few hours, preparing, and double-checking all the equipment, time and time again. Now it seemed that the sun would never rise.
Jumbo could wait no longer, so, at 4.30 am, still in total darkness, he and Harjinder took off in a Wapiti. Other aircraft were detailed to takeoff at intervals of one hour and to search in different directions. Harjinder reasoned that by having gaps between the returning aircraft his technicians had time to prepare the aircraft to go straight out again. Jumbo and Harjinder headed in a South-Easterly direction, but as soon as they reached their cruising altitude, the ground below disappeared in a mass of red dust. The storm had subsided since the previous evening, but the red dust still hung suspended in the air and they knew from experience that this would continue for days. Searching in these conditions was almost impossible. They flew for an hour with blue sky around them but nothing below, just the soupy swirl of red dust hanging in the air. Harjinder was beginning to believe that the search was hopeless, but Jumbo kept on peering to port and starboard alternately. All Harjinder could see was dust and more dust, the despair was rising in his throat.
All of a sudden, without warning, Harjinder was smacked into the right-hand side of the cockpit as the aircraft violently rolled left. He regained his balance, gripping on to the gun ring encircling the cockpit, to prepare for the roll to the right. Jumbo was signalling to Harjinder; he must have spotted something. Harjinder pulled half his body out from his rear cockpit moving as close to the front cockpit as his monkey chain would allow. He followed the pointing hand of Jumbo towards a gap in the dust haze which in turn revealed a narrow lane formed between two ranges of high hills. The visibility was not ideal, but it was slightly better. Jumbo eased the Wapiti down into the gap, but once in among the dusts, the visibility became poor on both sides. The dust gloom had looked sinister as it bubbled below them but now there were hills in that darkness; ready to kill them at any moment.
