by Mike Edwards
The sky over the battlefield soon filled up as Dakota transport aircraft flew the Indian Army into battle. An observer on the ground might have wondered just who was fighting this war – some of the aircraft still had the RAF World War II roundels of dark and light blue, other RIAF aircraft appeared with the new official roundel, the chakra wheel symbol from the centre of the Indian flag, and some had the more familiar red white and blue RAF markings, with their old RAF serial numbers crudely painted over. However, to add to the surreal quality of the battlefield, the commandeered civilian Dakota transport started to arrive, still sporting their bright colours, as they followed their military counterparts into virtually undefended airstrips. Bright white aircraft with the words Jupiter Airlines or Tata Airlines splashed down the sides were shot at as they too disgorged their cargo of soldiers. These men stepped off their transport and straight into the battle that was happening around the very fields they were landing in. One of the pilots leading from the front in his Dakota transport aircraft was another of the old guard from the days of flying Wapitis. It was ‘Baba’ Mehar Singh, the pilot who had his fuel pipe shot away and walked through the night only to be shot at by his own men from the fort. Now he was an Air Commodore, in-charge of the Kashmir air-lift operations, being shot at by men who were on his side only 6 months ago. Being shot at by friends was becoming a habit for Baba!
During the war, Mukerjee was only Deputy Chief of the RIAF as Air Vice-Marshal Thomas Elmhirst, RAF, was still the boss. In Pakistan, Elmhirst’s contemporary was Air Vice-Marshal Perry Keene, a man of similar seniority, whose career had crossed several times with Elmhirst’s. This put the two British Officers in an interesting position. They could either obey their new masters as per their orders from the British Government, or send a letter of resignation back to UK. They chose to go to war against each other. The phone line between the two remained open throughout the war, which must have been party to some interesting conversations. ‘I say Perry, old chap, how are you getting on? Best you don’t pop down to the front tomorrow at 0600!’
Harjinder reflected that those months were among the busiest in his career. As the senior technical officer of the RIAF, he had to hastily reorganise the entire maintenance cover for the Kashmir war and oversee the operations. This involved late night conferences with his old colleagues Mukerjee, now an Air Vice-Marshal, and Aspy Engineer, now an Air Commodore. The country was threatened, and a war was on, but this would not get in the way of Harjinder’s flying training. Every morning, Harjinder was trying to attend classes at the Delhi Flying Club to get his commercial pilot’s licence. He couldn’t use the Harvard he had learnt to fly in Miranshah, because even these aircraft were in Kashmir, their bright yellow colour covered by household green and brown paint. They added what little firepower they had, but their main function was dropping supplies to the troops. They were also the early birds, the pilots taking off in the pre-dawn light with an observer in the rear seat taking pictures and making notes of troop locations to update the fighter boys. Harjinder was qualified to fly his little L5 civilian aeroplane, so he took that toy-like machine to war. He started to fly into Kashmir to watch proceedings from the air firsthand. As the silver Spitfires and Tempests zoomed down on the attack so Harjinder weaved the little L5 through them, and the chubby transport aircraft that festooned the skies above the battlefield. In the back seat was Neki Ram, his chaprasi, or office peon, but it is unclear whether he willingly volunteered to fly into a war zone in a slow, fabric covered aircraft, or on orders from Harjinder!
A few days earlier, the airstrip at Srinagar had been the private strip for the Hari Singh, and thought to be too small for military fighter aircraft. Now it was a hive of activity with maintenance crews swarming around Spitfires, Tempests and Harvards; the physical size of these aircraft seemed to take on enormous proportions given the limited area they had to operate out of. The pilots usually operated in pairs, a system used so successfully by Arjan Singh in the Battle of Kohima. As the Airmen refuelled and rearmed the aircraft, the pairs of pilots could be seen standing at the rear of an aircraft, maps spread over the tail as they discussed the next mission, no time until nightfall for thoughts of rest. The first person Harjinder met was Hrushikesh ‘Arvind’ Moolgavkar, the new Commanding Officer of No.1 Operations Wing, fresh from leading the Tempests on the Independence Day fly past. This gave some sense to the furious pace around him. Moolgavkar was the same mad keen Pilot Officer who had harangued Jumbo in Burma for not getting his fair share of missions, winking at Harjinder because he knew the opposite to be true. Now Moolgavkar, as a Wing Commander, was leading from the front again, flying the Tempest into combat, and taking his orders from the other dynamo, Aspy Engineer. When a Dakota touched down, it was not to disgorge further supplies, but to bring in the senior Army Officers to survey the battlefield. Aspy Engineer was pulling the strings of the IAF, but it was the tactical brain of Lieutenant-Colonel Sam Manekshaw MC, who controlled the Army on the ground. The seven Japanese bullets in his stomach, from the battle Pagoda Hill just outside Rangoon, had failed to kill this man.
The manoeuvrability of Moolgavkar’s Tempest made it ideal to twist and turn through the valleys, the huge wing area grasping lift from the rarefied air of the high altitude battlefield. The Pakistani anti-aircraft guns were a constant threat on attack runs so, in a change of tactics, Moolgavkar took his bomb and rocket laden aircraft up to 18,000 feet with his Flight Commander tucked in alongside flying another Tempest. They pushed the noses of the aircraft over into a vertical dive to scream down on the target. Another important development incorporated into the Tempest design was the knife thin wing profile for the newly developing idea of laminar air flow. The air streamed smoothly on the surface, but since it offered considerably less drag than the wings of their previous fighters, the Tempest leapt forward towards the mountainous landscape below shrouded in the smoke of battle. Suddenly, Moolgavkar’s aircraft started shuddering and shaking so violently that he ordered all bombs to be jettisoned. With the change of weight distribution the Tempest’s nose shot up skywards, crushing him into the bucket seat with the G force causing a temporary loss of consciousness. Before he had fully regained his senses they were back in a vertical climb passing through 20,000 feet. They brought their aircraft back to Srinagar gingerly although everything seemed in order. On landing, the top surface of the wings were found to be wrinkled, like skin after soaking for too long in a bath or a swimming pool. In America, Chuck Yeager had only just broken the sound barrier in the rocket powered Bell X-1. Moolgavkar, the man who would be Chief of the Air Force one day, had nibbled the speed of sound encountering compressibility problems, and had only just got away with his life.
Harjinder repeatedly used the L5 to fly from base to base, collating firsthand knowledge on the serviceability of his force. There just weren’t enough hours of daylight to complete his endless tasks, so he taught himself night flying. Officially, Harjinder was attached to a desk, but he was still one to get his hands covered in oil at every opportunity. When he went to Palam air base, outside Delhi, he saw a desperately-needed Tempest aircraft, lifeless, as it awaited a new engine. Rather than wait for a junior engineering officer, he gathered some technicians together, rolled up his sleeves, and got on with the job. By the time he was ready to fly home to Safdarjung, the airfield in central Delhi, it was getting late and also very windy. The petrol filled gooseneck flares were lined up to pick out the runway edge but the wind caused them to flicker, throwing dancing demon-like shadows on the runway. Harjinder positioned himself centrally between the jigging flares and opened the engine up to full power. As he started his takeoff roll, Harjinder didn’t compensate for the wind soon enough with his rudder, and he was blown towards the downwind side of the runway. As his main-wheels skipped off the tarmac his tail-plane clipped one of the gooseneck flares, splashing petrol over the tail surfaces. The flames from the next flare came close enough to ignite the fuel soaked fabric. As soon as he settled in the climbing a
ttitude, the ever-present Neki Ram tapped him on the shoulder, and with more than a touch of understatement, said; ‘Sahib, there is a little fire on the tail.’
Harjinder struggled against his shoulder straps to pivot around. His efforts were greeted by the sight of Neki’s head back-lit by his tail-plane, merrily burning. The flames, being fanned by their forward speed, were slowly devouring the aircraft’s fabric covering. Harjinder reasoned that landing straight ahead might end in a minor crash that would escalate as they burnt out so he took the other option, kept the engine at full throttle and pointed the little smouldering aeroplane back towards the ground to build up speed. The extra air flow luckily did the job and the flames blew out, leaving only a faint glow at the tip; his gamble worked. Harjinder climbed the machine back up and set course. There was great activity on his arrival at Safdarjung airfield with fire engines and ambulances alerted by a radio call from Palam. Harjinder wondered what all the activity was in aid of, because the aircraft seemed to be handling OK, and all was fine with the landing. As the propeller came to a stop an airman ran up to the cockpit. Harjinder was ordered to present himself to the Aerodrome Officer. As Harjinder entered the official’s room, slightly annoyed at the delay to get home, the Officer erupted with threats to have Harjinder’s pilot’s licence taken away. After giving the officer a good listening to Harjinder eventually got away with a stern lecture and probably a few reminders from his pilot friends in the RIAF that traditionally you land immediately when you are, or have been, on fire!
The 1st Kashmir war lasted 15 months with the RIAF learning fast as time progressed. They soon perfected operating from small landing grounds close to the fighting with Harjinder’s engineers mirroring his own days in Burma, but without the stolen trains! Different fronts opened up throughout the soaring peaks, ridges and valleys of the region. Soon Mehar Baba Singh found himself considering Dakota operations from tiny strips perched high up in the Himalayas. The villages of Leh and Poonch were surrounded by Pakistani troops. The Major in-charge at Leh reported that they would be overrun the next day, and was preparing for the final showdown with what precious little they had in the way of supplies. At 11,000 feet up, the airstrip was one of the highest in the world and had only seen small aircraft struggle up there in the thin air. Throughout the military, it was assumed that large aircraft could not fly in to support the surrounded soldiers at such a height, so all was lost. They didn’t factor in Baba who decided the only way to find out if it could be done was to do it. He personally took command of a Dakota and placed that big aircraft at the very leading lip of the landing strip, pulling it up to a stop before the limited ground ran out. It was a massive morale boost to the Indian troops, and stunned the attacking soldiers. He then returned later in the day leading 6 Dakotas that brought the first of the Gurkha troops as reinforcements. Cariappa, now a Lieutenant General, was pushing towards Poonch to meet up with his old friends; now his new adversaries. In the speeches in the Delhi Gymkhana club party he had said that meeting again was inevitable but polo wasn’t on the agenda as he had predicted.
The army, supported by the Air Force, stopped the invasion and re-established the borders. As the winter of 1948 arrived, the fighting went into hibernation until the UN cease-fire came into effect on 1st January 1949. There is little doubt that without the Air Force, the map of India would look different today. It had been a baptism of fire, but Air Vice-Marshal Elmhirst had an interesting view on the conflict on later reflection. ‘The 1st Kashmir war, though regrettable in itself, certainly helped get the Indian Air Force into its stride. Sad as it was for the two new nations, it provided an immediate objective for the Indian Air Force. Pilots came under fire and had to fire their guns; leadership or failure showed itself. Regrettable as it all was in principle; in fact nothing could have been better for the morale and training of the new Air Force.’
Two events in 1948 helped bring about a halt to the sectarian killings in India. The ongoing fighting between Indian and Pakistani troops somehow seemed to make the conflict official, a formalisation of killing and therefore not something the individual should partake in. The other event happened on Friday, 30th January 1948, in Birla House in Delhi.
Gandhi held a vital meeting with Patel in an attempt to prevent his resignation. There had been the inevitable conflict between Patel, the tough-minded realist, and Nehru the socialist idealist. Mountbatten had pleaded with Gandhi to intervene since India needed both men to take the country into the future. On Friday 30th January, Gandhi had succeeded in his task, but his deep, intense conversation to safeguard India’s immediate future had made him late for his 5 o’clock prayer meet; there was nothing Gandhi hated more than being late. Manu, Gandhi’s great-niece, had spent an anxious 10 minutes trying to catch his eye, but now the old man placed a hand on her shoulder and shuffled as fast as he could out into the garden. It was the first time Gandhi had been able to walk unaided since finishing his fast, so he took the shoulder of Manu to try and speed his progress. The usual entourage that flowed around Gandhi was seriously depleted. His Doctor was still in Pakistan, and the police officer assigned to him was summoned to an urgent meeting in downtown Delhi.
As with every day, a group of followers had gathered on the lawn to partake in the 5 o’clock prayers. Nathuram Godse was amazed that nobody had searched him as he entered the inner sanctum of Gandhi’s present location. His plans to disguise his pistol in a camera, or to dress as a woman using the sari to conceal the gun, had all been abandoned. He walked in bold as brass and suddenly, unexpectedly, here he now stood waiting for the arrival of Gandhi. His two fellow conspirators entered Birla House separately, but positioned themselves just behind his shoulder. Apte and Karkare knew the 35 foot shot through a milling crowd to Gandhi’s small meeting platform would be a difficult task for the untrained Nathuram. The restlessness of the crowd was calmed when the small man, with the big aura, appeared behind them, stopping his speedy shuffle towards the platform just very briefly to place his palms together in a greeting. To try and make up for his uncharacteristic lateness, Gandhi dispensed with his usual route around the perimeter of the lawn and set off directly for the meeting platform. The crowd dutifully parted to form a narrow corridor to his destination. Karkare saw Nathuram pass the pistol from one hand to the other before slipping off the safety catch. As Gandhi approached, leaning on the shoulder of Manu, Nathuram took 2 steps forward into the ad-hoc corridor formed by well-wishers. Nathuram bowed slowly from the waist and said ‘Namaste Gandhiji’.
Manu thought the man had come to kiss Gandhi’s feet; ‘Brother; Bapu is already ten minutes late.’
At that moment Nathuran’s left arm whipped up to roughly shove Manu away. His right arm brought the small black Beretta pistol up to Gandhi’s chest and three sharp cracks signalled the end to Mahatma Gandhi.
Mountbatten sped to Birla House. As he pushed his way through the crowd a man, his face contorted with hysteria, screamed, ‘It was a Muslim.’
A sudden silence descended which held the crowd in a frozen moment of time. Mountbatten looked over the sea of faces and boomed back, ‘You fool. Don’t you know it was a Hindu.’
Seconds later his press secretary asked Mountbatten how he could possibly know the religion of the assassin. Mountbatten’s answer was chilling. ‘I don’t, but if it really was a Muslim India is going to live through one of the ghastliest massacres the world has ever seen.’
The news soon broke that indeed Gandhi’s murderers were Hindus and India was spared from further, unimaginable, bloodshed. Gandhi achieved in death what he had so desperately tried to achieve in the last months of his life. Naturally, the antagonism still remained, but individuals were so shocked by the violent end to Gandhi’s life at the hands of their own kind, they collectively let the military work out their grievances on the battlefields in the conventional manner. Peace returned to the cities of the new India.
The task to arrange Gandhi’s funeral fell to the British Commander of the Indian Army, L
ieutenant-General Sir Roy Bucher. It was the second time for him to organise such an event. By a bizarre twist of fate, he had arranged Gandhi’s funeral in 1942 in Yeravda prison following his famous 21-day fast. Gandhi had failed to attend that event, but now, as his ashes were carried away by Mother Ganges, his death brought calm to India.
