by Mike Edwards
While there had been friction between the men, it was clear that there was no lasting rift between them.
When he was well into his 80s, Aspy wrote about his relationship with Harjinder, referring to him as the remarkable Hawai Sepoy who later rose to the rank of Air Vice-Marshal. He said Harjinder Singh was indeed a dedicated and energetic soul; the IAF was fortunate to have him.
By 2nd August 1963, messages of congratulation poured into his office. His final day in Kanpur arrived; the whole station was on parade that day. As is customary in the IAF, Harjinder was placed, standing, in the back of an open jeep. Ropes were attached, and lines of officers and men took the strain to physically pull Harjinder from his Headquarters building. However, the men took things a step further. Harjinder wasn’t allowed to climb down from his jeep. He was hoisted onto the shoulders of the men, and passed from person to person, above their heads. It was a display of unabashed affection from those who had worked with Harjinder. He took the final parade before making his exit in the only way he knew how. Fifteen years previously Harjinder had flown his private aircraft into Kanpur to start his term there, and now, on the 3rd August 1963, he climbed on to the wing of his Bonanza to give a final salute to the parade before him. As he strapped in, and took off from Kanpur for the last time, he looked back to see the hundreds of men still lined up perfectly on the parade square.
Harjinder left behind his personal Spitfire; the one he had rebuilt; the one he flew to his Wings Parade, the one with his callsign ‘Plumber’ on the side. Harjinder, over time, almost by chance, had brought together a collection of aging aircraft. He knew the youth of India were the future but he wanted them to know about the past and the machines in which men went to war; some paying the ultimate price. Harjinder had formed the Indian Air Force Vintage Flight.
Amrit Saigal had left Kanpur a little before Harjinder, promoted, and sent on a career independent from his mentor. He would reach the rank of Air Commodore, and win wide respect from his colleagues. His replacement had continued the tradition of stopping the local trains to ensure Harjinder’s swift passage to work. That disruption to the public transport system would no longer be required. Air Vice-Marshal Harjinder Singh had left Kanpur, but he would leave his name there. The local authorities decided to rename the area he had driven in every day. Nagpur still has an entire colony named Harjinder Nagar.
On the evening of the 3rd August 1963, he was the guest of honour at his final formal dinner at the Central Vista Officers’ Mess in Delhi; his ‘dinning out’ of the IAF. A silver model of a Wapiti aircraft was presented to him on behalf of all ranks of the IAF; a fitting memento for an ex-Hawai Sepoy turned Air Officer Commanding. Harjinder was overcome with emotion. The IAF was his whole life, it was everything to him. Here he had made friends, and nurtured lifelong relationships, he had found mentors and guides, and had guided so many others in their careers. He had known unbearable sadness, and seen corruption, racism and bigotry, but also unconditional kindness, he had known joy and pride. As he looked back at his career now, the urge to stay was overwhelming, but the time had come for him to bid the IAF adieu. On the 4th August 1963, Air Vice-Marshal Harjinder Singh, MBE, the original Hawai Sepoy, officially left Delhi, and left his IAF. Aspy very kindly offered to fly him to Chandigarh in a Service aircraft, but he preferred to end his journey in his own aircraft. As he pushed the throttle forward, and the wheels left the Indian Air Force runway.
On 6th August 1963, Mr Pratap Singh Kairon, the Chief Minister of Punjab, invited Harjinder to lunch. During the meal, quite spontaneously, Mrs Kairon said, ‘Mr Harjinder, you have had honour in the Air Force. Here in the Punjab you will have affection.’
Harjinder was given use of the Deputy Minister’s house in Chandigarh. Things had certainly changed from the days when the orphaned child had been schooled just a few miles to the North. Back then, a small temple was the only structure in the area but now, with French styling, the new city of Chandigarh emerged from nothingness. In the middle of Corbusier’s masterwork lay a prime plot of land, which was to be Harjinder’s family home, a house that should have brought ultimate happiness to his family.
On the 22nd November 1963, the world stopped. A shock wave rippled out from Dallas in the USA. The next day, the world’s newspapers carried the headlines of JFK’s assassination; India was the exception. The smashed remains of a helicopter in Kashmir were splashed across the front page of newspapers across India. The broad, dashing smile, of Erlic Pinto was gone. With him were 4 high ranking Generals in the Indian Army. Another of Harjinder’s friends was gone. Aspy was seen with tears in his eyes again. Bad weather had done more damage than the Chinese, or Pakistani, army could have done.
It seemed to some that there was another victim of the 1962 war against the Chinese. Nehru’s health began to decline; it seemed he had absorbed all the humiliation of defeat. He saw the whole unfortunate episode as a betrayal of trust. On the 27th May 1964, he died, and India’s First Prime Minister, the talisman who emerged from behind Gandhi to become the ultimate statesman, was gone. The papers carried the same quote they had used when Gandhi was assassinated; ‘The Light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere.’
India’s economy was taking a serious beating with levels of poverty, and disease, out of control. The nation as a whole, and the IAF in particular, had morale at rock bottom. The man for the job as Chief, to drag the IAF out of this slump, was none other than Arjan Singh. His leadership, and charisma, arrived just in time to plug into the soul of the IAF, and electrify them because as 1965 drew to a close, the Pakistanis came once again; the IAF went to war, but for the first time without Harjinder.
The attack began over the Rann of Kutch. Pakistan claimed that since Rann was flooded in the monsoon, it should be regarded as part of the sea; therefore, the border should pass down the centre of the area. They backed their claim by driving tanks into Indian Territory by claiming it was sea! Kashmir was also on the Pakistani shopping list, and when their army’s infiltration units failed to take ground as hoped, they pressed the button for a full scale push over the border.
Harjinder had brought the IAF into the jet age. The Vampires were already antiquated and suffered terribly. The tiny Gnats caught the Pakistani Sabre fighter pilots by surprise and earned themselves the gory nickname of ‘Sabre Slayers’. The modern Hunter fighters and Canberra bombers operated with great distinction and much of the gloom from the ’62 war was swept away. Harjinder’s attention was drawn to how his Maintenance Command performed. Writing over 40 years later, historian Air Commodore Jasjit Singh wrote; ‘Our support organisations, especially the maintenance crews, from the lowest rank, all the way to the Air Officer Commander-in-Chief, Maintenance Command, ensured that the combat would not be affected by technical difficulties. The Air Force did not experience the type of disorderly unserviceability that the Pakistani Air Force displayed on the very first day’s strike.’
Harjinder had left a robust system behind him. During the war, the Deputy Commander of Maintenance Command was Moolgavkar, no doubt wishing that he was in one of the fighters’ cockpits.
Harjinder did the only thing he could do; he kept himself busy. He received more requests than he could cope with to attend colleges and deliver his inspiring speeches to India’s youth. Motivational seminars may be a New Millennium phenomena, but Harjinder fell into that role in the 1960s. Only when sifting through the mass of correspondence he’s left behind, does the true picture come into focus; President of the newly formed Air Force Veterans League of India; Adviser to the Government of Punjab for technical education, industrial training, general education, civil aviation and even child protection. He was an adviser to the American company General Electric, the Indian company Himalayan Helicopters, and to Sir Roy Dobson of AVRO. The company, Electronic Ltd, in Faridabad, saw such a tremendous rise in production in the month following Harjinder’s input, that the Managing Director felt compelled to vacate his chair.
After the 196
5 war, the peace between India and Pakistan was uneasy at best, but this was due to the politicians, not the men leading the opposing militaries. Arjan Singh paid a visit to his Pakistani counterpart, and ex-colleague, Air Marshal Nur Khan. However, this was not to be a strained meeting over the desk in a war room. They met in Peshwar, where they had served together as young men, Arjan in Wapitis, and Nur in the Audax. For the entire duration of his visit, Arjan stayed in Nur’s house, and they even found time to play a round of golf together.
The IAF had arguably finished the 1965 war with the upper hand, with little doubt that had the conflict continued, it would have seen the IAF in complete control of the skies, mirroring their colleagues on the ground. The Government knew it was down to the drive of Arjan Singh, and they took the long overdue step of reinstating the rank Chief of the Air Staff that had not been used since the departure of the last RAF Chief. Chief of the Air Staff, Arjan Singh, DFC, continued in that role until 16th July 1969. For a brief time, Arjan Singh controlled the Air Force whilst Field Marshal General Sam Manekshaw, MC, the man who could not even be stopped by seven Japanese bullets, was Chief of Staff of the Indian Army. When the time came, Arjan Singh handed over his responsibilities to Air Marshal PC Lal, DFC. The IAF was in good hands, but tensions continued to spiral upwards with Pakistan. The new decade started with a new Chief and, as the monsoon rains began to die down in 1971, the border clashes became an everyday occurrence.
Harjinder kept up his punishing schedule; he continued serving as an advisor to companies, but what he loved best was to interact with students and young people. He was always overwhelmed by requests from colleges and universities countrywide to come in for lectures and talk; the requests from the Punjab always took priority. In November 1971, he stood at the lectern at the DAV College in Chandigarh, his hair had turned white, and his frame refused to fill his suit as before, but his booming voice, and presence held the room in thrall, just as it had done all those years ago, when he was still a student. This time, his words were not to whip up support for student strikes, or to ask his peers to follow him into the Air Force, or even to persuade Airmen in protest, to return to duty. This time it was a 62-year-old war veteran, telling the next generation that anything was possible, but you had to work for it. Harjinder stood behind the lectern, on the raised stage area, with the sea of young faces listening to stories of biplanes flying over warring tribes, of obsolete aircraft becoming bombers, of rebuilding broken aircraft under impossible deadlines, of never giving up. He finished one sentence, paused, but the next sentence never came. His knees buckled, and the tall figure of Harjinder Singh sank to the ground. On that stage, in Chandigarh, Harjinder was reunited with his two friends; Jumbo Majumdar and Subroto Mukerjee. The musketeers were reunited.
Amrit Saigal was working at the Western Air Command Headquarters building in Delhi when he heard the news. He dropped everything and raced to Chandigarh, but there was nothing he could do for his hero. Harjinder’s heart had powered him through physical feats of exertion, and endless nights of hard labour with no sleep, but when it gave up, it gave up completely. Harjinder was most probably with Jumbo and Subroto before he reached the ground; his heart just finally had had enough. It was obvious from the weekly letters between Amrit and Harjinder that their relationship had grown even stronger since Harjinder’s retirement, but there was nothing for Amrit to do except to ensure that Harjinder’s wife was comforted, and to prepare for Harjinder’s funeral.
Air Marshals, Air Vice-Marshals, and Air Commodores, all gathered to carry Harjinder’s open coffin. Beant Kaur conducted herself with utmost dignity, as she always had. She had been in step with Harjinder on every path they followed, even learning to fly when she was 34-year-old. In his diaries, Harjinder had written that Beant Kaur’s demeanour had remained the same no matter what their circumstances – she conducted herself with grace both as the wife of an airman as she interacted with her husband’s colleague’s wives, and as the wife of the Commanding Officer who regularly interacted with world leaders. She should have gone on to have a peaceful retirement befitting someone who had stood as a rock by her husband’s side. With Harjinder gone, it was a time when his legend should have been established as one of the cornerstones of the IAF.
Neither was to happen.
Epilogue
The Greatest Disgrace?
March 1934: Air Marshal Sir John Steele, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, India to Sepoy Harjinder Singh, pilots Subroto Mukerjee and Aspy Engineer, and to the entire 200 men of the IAF:
‘Indians will not be able to fly and maintain military aeroplanes. It’s a man’s job; and all you have done is bring the greatest disgrace on yourselves.’
It is afternoon in the UK, evening time in Delhi, when my final call to Woody, from Reflight Ltd, finalises the hastily made plans during the day. It has been a busy day, as usual, in Delhi, so despite the rising excitement sleep is no problem. Still in the dark of night, we take 250 passengers into the air from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. They sit in supreme comfort sipping drinks, choosing their food and making their selection of films from a huge catalogue. The inscription on the side of the Boeing 777 may say British Airways but when Harjinder entered Lahore College in 1929, the forerunner of this very airline started the London-Delhi route with the name Imperial Airways written on their lumbering biplane. The speed has increased unrecognisably but in one way air travel has come full circle. Imperial Airways was the height of luxury and once again business passengers are offered flat beds to sleep in, and a choice of good food and wine. The Empire that Imperial Airways served no longer has a say on the land I look down on in the early dawn light. The brown/grey lands, viciously folded by mother nature is where Harjinder sat in the cockpit of a Wapiti, behind Jumbo, outside the walls of ancient forts; where Subroto Mukerjee chased his runaway aircraft in the dust; where Arjan Singh had a bullet pass through his biplane’s fuel pipe.
Only seven hours later I am at London’s Heathrow Airport and climbing onto my motorbike to start the sprint, via my house, to collect my flying equipment and head to Leicester Airport. The fresh air revives me, as I cut through the early morning traffic. There is no time to waste as I arrive at Leicester Airport, so I ride down the footpath that leads to the front of the hangar. Parked outside the hangar, shimmering with the droplets of light rain from the previous night, is the bright yellow Harvard; saffron, white and green roundels down the side, followed by the large IAF registration mark HT 291.
I have waited for this moment for many years, but the reality, as always, is very different. We’re running short on time, so, after a brief chat with Tony, the other pilot, I change into my flying suit, still with the Indian flag on the shoulder from flying the Tiger Moth in 2012. I have seen this plane change from a dusty, faded, abandoned machine in the corner of an ignored hangar, into this gleaming aircraft poised to leap skywards. I have sat in the cockpit many times as it was built back up from its basic tubular frame, into this better-than-new beast. This time, when I occupy the pilot’s seat, it will be very different, we will go flying.
I step up onto the wing, using the front foothold to pull on. Standing on the wing I realise that Harjinder would have gone through this process many times, perhaps in this very aircraft. Face backwards, inside foot on the step, pivot around so that the other foot swings over the cockpit side, and on to the seat. Both feet in and then I lower myself in. I strap in before I have time to stop and properly look ahead at the original black and white instruments facing me in the spring-mounted instrument panel. I am surrounded by the green gloss of the levers, push rods, frame tubes and side panels, that disappear into the cavernous bowels of the aircraft’s belly under my seat. Did Harjinder work on this aircraft; did Harjinder sit on this seat; did Harjinder fly this aeroplane? This aircraft is from that era, but the early log books are long lost, not that Harjinder’s name would have appeared in them until his official flying training: his early flying in the North-West Frontier never ha
ppened did it?
A few minutes later the wheels leave the runway and the patchwork of Leicestershire fields move away from underneath us. Flying in formation, I tuck in close alongside a chase aircraft for some air to air pictures. Looking along our gleaming yellow wing, past the small IAF roundel and over the white wing tip, there is little time to daydream about Harjinder sitting in this, or similar cockpits, as he battled through the clouds over Delhi, or bounced down the dusty strips around Kohat. We are on our way to RAF Brize Norton.
Our chase plane falls away, heading towards the Brize Norton runway. I can’t resist the temptation, so with the permission of Air Traffic control, we keep a little height until the runway’s starting threshold has long since disappeared under the nose. I push the control column forward until the black and white ‘piano keys’ of the runway are back in sight. The Harvard quickly accelerates as we gallop earthwards. As I level off, the runway zips underneath us until we are halfway down its length. As we pass the control tower I warn Tony of the approaching, gentle, G force, just before pulling the yellow machine up, around, and into the landing pattern.
Eyes flick in to check the speed; left hand finds the hydraulic pump actuator. One push forward to activate it followed by another flick of the eyes over the hydraulic gauge. Moving the undercarriage lever forward is rewarded with the satisfying thump as the legs swing out and lock in place: two green lights. Then left hand back slightly to find the flap lever, eyes once again flicking in, to check the progress of the flap indicator; out to check the runway; in to check the fuel gauges and out to keep tracking the runway.
Approaching the touchdown zone I bring the nose up into the landing altitude, losing sight of the runway ahead of me behind that large round nose, but the runway sides are in my peripheral vision rising slowly up to meet me. I keep the nose coming gently up, aiming to touch all three wheels at the same time as the speed bleeds away.
