India's Most Fearless 2

by Shiv Aroor

  ‘I remember that it was raining heavily the Sunday that he left,’ she says. ‘I’m usually a late riser. But the next morning, despite falling asleep quite late, I woke up early and I was very restless. I had no idea why.’

  Unable to go back to sleep, Kerzin got out of bed, deciding to start the day. She went about getting ready, picked out a red top for work—she always wore red on Mondays. Then she made another mental note. Firdaus and his submarine were probably far out at sea by now.

  By this time, INS Shankush had sailed nearly 200 km away from Mumbai. As Kerzin sipped her morning coffee, she couldn’t possibly have known that all wasn’t well on board her husband’s submarine.

  Type 209 attack submarine

  There was a problem. A serious one, detected at dawn. An exhaust valve that expelled toxic by-products of the submarine’s electric batteries had failed, causing a leak inside INS Shankush , a glitch that could be deadly to the crew if left unrepaired. The valve, one of a pair that remains underwater even at periscope depth, wasn’t doing its very important job. Cdr Murali wasted no time, quickly ordering the crew to take the submarine to the surface.

  Within minutes, the 1800-tonne submarine climbed through the water before gently breaking the surface.

  ‘When we surfaced, we noticed that the sea was quite rough,’ Cdr Murali says. ‘I knew we had to fix the valve right there and then. I took Mogal with me to the top of the submarine to assess the situation.’

  The two men ascended the ladder that led to a hatch at the top of the conning tower, the dorsal fin-like structure on a submarine’s back through which the periscope, communications antennae and other sensors jut out of the water, even as the submarine itself remains submerged. It was clear to both the officers that the repair of the exhaust valve would be a stiff challenge in those sea conditions. Cdr Murali asked his XO what he thought about returning to harbour to fix the glitch.

  ‘Firdaus was keen that we try and fix the problem right there and then,’ says Cdr Murali. ‘He said let’s give it a try—let us see if we can repair it. He said that since we were headed for a prestigious exercise with a foreign navy, we shouldn’t be found wanting in any regard that could make the country look bad. He wanted us to put our best foot forward. And I agreed with him.’

  The country’s image was one thing. The other was the prestige of the submarine arm itself. Submarines remain highly stealthy when submerged, but are immediately detectable once they surface. In the restive Arabian Sea, where both China and Pakistan attempt to keep constant tabs on the movement of Indian submarines, sailing the submarine back to base would be a strategic embarrassment. It would be an admission that an Indian submarine, under the watchful eyes of satellites, couldn’t complete an exercise with a foreign navy.

  Cdr Murali summoned his Engineering Officer, the man trained to oversee the fixing of any technical trouble on a submarine at sea or in port. The three men quickly discussed the operation, deciding that they would try to complete the repair in no more than 20 minutes. The Engineering Officer called three sailors and led them down the outside ladder of the conning tower and onto the submarine’s back half. The men were strapped to safety lines as they descended the sides to fix the faulty valve. But to actually conduct the repair, they needed to remove the safety straps since the valve was situated within the submarine’s casing. About fifteen minutes into the repair operation, the men were preparing to emerge and strap themselves back into their safety lines, but they didn’t see what was roaring towards them.

  ‘You cannot predict waves. This one was 15 feet high and came out of nowhere. Three men were flung overboard,’ says Cdr Murali who, by this time, had descended to the bridge, the submarine’s control room, to monitor the repair operation while his XO kept visual tabs from the tower.

  ‘Firdaus immediately reported that three men were in the water, with the fourth man not visible,’ says Cdr Murali. ‘And without a pause, he asked me for permission to go after them himself since there was no time. He said the submarine was stationary, with its engines off, and therefore, he could safely venture after them.’

  But something had caught Lt Cdr Firdaus’s eye—the fourth man, who had also been flung overboard, was spotted hanging by the side of the submarine, holding on precariously to his safety line. The sailor had injured himself badly and was bleeding from a deep cut on his leg. Lt Cdr Firdaus immediately climbed down the conning tower and rushed forward across the submarine’s casing. Reaching down while fighting a ferociously pitching sea, he heaved with all his strength to pull the injured sailor up. Supporting the sailor, since he couldn’t walk, Lt Cdr Firdaus rushed him back to the conning tower and had him lowered in for treatment.

  ‘The doctor on board said he needed to be evacuated because he was bleeding very heavily,’ Cdr Murali remembers. ‘The sea was rough, and it had also started raining quite heavily by then. I knew it would be impossible to send him back to base anytime soon. I held his hand and told him to hold on. I was now doing three things—handling the submarine for the rescue, dealing with my injured sailor, and reassuring the other men that all was in control.’

  With one man rescued, Lt Cdr Firdaus cast his gaze away from the submarine to the three men bobbing in the water. Joined by two combat divers, he climbed down onto the back of the submarine and jogged to the far end, as the entire vessel rolled and pitched in the heaving sea. It quickly became clear that the three sailors who had been flung overboard had now drifted too far from the submarine to be thrown a line. And that’s when Lt Cdr Firdaus decided to dive into the sea in an attempt to reach the sailors who, by then, had drifted over 100 m from the submarine. The two combat divers jumped into the water after him.

  At the bridge, Cdr Murali was faced with a difficult decision. The engines of INS Shankush had been turned off for the valve repair operation. And with men overboard, the engines were kept switched off because of the very real possibility of the drifting sailors being sucked into the powerful propeller.

  ‘There were now six of my men in the sea, including Mogal,’ says Cdr Murali. ‘I waited for the men to drift a certain distance away. Then I switched on the engines to low power, carefully manoeuvring the submarine around in their direction to begin the recovery.’

  Two more sailors had been ordered onto the submarine’s back to help pull the six men on board. As the submarine edged towards Lt Cdr Firdaus and the two combat divers with him, he signalled to the submarine to proceed forward and rescue the other three men first, who by this time had drifted to over 200 m away.

  The submarine gurgled past Lt Cdr Firdaus and the two divers towards the three men. The sea held steady as they were carefully pulled back on to the submarine with some difficulty.

  Cdr Murali now had three more men to bring back on board. The wind had picked up and all three had begun to drift similarly. The men were adept swimmers, capable of handling themselves well in rough water, but as the minutes wore on, they would tire. It was imperative that they be brought back on board quickly. As the submarine edged back towards them, the divers gestured to Lt Cdr Firdaus to prepare to pull himself back up on board. But he refused, insisting that he would ascend the rope only after the two sailors were safely back on board.

  Back in Mumbai, Kerzin Mogal had just arrived at work.

  ‘I was still extremely restless when I entered the office,’ Kerzin says. ‘I remember telling a colleague of mine that I thought that day was going to be a holiday. I missed most of my calls that morning and kept mostly to myself. And I had no idea why. I found it hard to focus or concentrate on anything. Something was off. I felt it.’

  From the bridge of INS Shankush , Cdr Murali edged closer to his XO and the two combat divers in the water.

  ‘Finally, I manoeuvred the submarine close to the three,’ says Cdr Murali. ‘Mogal told the two sailors to go and board the submarine first and that he would come last. They had been in the water for nearly twenty minutes. All three were tired by this time.’

  Reali
zing that the two combat divers were drifting again despite being highly qualified swimmers, Lt Cdr Firdaus grabbed the rope from the submarine and pushed himself towards the drifting men, offering to be a human bridge of sorts. He shouted to the two men to clamber over him and get to the submarine as quickly as possible. Once again, the two divers pleaded with him to climb on board first. They would manage, they said. But the XO knew they hadn’t a chance of being pulled back on board, given how rapidly they were now drifting.

  ‘Do it now! We have no time. Climb over me, get to the submarine,’ Lt Cdr Firdaus screamed through the spray.

  Finally, they obeyed—they knew it was their only chance of reaching the submarine. Holding on to the XO’s shoulders, the two divers pulled themselves into the submarine.

  Now, only Lt Cdr Firdaus remained in the water. He began to pull himself up. At the precise moment that he was about to haul himself out of the sea, the swell caused INS Shankush to roll violently, hitting the officer in the head and throwing him back into the sea in a splash of blood. It was a devastating knock from a 1800-tonne hunk of metal.

  ‘He was knocked out,’ says Cdr Murali. ‘I tried to manoeuvre and get him on board, but he was unconscious. One officer and two sailors volunteered and asked me to bring the submarine next to him, saying that they would somehow pick him up. It was clear that someone would have to physically pull him out as he was not conscious. The three sailors who had been rescued by the submarine initially had no choice but to get into the water to pull him out.’

  For a few harrowing minutes, the CO wondered about the unrelenting irony of the situation at hand. The unconscious officer was drifting rapidly now in the sea churned by the wind. Over the minutes, he drifted nearly 300 m from the submarine. The three men who went in after him were similarly set adrift in the swell. Even if the submarine was manoeuvred carefully, it would take thirty more minutes to recover Lt Cdr Firdaus and the three men.

  The situation was now critical and Cdr Murali knew it was time to call for help. From the bridge, an emergency request was sent to the INS Shikra helicopter base in Mumbai, calling for a chopper to be dispatched immediately.

  Back on board the submarine’s deck, the sailors were ordered a few minutes later to stand by as a Chetak helicopter was arriving to pick up the injured XO. Over a rolling and pitching sea, the helicopter roared in 30 minutes later through the early morning haze and flew back with Lt Cdr Firdaus strapped to a stretcher, still unconscious. Two sailors had been precariously lowered into the churning sea to pick up the officer. The remaining three men were picked up by the submarine.

  From the bridge, Cdr Murali conferred with Commodore Mohit Gupta, his boss and the then Mumbai-based COMCOS in the western fleet. Receiving authorization, Cdr Murali turned INS Shankush around and headed straight back to base.

  With INS Shankush making an exit from the Varuna exercise, the Indian Navy had ordered another submarine to replace it in the Arabian Sea. The two submarines likely crossed each other that day.

  ‘I was there to receive Mogal at the INHS Asvini naval hospital,’ says Commodore Mohit, now a Rear Admiral at the Indian Navy Headquarters. ‘When he was brought in, he was still alive. I stood outside the Intensive Care Unit and waited. This was a tough-as-nails officer who had just done something unbelievably brave. I was certain he would make it.’

  The first phone call Kerzin Mogal took that morning was from a young Indian Navy officer who worked with her husband. She knew she couldn’t ignore a call from the Navy.

  ‘I was informed that Firdaus had been injured and that I should rush to INHS Asvini as quickly as possible,’ says Kerzin. ‘I wasn’t told precisely what had happened, only that I get there as soon as possible. I was in the suburbs and it would have taken two hours to reach the hospital in south Mumbai. I called my mother, who worked in the Fort area, and asked her to rush there. My son was with my in-laws.’

  With a colleague, Kerzin speeded towards the hospital. A series of phone calls to Lt Cdr Firdaus’s colleagues in the Navy revealed nothing further.

  ‘There was a lot of anxiety. And a lot of negative thoughts,’ says Kerzin. ‘The hospital wasn’t telling us what was really going on. I guess they needed me to be there. I know their work is dangerous but I had never actually imagined this happening. It’s always smooth sailing with these guys. They are such brave souls. They don’t tell their wives exactly what happens.’

  On the eighth floor of the INHS Asvini naval hospital, a team of doctors battled to revive the injured officer. But scans had revealed a grievous skull fracture. Nobody could have survived such a blow to the head.

  A little over an hour after he was flown in, Lt Cdr Firdaus Mogal was pronounced dead.

  ‘As I was crossing Haji Ali, I called Firdaus’s colleagues again, yelling and telling them not to lie to me about the situation,’ says Kerzin. ‘My mother had reached the hospital by then and I was told that she had fainted. I was rushing as fast as I could. Something in my heart told me that when I reached, I would not be seeing Firdaus.’

  ‘Despite the best efforts of everyone, we lost this brave soldier,’ says Commodore Mohit. ‘His CO knows. His men know. His family knows. And I know—that he did not need to dive into the water to rescue those men. As the XO, he did not need to. That was his super-humanity.’

  INS Shankush was headed towards Mumbai at full speed, but had to slow down. A few weeks earlier, a cargo vessel named MSC Chitra , coming from Mumbai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), had collided with another merchant vessel, MV Khalijia-III , about 9 km off Mumbai, spilling oil and strewing its massive containers over a sizeable area of the sea. This was a navigational hazard, forcing the submarine to approach slowly and with extra care.

  ‘Mogal and the others were picked up around 9.15 a.m.,’ says Cdr Murali. ‘Then we started back to harbour, reaching around 7 p.m. There were people on the jetty. They informed us that Mogal had not made it. That’s when I knew I had lost my brave XO.’

  Cdr Murali and the others from INS Shankush rushed straight to the naval hospital.

  ‘I wanted to see the body. And I wanted to meet Mrs Mogal and tell her personally what had happened,’ says Cdr Murali. ‘But the body had been taken home. They wished to hold the funeral two days later. That night, I gathered my entire crew and spoke to them. I told them they had done a brave job that day, and that we had lost a brave brother officer. It was a tragedy.’

  But what compelled Lt Cdr Firdaus Mogal to jump into the sea that August morning?

  ‘Imagine how he saw those three sailors struggling—he instantly jumped. It was a flash of leadership. No rational man in his wisdom would have jumped,’ says Commodore Mohit. ‘It is the eternal spirit of duty that made him jump. He was physically pushing those sailors up, some on his shoulders. But unfortunately, he couldn’t save himself. It takes a huge amount of effort to be the one at the top. Even the best of people couldn’t do it, it was extraordinary.’

  Two days later, Cdr Murali finally got a chance to see the remains of his XO. And to meet his wife, Kerzin.

  ‘I couldn’t speak because of the lump in my throat. I tried my best but I couldn’t save him. He was brave beyond measure,’ says Cdr Murali. ‘I remember admonishing the other sailors who were with Mogal, telling them they should have pushed Mogal back in first. They said, “Sir, we tried that, but Mogal was adamant that he would go only after us.” I told his wife that he could have saved himself by going in first, perhaps. But he was more concerned about the safety of his men.’

  Lt Cdr Firdaus and Kerzin’s son, Yashaan, was barely two when his father died. Young enough, fortunately, not to know what was going on, and safely in the arms of a tightly knit Parsee family. Now ten, he cannot stop talking about a father he cannot possibly remember, but has heard much about.

  ‘Many people told me I shouldn’t be talking to my son about what happened. But I always felt it was his right to know what his father did,’ says Kerzin. ‘Today, Yashaan speaks about Firdaus very
proudly. Even when he was four, he would narrate in school or to friends how brave his dad was and what he did. That’s how I always wanted him to be. I didn’t want him to be left out because with a father like Firdaus, he has a legacy. Firdaus hasn’t simply left us. We all have to match up to how brave this soul was.’

  In India’s small but highly respected submarine arm, Firdaus Mogal is a name few will ever forget.

  ‘He’s definitely considered a superhero,’ says Commodore Mohit. ‘You can ask anyone in the submarine arm about the name Mogal—his memory has not faded. It’s been nearly a decade. We still remember him like it was yesterday.’

  To honour his memory, the Navy has named a submarine simulator complex, marriage accommodation blocks and an electrical training school in the officer’s name. But as with all military personnel, families and friends of heroes are still the only ones left to mourn their passing.

  ‘I still tell everybody that if the submarine hadn’t suddenly rolled and hit Firdaus on the head, my husband would have come back just injured. He would have healed and been with us,’ says Kerzin. ‘I can’t sit through the stories that are told of him, and I’ve read every single one that has been written. They shatter me every single time. He was something else. Firdaus was an angel. He wasn’t a human being.’

  In the years since his passing, Kerzin Mogal has had time to explore every aspect of her husband’s motivation that fateful day. And even though she mourns his loss, she has discovered a strange comfort in what happened.

  ‘I keep wondering how Firdaus would have felt if one of the men had died and he had survived. He would never have been the same again,’ says Kerzin. ‘He would never have forgiven himself. I’ve lost my partner, my love, the father of my child. But if anyone else had died in this incident, Firdaus would have been miserable for the rest of his life. Nothing would ever have been the same again for him.’