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Air War Over Kashmir
Pakistan Air Force Squadron Leader Muhammad Alam climbs aboard a North American F-86F at Sargodha air base in 1965.
Pakistan Air Force
Don Hollway
The 1965 Indo-Pakistani War pitted Sabres and Starf ighters against British and
French f ighters in low-level combat.
All over the world, f ighter pilots are the same. They won’t stand for enemy aircraft
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attacking their nest. In early September 1965, Squadron Leader Muhammad Alam
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of the Pakistan Air Force dived his North American F-86F Sabre after seven Indian
Air Force Hawker F.56 Hunter f ighter-bombers raiding Sargodha, a Pakistani air
base 80 miles west of the Indian border.
“I took the last man and dived behind him, getting very low in the process,”
recounted Alam. He had flown the Hunter in Britain, and knew that it “can outrun the Sabre—it’s only about 50 knots faster, but has a much better acceleration,
so it can pull away very rapidly.” But Alam had 1,400 hours in the F-86, some of
the highest gunnery scores in the PAF and a pair of heat-seeking missiles under
his wings. “Since I was diving, I was going still faster, and as he was out of gun
range, I f ired the f irst of my two GAR-8 Sidewinder missiles at him. In this case,
we were too low and I saw the missile hit the ground short of its target.”
As the Indian formation broke up, Alam f ired his second missile. “I didn’t see it
strike,” he said. “The next thing I remember was that I was overshooting one of
the Hunters and when I looked behind, the cockpit canopy was missing and
there was no pilot in the aircraft.” He went after the rest. “When I was in gunf ire
range they all saw me. They all broke in one direction, climbing and turning
steeply to the left, which put them in loose line astern. This, of course, was their
big mistake.”
00:45
06:54
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The next 30 seconds have passed into PAF legend. “It all happened very fast,”
Alam admitted. “We were all turning very tightly—in excess of 5g or just about on
the limits of the Sabre’s very accurate A-4 radar-ranging gunsight. And I think
before we had completed about 270 degrees of the turn, at around 12 degrees
per second, all four Hunters had been shot down.”
Alam was credited with shooting down �ve Hawker Hunters on September 7, 1965
(including this one), but the Indian Air Force reported only two pilots killed.
(Pakistan Air Force)
To this day, both sides in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War deny most of each other’s
claims, yet the conflict provided a unique test of Western weapons in combat.
Pakistan fought with American-made tanks and airplanes. Though flirting with
the Soviets, India bought the bulk of its armor and aircraft in Europe. Both air
forces were organized in the British colonial tradition. But ever since their mutual
independence in 1947, Pakistan considered the northern Indian territory of
Kashmir to be on the wrong side of the border. In August it invaded, and on
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September 1 Indian army units called in air support. The PAF was outnumbered
5-to-1.
The IAF’s twin-boom de Havilland Vampire jets had f irst flown during World War
II. A dozen sent to strafe Pakistani tanks on September 1 proved easy meat for
PAF Sabres, which in the conflict’s f irst dogf ight scored three victories for no
losses. With war having not yet been declared, Sabre pilot Sqd. Ldr. Sarfaraz
Raf iqui scored two before querying his radar ground controller, “Did you mean us
to shoot to kill or to f righten?”
“To kill,” was the answer, “and you’ve done it.”
The next day, however, the Indians moved a flight of little Folland F.1 Gnat
f ighters up to the f ront. “We want you to shoot down Sabres,” their pilots were
briefed. “How you do it is your problem, but the Sabres have to be tackled.”
On the morning of September 3, PAF Sabres scrambled to meet four IAF Dassault
MD.454 Mystère IVa f ighter-bombers. The Mystères, mere bait, fled. Four Gnats
rose in their place. PAF Sqd. Ldr. Yusuf Ali Khan banked his F-86F into the middle
of their formation. “Just as I was about to launch my GAR-8,” he said, “I felt a
series of thuds on my aircraft.”
IAF Sqd. Ldr. Trevor Keelor closed to 200 yards, f iring his Gnat’s twin 30mm
cannons. Seeing an explosion on the Sabre’s right wing and the aircraft plunge
away, he would claim the IAF’s f irst air-to-air kill. The PAF reported a cannon shell
hit one of Khan’s Sidewinders, causing the explosion, but he managed to return
to Sargodha. One Gnat was lost when Sqd. Ldr. Brijpal Singh Sikand, low on fuel
and lost, landed on a PAF airf ield. The Pakistanis claimed he surrendered to a
Lockheed F-104 Starf ighter flown by Flt. Lt. Hakimullah Khan Durrani; at any rate,
Sikand’s Gnat is on display to this day at the PAF museum in Karachi. Much to the
derision of the Pakistanis, the Indians nicknamed the Gnat the “Sabre Slayer.”
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PAF Flight Lt. Syed Saad Akhtar Hatmi stands beside a Gnat of No. 2 Squadron, IAF,
captured at Pasrur on September 3. (Pakistan Air Force)
On the 4th, PAF Flt. Lt. Aftab Alam Khan dived his Starf ighter through four Indian
Mystères that were straf ing a passenger train. As they scattered low over the
deck, he swung back around on their tails to f ire a Sidewinder. “The flash of the
missile blinded me for a few seconds,” Khan recalled. “The radar controller, who
was also monitoring the radio of the Mystères, immediately informed me that
one Mystère had been shot down and that another had been damaged….It was
also the f irst combat kill by any Mach 2 aircraft and the f irst missile kill for the
Pakistan Air Force.” India claimed their aircraft had merely dropped its external
fuel tanks, which exploded on impact.
Meanwhile, flying at low level to attack the Indian base at Adampur, Alam’s threeSabre flight spotted four IAF No. 7 Squadron Hunters crossing their path about
500 feet off the ground. “I never fought at such low altitudes again,” Alam said,
“nor often at such low speeds.” The seven jets got into a turning battle, down to
200 knots and treetop level. “In maneuverability, the Sabre was undoubtedly
better than the Hunter,” Alam noted. He saw his f irst target flick over into the
ground, “although I’m not certain whether I hit him or not.” IAF Sqd. Ldr. A.K.
“Peter” Rawlley was killed. Alam claimed a second Hunter as well, which the
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Indians did not concede.
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Elsewhere, three Sabres led by Sqd. Ldr. Raf iqui jumped two Hunters covering
the IAF base at Halwara. Raf iqui shot down the leader, but four more Hunters
arrived, two f rom each side. “My guns have stopped f iring,” Raf iqui reported. In a
confused ground-level dogf ight, the Pakistanis claimed four Hunters, but two
Sabres were shot down, including Raf iqui, who ejected too low and was found
near his wrecked aircraft. He was posthumously awarded the Crescent of
Courage, Pakistan’s second-highest military award.
On September 7, probably the critical day of the air war, the IAF was determined
to take the f ight to Pakistan. A dawn raid by Mystères took Sargodha by surprise.
As the Indians scattered homeward, Flt. Lt. Amjad Hussain Khan pursued two of
them in his F-104A. He returned to base later that day via bicycle, horse and
helicopter, reporting that he’d shot down both Mystères, the second so close that
his Starf ighter ingested exploded debris, forcing him to eject. The Indians
claimed that Khan f ired on the same target twice: Sqd. Ldr. Ajjamada B. Devayya,
who heroically shot down the Starf ighter before succumbing himself. But
witnesses f rom a Pakistani village told a third version: “…two aircraft approached
f rom the direction of Sargodha and got into a turning f ight for several minutes.
Then the rear aircraft [the Starf ighter] started f iring its cannon; it was, however,
so fast that it collided with the f ront one.” Both pilots won medals, Devayya
posthumously.
A subsequent wave of IAF Hunters was scattered in Alam’s legendary attack.
Asked by his ground controller what he was counting, Alam answered, “Don’t you
see, I’ve just shot down f ive Hunters.” His victories, conf irmed by his wingman
and several other PAF pilots on the scene, are vigorously denied by the Indians,
though two Hunters crashed in Pakistani territory. Alam’s kills brought his score
to seven, making him the war’s leading ace.
That day both sides took the air war to another level, opening a new f ront with
East Pakistan (modern Bangladesh). From Kalaikunda, a former WWII bomber
base west of Calcutta, the IAF launched a dawn raid by two English Electric
Canberra bombers, across the Bay of Bengal, against a PAF Sabre base at
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Chittagong. Wing Commander Peter Wilson’s 1940s-vintage 1,000-pound bombs
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failed to explode, which hardly mattered, as there were no Sabres on base. On
their return approach the Canberras were intercepted by Indian Hunters, whose
pilots only at the last second recognized their side-by-side cockpits; crews of
Pakistan’s American-made Martin B-57 Canberras sat in tandem.
Chittagong’s Sabres had actually taken off f rom Tejgaon to attack Kalaikunda.
The two Canberras, refueled and being rearmed, were destroyed where they sat,
along with four Vampires. All the Sabres returned home unscathed. Wilson’s
report summed up the morning’s action: “FIASCO!”
The PAF, however, erred in launching a follow-up strike. IAF Flt. Lt. Alf red Cooke
and his wingman, waiting in their Hunters, caught four Sabres over the f ield.
Both sides split up, and Cooke got behind the second F-86 pair. He and Flying
Off icer Afzal Khan, in the trailing Sabre, scissored back and forth at ground level.
“I started f iring at a range of 600 yards, and I could see that he was below treeline height,” Cooke recalled. “I did not realize that I was that low and that my
wing tip was actually hitting the scrub. I stopped f iring to get away f rom the
ground and saw his aircraft explode into a ball of flame, and I could not avoid
flying through the f ireball and debris.” Khan was killed.
But meanwhile the lead Sabre had come around on Cooke’s tail. “I took violent
evasive manoeuvres,” Cooke said, “and during the criss-cross scissors we would
cross very close to each other….I kept on f iring and closing in rapidly on him, and I
could see pieces of his aircraft disintegrating. I stopped f iring, as I was so close
(100 yards) that if I did not break away I would collide with him.” Flight Lieutenant
Tariq Habib Khan escaped back to base, but his Sabre was written off.
“On recovering f rom this I immediately pulled upward to the right and saw
another Sabre behind me,” reported Cooke. “I out-manoeuvred him and got
behind as he pulled up in a vertical climb and then winged over to go into a
vertical dive with me following and f iring at him all the time. In the vertical dive I
kept f iring at him as he pulled out of the dive….I pulled back on the joystick with
my f inger on the trigger and got out of the dive with guns still f iring until I had
expended my ammunition.”
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Cooke spotted the remaining Sabre closing on his wingman, and attacked. “This
guy tried to shake me off by doing loops and barrel rolls right over the airf ield. I
got behind him to f iring range and tried to take a shot but there was no
ammo….It was at this stage that I noticed grey puffs of smoke appearing in f ront
of me and all around me and I realised that the AA was f iring at me as well.” He
chased the Sabre back across the border and, on f inally landing, flamed out for
lack of fuel several hundred yards short of his parking area, his port wing trailing
foliage and his wingtip pitot tube bent upward f rom snagging brush. The
surviving PAF pilots reported being attacked by nine Hunters.
After the 7th, commemorated thereafter in Pakistan as Air Force Day, both sides
dialed back the air war. Their NATO suppliers, disconcerted to see client states
using their weaponry on each other, had curtailed delivery of replacement
aircraft and parts. Fighter pilots turned to ground-attack missions. PAF B-57s flew
so many night nuisance raids that Indian base personnel collectively called them
“8-Pass Charlie,” on the assumption one pilot was making eight separate attacks
every night. They had no night f ighter capability, but the Pakistanis did.
On the night of September 20-21, four IAF Canberras bombed Sargodha. As they
headed for the border, an F-104 rose up in the darkness behind them. Wing
Commander Jamal Ahmed Khan tracked his target on radar, closing to within
just over a mile before triggering a Sidewinder. “It was pitch black and I had no
visual contact with the Canberra until the flash of the missile strike,” he reported.
“…It started spiraling down, and then flames started coming out of it when it had
got down to about 15,000 ft. I circled round and watched it until it hit the ground.
I felt good, but when the Indian pilot was picked up he said he thought the
whole business was ‘very unfair.’” It was worse for the Indian
navigator/bombardier, who rode the bomber into the ground.
By this time, the United Nations was pressuring both sides to desist. Before
hostilities ended, however, Pakistan’s redoubtable Alam and his wingman drew
up a pair of Hunters over Indian territory on September 16. He and the IAF leader,
Flying Off icer Prakash Pingale, went after each other’s wingmen, shot them both
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down, then turned on each other. “As we crossed head-on, he opened f ire on me,”
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remembered Pingale. The two jets got into a turning battle, the Sabre’s (and Alam’s) forte. Pingale reported, “I attempted to close in but lost contact with Sabre
No. 1 because I blacked out due to excessive g (around 8-10 as recorded by my
g-meter).”
Alam f ired both of his Sidewinders at Pingale, the second of which “hit on his
wing root. As it began to smoke, I saw that…I was well inside Indian territory and
getting a bit short of fuel.” He opted to break off. Pingale made it home, but Alam
was credited with two kills, bringing his total to nine (hotly disputed by the
Indians) and making him Pakistan’s ace of aces.
A ceasef ire was declared on September 23. Neutral estimates put aircraft losses
at 70-odd Indian (about 10 percent of the country’s strength) and 20 Pakistani
(seven percent). The venerable F-86, when flown by skilled pilots, proved still
capable. The Starf ighter, conceived as a high-level interceptor, was less effective
as a low-level, slash-and-run dogf ighter. The Western military embargo, however,
had the effect of turning both countries toward China and the Soviet Union. Their
conf rontation continues to blow hot and cold, making it one of the world’s
longest ongoing crises and arguably among the most likely to go nuclear.
For the Pakistani view of the war, f requent contributor Don Hollway recommends
Battle for Pakistan: The Air War of 1965 , by John Fricker; for the Indian viewpoint,
try India-Pakistan Air War of 1965, by P.V.S. Jagan Mohan and Samir Chopra.
Today in History:
Born2017
on April
8 of Aviation History
This story was originally published
in the May
issue
magazine. Subscribe here .
0563
Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhism.
1605
Philip IV, king of Spain and Portugal (1621-65).
1726
Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
1893
Mary Pickford (Gladys Smith), early film actress.
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1893
Edgar "Yip" Harburg, lyricist ("Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?," "Over the Rainbow").
1920
Carmen McRae, jazz vocalist and pianist.
1921
Betty Bloomer Ford, first lady to President Gerald Ford.
1955
Barbara Kingsolver, novelist ( The Bean Trees , Animal Dreams ).
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