ARCHIVE OF NATIONAL PRIDE

One of the unforgettable birth pains of the nation was the tragic sight of trains, trucks and bullock carts, bringing thousands of abused and hungry Muslim refugees fleeing the murdering zealots who had turned them out of their homes. Many did not survive the journey but those who did, their new country opened its comforting arms. To help the civil administration cope better with the influx, two Austers of No.1 AOP Flight patrol over a train as it nears Lahore. The Commander of the unit, Flight Lieutenant M M Jaffery, is piloting the Auster in the foreground, while Pilot Officer Jan Mehmood follows him in the other.

One of the first jobs of the newly formed Pakistan Air Force was to continue the policing of the North-West Frontier region. The painting shows a scramble by No.5 Squadron Tempest IIs from inside the historical Miran Shah Fort.

Within days of the British-ruled India's partition in August 1947, the senior most government leaders in New Delhi violated the ground rules of partition by using their Army and Air Force to bring Kashmir - a Muslim-majority state - under India's control. India used various false pretexts to justify its intervention, meant solely to prevent the expected merger of Kashmir with Pakistan under the agreed British-supervised rules. The brazen move sparked a spontaneous rebellion in Kashmir - strongly supported by Pakistan - and instantly turned the princely state into a war zone, with Pakistani tribesmen rushing to support the Kashmiris' right of self-determination. Pakistan's meagerly equipped soldiers and airmen immediately began a heroic struggle against the numerically superior forces of the Indian Army and Air Force. Desperately short of resources suited to warfighting in Kashmir's isolated and mountainous terrain, the Pakistanis fought spiritedly under the imaginative and innovative commanders of their Army and Air Force. Among them were Wing Commander Asghar Khan and his brother Colonel Aslam ("Pasha") Khan, who made decisive contributions to Pakistan Army's aim of capturing and holding as much of the invaded territory as could be denied to the Indian Army. By the time a U.N.-supervised ceasefire became effective in January 1949, the valiant soldiers and airmen had halted the Indian aggression in mid-course and forced India's Prime Minister Nehru to seek a decision about Kashmir's status through a U.N.-supervised plebiscite. While to this day India clings to the delusion of its control over Kashmir, Nehru's unfulfilled pledge to the U.N., Pakistan and the Kashmiris has continued, for seventy years, to inflict atrocities and human rights violations in the India-occupied Kashmir. It was during the first desperate weeks of the 1947-48 Kashmir war that the RPAF employed all aircraft it could muster to air-drop and air-land weapons, ammunition, rations and other supplies to the troops fighting in Kashmir and providing critical air-reconnaissance and other direct air support to sustain Pakistan's land operations. The painting shows an RPAF DC-3 Dakota - flown by Wing Commander Asghar Khan and Squadron Leader M. J. Khan - in the first of a series of night deliveries of supplies to the Astore Drop Zone (DZ), with the moonlit Nanga Parbat towering above them. Kerosene-lit 'gooseneck' lights mark the DZ limits within which the pilots must para-drop the supplies, and "T" indicates the direction of the air drop. After the first three successful deliveries that night, Pakistan's young Air Force regularly maintained supplies to several other DZs, besides providing air support to the Pakistani troops with T-6 Harvard trainers and Tempest fighters. Such missions were organised and conducted under Wing Commander Asghar Khan's leadership. Eventually, the success of this crucial land-air campaign forced India to abort its fraudulent plan in Kashmir.

Somewhere near Calcutta's Dum Dum airport, the RPAF's Bristol Freighter is in deep crisis at a mere 300 feet above the ground, flying at 105 Knots (the plane's top speed was 196 Knots) with half flaps and completely engulfed in a blindingly heavy Monsoon downpour. More than an hour before, the plane's Captain, Flight Lieutenant Abdul Waheed ("All-Weather") Khan, has lost his radio and ADF (navigational aid), and the lashing rain is forcing water through the Freighter's unpressurised cockpit panels. The poorly-sealed WW2-style fuselage reverberates with the roar of impacting rain, forcing the aircrew to shout messages to each other. Packed with twenty-five passengers and cargo, the plane had taken of from Dacca (now Dhaka), East Pakistan, for a refuelling stop at Calcutta (Kolkata) before continuing to its home base at Lahore. The Captain has earned his nickname -"All-Weather"- on good credentials. He holds a Master Green instrument rating and is known for his instrument flying proficiency and rich experience of bad-weather flying. He now decides to attempt a landing at Dum Dum and, if necessary, to return to Dacca from a missed approach. Descending out of the undercast slowly to just above the area's safety altitude, the Captain and his Navigator (a co-pilot was not normally authorised in the early Freighters) methodically re-orientate themselves over the dimly visible landscape by flying calculated patterns to intersect the railway tracks that led to the destination airport. Once over Calcutta, the Captain makes a 'no-radio flyby' over the air traffic control just below the cloud base of 300 feet and makes a smooth touchdown on the runway flooded under four inches of water. A USAF DC-6, landing shortly after the RPAF Freighter, overruns the runway, collapsing its landing gear before skidding to a stop in the muddy soil beyond the runway - fortunately without any injuries. Sixty-Five years would pass before "All-Weather", now a ninety-year old retired Group Captain, is asked by Artist Hussaini to provide some more visual details of the Freighter he flew on 16 August 1952. While turning the pages of his Pilot's Log Book to locate that day's entry, the senior veteran is struck by the auspiciousness of his plane's serial number.

During the early 1950s, the PAF purchased 81 Bristol Freighter transport aircraft. The Freighters were lumbering and noisy but useful. They undertook an extensive range of transport and communication tasks in Pakistan for more than 10 years. The painting shows relief goods being unloaded at Chittagong airfield. The Freighters were phased out in 1966 and replaced by the C-130s

It is No. 14 Squadron's final skip bombing sortie and also the closing mission of the week-long armament competition, the first all-jet inter-squadron weapons meet, for which all marksmen teams have gathered at Mauripur (later Masroor) AFB. The squadron is already among the front runners but to bag the Perry-Keene trophy, it has to post some very good numbers on the huge tote board at the Competition Umpires' Headquarters site. As Squadron Leader Waheed A. Butt's formation of Sabres begins to join up on its way back from Sonmiani Range, the squadron commander is quite pleased when his rough calculations show the additional points his pilots would now add to their totals with their just-completed bomb deliveries. But where was young Alam, the number four? Just then, the Range Safety Officer at Sonmiani calls the formation leader to say that his telephone check with the Mauripur umpires confirms that No. 14 had won the trophy. At that moment, as if on cue, Alam's Sabre closely flashes past the flight, executing a celebratory roll. Instantly, his CO's angry radio call at the indiscipline prompts Alam quickly and quietly to slip into his position in the formation. Fifteen minutes later, the four F-86s would be taxying in to the Mauripur flight line, and each Sabre surrounded by joyful technicians and other welcoming squadron officers. Meanwhile Alam, fully expecting a severe dressing down "on the mat" by his squadron commander, takes it in a convincingly contrite manner. But try as he may, Alam simply cannot for long maintain a chastised long face amid the gleeful whoops that greet No. 14 Squadron's sharp shooters – including this future ace of the 1965 war.

Before a global alert and elimination network was set up to fight the menace, huge locust storms could often reach southern Pakistan from their breeding grounds in Africa and the Middle East to cause total devastation of standing crops and other vegetation. In May 1961 the locust attack was particularly serious, quickly overwhelming Pakistan's modest resource of a few anti-locust Beaver aeroplanes and ground-based insecticide spray vehicles. The locust clouds threatened a national disaster if not destroyed within a few days. The engineers and men of 102 Air Maintenance Depot at PAF's Shara-e-Faisal (Drigh Road) Air Base rose to the occasion. They modified and successfully tested a Bristol Freighter for aerial spray by working through the night. Since each of these could be 8 times faster than the Plant Protection Department's Beavers, the same team modified three additional aircraft. Throughout the campaign the four Freighters operated from the normally inactive airfields of Jiwani, Nawabshah, Sukkur, Jacobabad and Multan until the threat was completely eliminated. The painting shows four Freighters on a spray mission over Sindh.

In the permanently frozen valley below the K-2, the planet's second highest (28,251 feet) mountain and Broad Peak, its close neighbour (both visible in the backdrop), a 6 Squadron C-130 has just dropped critically required supplies at Paiju for the Pak Army troops fighting in the nearby Siachen battlefield. After several recce and simulated paradrop test flights in the Karakorams, the Paiju Drop Zone located on the Baltoro Glacier has been chosen as the most suitable one and the Squadron Commander has brought an operational load on this first supply drop to Paiju. Also on board is Artist Hussaini, busily taking in the breathtaking details of the scenes that he would use later for this painting. The Paiju flight profile demands both precision and rapid, timely maneuvers to arrive low over and precisely aligned with the DZ's narrow and short "35 Seconds Basket", then complete the drop procedures within it to prevent the parachuted packs from falling into impossibly deep crevices or inaccessible icy gorges that surround the DZ. Even while flying very low over the Baltoro, the C-130 altimeters indicate over 15,000 feet. The post-drop manoeuvres too require both anticipation and precision because many of Pakistan's constricted valleys like this one offer no space for the C-130 to turn back. In the years that follow this inaugural sortie, the Paiju DZ would prove to be a challenging but excellent choice, reducing the transit time of logistic loads for our troops from a month to just a few days.

"I know your F-16 can bring you to this mountain top in a matter of minutes, but to stand up there in the clouds on one's own feet is something else," says the record-setting Everest conquerer and mother of two to Flight Lieutenant Haseeb Paracha, at the K-2 base camp in July 1995. Within a month, Alison Jane Hargreaves would summit the K-2 (without supplemental oxygen) - but tragically, a violent snow-storm would bar her descent. three years later, the F-16 pilot would return to the site and circle the K-2 peak, to salute the courageous lady. Back in July 1995, Flight Lieutenant Haseeb Paracha of No. 9 Squadron was in a group of mountain hikers on the tough acclimatisation trip to the K-2 Base Camp (17,717 feet above sea level). The camp is 10,528 feet below the world's second-highest peak. Besides giving himself that fitness test, Haseeb had also hoped to mingle with some renowned mountaineers to get a feel of what they endured beyond the Base Camp to the K-2 summit (28,245 feet), admitted by alpinists to be more difficult than the Everest. There, Haseeb felt especially fortunate to be talking to Alison Jane Hargreaves (33), a Scotswoman who had summited the Everest just two months before. While doing so, she had also set the world record as the first woman to climb the Everest without using any oxygen from back-packs or bottles. An experienced alpinist, she told Haseeb how inpatient she was to climb the K-2, but she also found time to mentor the Pakistani pilot with some mountaineering tips. Before he said his goodbyes and best wishes, Alison Hargreaves signed a postcard for him, printed with a watercolour of the K-2. On its reverse, she wrote the words, "Here's to Up in the Clouds!" and added a smiling Emoji within the looped first letter of her signature. Back in No. 9 Squadron, Haseeb was deeply saddened by the news of the death and disappearance of Alison Hargreaves and her five colleagues on 13 August 1995. About an hour after they had radioed their success from the K-2 peak, they had begun their return. A fiercely violent snow-storm had then enveloped them, its 140 mph-winds flinging them apart and o f their path. The search and rescue operations found no trace of them, and none has been found so far (2018). Flight Lieutenant Haseeb had promised himself that he would pay his respects to Alison Haigreaves one day. In 1998, now a senior pilot in his squadron, Squadron Leader Haseeb finally made that honour call, after completing an operational mission in the nearby combat zone. The painting shows the PAF pilot giving Alison a big bravo salute. (His wingman is also visible in the painting positioned at a distance behind).

In the unbroken tradition of his predecessors, the newly appointed commander of the PAF – Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman – leads the Air Force flypast and march past represented by the airborne and ground elements of the country's air force, to mark the Pakistan Day celebrations. It is the first time that the Joint Services parade is being held at the newly prepared venue in the capital city and a large number of citizens and officially invited foreign guests add to the colourful occasion. The painting shows the Air Chief soon after he has pulled up his latest model F-16 in a vertical climb and begun rolling the fighter in a corkscrew spiral into the brilliant sky.

In the chaotic scene that surrounds them, the officers, airmen and civilian staff migrating from the re-demarcated India to their newly born country deplane from the Dakotas. Many of their colleagues – now unwelcome in hostile India – would arrive by special trains, trucks and some even by foot, to gather at the airfields near Karachi, Lahore, Dhaka and as shown in this painting at Chaklala Aerodrome of Rawalpindi. Not all of them know even where to begin. They are short of everything – planes, spare parts, fuel, ground facilities and even rations and tents. But imbued with patriotic fervour and perseverance, these pioneers would within that decade organise their modest assets with feats of improvisation that would transform their Air Force into a disciplined and lethal sword, to guard the skies from Kashmir to the Arabian Sea.