WARS & ENCOUNTERS COLLECTION

Flight Lieutenant Altaf Sheikh had just pulled up his B-57 after his dive bombing run over the heavily defended Adampur airfield when it received direct hits from the IAF's medium ack guns. As the B-57 began to lose control, the pilot ordered his navigator Flight Lieutenant Bashir Chaudhry to eject and then fired his own seat out of the cockpit. Both landed in the close proximity of the airfield and while attempting to escape, were surrounded by Indian police. They were to become the first prisoners of the war.

Squadron Leader Brijpal Singh Sikand, Commander of an Indian fighter squadron, surrenders to a PAF F-104 in combat. The painting shows him landing his Gnat fighter at Pasrur, a Pakistani airfield near Gujranwala. The F-104 was flown by Flight Lieutenant Hakimullah who became the air chief two decades later. Sikand was taken prisoner and later rose to be an IAF Air Marshal. This encounter was the most unusual event of the 1965 Air War.

On the morning of 6 September 1965, a formation of 6 F-86s of No.19 Squadron attacked the advancing columns of Indian Army at Wagah. In 20 minutes of action, the Grand Trunk Road was littered with scores of burning tanks, armoured and soft vehicles. The formation was led by Squadron Leader Sajjad Haider with Flight Lieutenants M Akbar, Dilawar Hussain, Ghani Akbar and Flying Officers Khalid Latif and Arshad Chaudhry in his formation. The vehicles of Indian armour which were advancing bumper to bumper on the G T Road had saffron roundels painted on them to help their own aircraft recognize them. But things happened the other way round: the PAF fighters spotted them first. The 5" rockets, which were used for the first time in combat by the PAF, had a devastating effect on the enemy armour.

The first PAF jet fighter to shoot down an enemy aircraft was F-86F Sabre No.55-5005 of No 15 Squadron, the unit also known as the “Cobras”. Flying this aircraft, Flight Lieutenant M Younis downed an Indian Air Force Canberra while it was on a photo reconnaissance mission high over the Rawalpindi area on 10 April 59, an Eid Day. Pilot Officer Rab Nawaz was the Air Defence Controller on radar for this mission.

Night attack tactics more usually adopted by No. 31 Bomber Wing specified a pair attack with variable time interval of several minutes between the TOTs (Times on Target) of the two B-57s. In many instances a single bomber was sent against a target. Hussaini’s painting records that an exception was made for the first bombing mission of the 1965 war to achieve a concentrated delivery of 48,000 pounds of bomb-load on the IAF’s Jamnagar air station in a single wave. After penetrating into the enemy territory at sunset, the six bombers flew on at low level to their target. Approaching Jamnagar, they spaced out as briefed, and each pilot delivered 8x1,000-pound bombs from a different direction. Completely surprising the Jamnagar defences, the bomber strike was successfully executed and all six B-57s returned to their home base safely.

Eight F-86Fs of No.19 Squadron led by Squadron Leader Sajjad Haider struck Pathankot airfield. With carefully positioned dives and selecting each individual aircraft in their protected pens for their strafing attacks, the strike elements completed a textbook operation against Pathankot. Wing Commander M G Tawab, flying one of the two Sabres as tied escorts overhead, counted 14 wrecks burning on the airfield. Among the aircraft destroyed on the ground were nearly all of the IAF’s Soviet-supplied Mig-21s till then received, none of which were seen again during the War. Tied escorts consisted of Wing Commander M G Tawab (later Air Marshal and Air Chief of Bangladesh Air Force) and Flight Lieutenant Arshad Sami while the strike elements were led by Squadron Leader Sajjad Haider with Flight Lieutenants M Akbar, Mazhar Abbas, Dilawar Hussain, Ghani Akbar and Flying Officers Arshad Chaudhry, Khalid Latif and Abbas Khattak (later CAS, PAF) in his formation.

PAF scored its first victory in 1965 on 1st September when four Indian Vampire fighters which were attacking Pakistani troops in Chamb were shot down by two F-86 Sabres flown by Squadron Leader Sarfaraz Rafiqui and Flight Lieutenant Imtiaz Bhatti, two by each pilot. No Vampires were seen again for the remainder of the 1965 War. The Controller on radar during this interception was Flight Lieutenant Farooq Haider from Sakesar.

Flight Lieutenant Aftab Alam Khan in an F-I04A Starfighter destroys a Mystere IV and damages another, to mark the start of the India-Pakistan War. He was directed by the Controller at Sakesar, Flight Lieutenant Farooq Haider, to intercept the intruders. First contact with the enemy was made as the F-I04 passed head on through the Mystere formation. In the ensuing combat at tree top level, Aftab skilfully outmanoeuvred the opponents to destroy one Mystere and damage another. The remaining members of the formation managed to slip away in the poor light conditions, only to tell the tale of the “dreaded F-104 and the deadly Sidewinder.” Apart from being the first encounter to start the war in earnest, the engagement was also significant in other respects. It marked a new era of dog-fighting at very low altitude. It was also the first combat kill by any Mach-2 aircraft, and the first missile kill for the Pakistan Air Force.

Deep into enemy territory, three F-86s – not the originally planned eight – tightly manoeuvre in mortal combat against ten or more lAF Hunters near their Halwara Air Base. Seconds earlier, the formation commander, Squadron Leader Sarfaraz Rafiqui, has shot down a Hunter and now his second mark is perfectly under his guns. Suddenly, Rafiqui slides back, his guns jammed and useless, but determined to fight on. Saving precious moments he instructs his No.2, “Cecil, take over lead” and falls behind to let his wingman shoot and to give him cover, and while doing so loses his life. Cecil downs another Hunter but there are many more, in every direction. The remaining two, Flight lieutenants Yunus Hussain and Cecil Chaudhry fight on in the footsteps of their leader. Between them No.5 Squadron’s three F-86s account for five Hunters, before Cecil returns to Sargodha alone.

High above the homeland of Kashmiris disputed between Pakistan and India, the air is thick with anticipation. The pilots in the two PAF F-16s are aware that some miles away, their compatriots are just then delivering a triple counterpunch on India's Kashmir army as part of "Operation Swift Retort". From difFerent directions, the Pakistani Mirages and JF-17s are conveying explosive messages to India's lawless and falsely contrived attempt on 26 February at murdering some 200 sleeping children (aged 8-15) at the Jabba seminary in Pakistan, just across Kashmir's Line of Control. Like thousands of other such schools in South Asia since the pre-colonial centuries, the Jabba school too continues to take Muslim adolescents through their pre-school and school years. Mercifully, the lAF's Mirage bombing had been so poorly executed that the world's TV viewers were spared the blood-soaked gory sights they could never have erased from memory. Amid the lingering anger and resolve permeating Pakistan, Squadron Leader Hasan Siddiqui is moving fast at Mach 1.5 as he uses his trained eyes and ears for scanning the sky from 40,000 feet. His wingman is watchfully manoeuvring nearby. Hasan is equally attentive to the torrent of exciting data he is receiving in his cockpit from multiple sources (not all of them friendly), and other colleagues from great distances. Now, he disciplines himself in an instant into the high-focus air war instructor he is. An enemy jet fighter is 35 miles away at twelve thousand feet below him. Quick drills establish that the target is a large, high-performance fighter - now turning and twisting in apparent uncertainty - and probably an SU-30 Flanker. Hasan's AMRAAM (AIM-120C-5) too is Itching to fly. Hasan launches his BVR (beyond-visual-range) missile and notes its feedback as it speeds toward the victim until - crossing into the disputed hostile territory - the missile impacts the target. The Flanker's blip disappears from Hasan's radar screen. Subsequent ground intelligence confirms that the SU-30 failed to return from its sortie. Squadron Leader Hasan Siddiqui Instructor, Combat Commanders School — F-16B — Right pane, with the victim SU- 30 in the left pane. The painting depicts the destruction taking place about 35 miles from the F-16B. Squadron Leader Qasim Ismail Air Warfare School — F-16A — Tactically deployed nearby, the F-16A

The painting shows the last moments of a fiercely dauntless B-57 pilot, Squadron Leader Muhammad Shabbir Alam Siddiqui and his equally motivated navigator Squadron Leader Aslam Qureshi, as they drop their last bombs on the target during a repeat attack. The flying controls of this 8 Squadron bomber were so badly crippled by hits from the Indian anti-aircraft gunners below that neither crew had the precious seconds necessary to attempt ejection. The squadron colleagues of the spirited Alam Siddiqui later recalled how he had argued his way into being allowed to fly another aircrew’s mission, even though this was his third sortie within the preceding ten hours without any intervening rest. Called for wartime duty from a staff appointment by his squadron, Alam Siddiqui seemed determined from the outset to serve his country to extraordinary standards of aggression and courage. He did so heroically, leaving behind a glittering page in No.8 Squadron’s history.