Bengaluru: As he glances at the sepiatinted picture of IAF pilots who audaciously bombed Pakistan’s largest airbase at Sargodha in broad daylight, Bengaluru’s top gun Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar cannot contain his elation over finding a mention of this raid in Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) official history.
Around 10 am on September 7, 1965, Flying Officer Rajkumar was one of the four pilots of No. 1 ‘Tiger’ squadron who flew Dassault Mystere IVA ground attack fighters at tree-top level from Adampur in Punjab to destroy a couple of Sabre jets and F-104 Starfighters of PAF, the ATC (Air Traffic Control), a missile dump, a hangar and a bulk petroleum installation at Sargodha. They returned untouched but with hardly any fuel in their tanks. And, on the home run, they not only endured a chase by PAF fighters, but also anti-aircraft gun fire as they strayed over a radar unit at Amritsar! Ten days later, he was promoted as Flight Lieutenant, and subsequently received the Mention in Dispatches, but it took 22 years for the state government to announce a princely sum of Rs 1,500 as an award for the attack on Sargodha!
The war veteran, now in London to participate in the silver jubilee celebrations of the Royal College of Defence Studies (former President Pervez Musharraf was his course mate in 1990), said the daring attack was, in fact, the consequence of a reprimand handed out to the group led by Squadron Leader Sudarshan Handa for missing the airbase at Sargodha during a pre-dawn raid that morning. “We were in the crew room for breakfast after returning from an unsuccessful mission (they missed the airbase because of a navigational error) when we were told to take off at 0945 Hrs and bomb Sargodha. I brought up the rear of the formation of four fighters, and was told to look out for enemy aircraft,” he told Deccan Chronicle.
He said before dawn that morning, Wing Commander Om Prakash Taneja led a dozen Mystere fighters from Adampur to pound the PAF airbase in Sargodha. The pilots were told to taxi and takeoff without either the lights of the runway or the fighters or communication with ATC to avoid detection by PAF aircraft. Soon after they were airborne, four fighters could not locate the others, and returned after a futile attempt to spot Sargodha. And those which crossed the border returned after attacking targets around the PAF airbase because of poor visibility.
He said seconds before takeoff, his aircraft almost collided with another Mystere of Squadron Leader A.B. Devayya because all the fighters were racing down a dark runway. Twenty two years later, Squadron Leader Devayya was posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra for shooting down an F-104 Starfighter minutes before the crash of his aircraft while heading home after the pre-dawn attack. He was listed along with several others as missing in action till 1980 when the PAF acknowledge the fierce air combat between a F-104 Starfighter and Mystere of IAF on September 7, 1965.
“We were then paid a flying bounty of Rs 250 a month,” he recalled as he spoke of 90 minutes of heroism, a successful attack in broad daylight, with hardly any equivalents in Indo-Pak wars.
An ace test pilot, Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar played a crucial role in the indigenous ‘Tejas’ fighter jet project and retired as Director, Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), Bengaluru, the nodal organisation which designed and flew this Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). He has also authored a book ‘The Tejas Story: The Light Combat Aircraft’.
