by Mike Edwards
A metaphor for what was to come, the celebration of Independence happened in a chaotic, shambolic, but an exciting moment. As the Saffron, White and Green flag burst from the top of the flag pole, the noise from the crowd and the valiant, but already swamped, offerings of the band were blown away as nine RIAF Tempests thundered overhead only 400 feet, at 250 mph, above the flag and sea of heads. Squadron Leader Moolgavkar led the Tempest formation on this historic day with Arjan Singh. They were followed by the group of Indian and Pakistani pilots in their Harvards. Mountbatten and his wife made it back to their open carriage. Nehru was carried by the crowd and dumped alongside them. Then the Mountbattens heard what no other English ears had heard before. ‘Mountbatten Ki Jai! Mountbatten Ki Jai!’ – Long live Mountbatten.
Sergeant Saigal was leaving the smoking city of Lahore with his new bride, the sister of Doctor Nanda of Simla. With the Sikh quarters still burning and being ransacked, they boarded the train with only a revolver for company. The killings and destruction were most evident in Lahore, but the reality was that the whole of the Punjab, Harjinder’s home state, was witnessing massacres on either side. Saigal’s train travelled the 20 miles through the largely Muslim areas to pass into the safety of the Sikh city, Amritsar. The red-brick station at Amritsar had become a refugee camp for the Hindus fleeing from the regions of the Punjab, which most now believed, were heading for Pakistani rule. Every train passing through was swamped with people looking for relatives and friends, or any scrap of news concerning them. Nobody was ready for the arrival of the No. 10 Down Express that evening, but even as the puffing engine approached the station, the crowd sensed that something was wrong. When the station master saw the petrified driver being guarded by 4 soldiers, he too, knew that something was amiss. The constant chatter and wailing that was the established background noise at Amritsar station fell to a hush as the eight carriages came to a halt. It was the first time in many days that a silence descended, leaving a growing feeling of dread spreading within the Station Master’s soul. He knew he had to enter that train, even though every sinew in his body was screaming not to. The floor of the compartment before him was a tangled jumble of bodies with throats cut and skulls smashed. Limbs and body parts that had been hacked off were strewn along the corridors. There didn’t seem to be a single body intact, but he felt the need to call out, to tell them they were in Amritsar; they were safe. Incredibly a few bodies moved, as the ones trapped below, pushed their way to the top. One woman took her husband’s severed head and cradled it as she left the train. Children clung to the bodies of their dead parents, and one man held the dead body of his child, unable to move from the spot in the middle of the carnage. The station master found the same scene in every carriage with just a pitiful few literally rising from the dead around them. When he got to the end, he found painted on the back of the corpse train: ‘This is our Independence gift to Nehru and Patel.’
Perhaps because of the number of military personnel on the train of the newly-wedded Sergeant, and Mrs Saigal, or perhaps it was simply a stroke of good luck, they completed the 20 mile journey terrified, but unharmed.
In Simla, Dr Nanda was waiting for news of his sister and her new husband, when his father burst into the room shouting ‘Lahore is lost. Lahore is lost.’
It seemed impossible that Lahore, the city where they had grown up, the city where their family house had been for generations, would no longer be a part of their India. The news coming from Lahore seemed just the tip of the iceberg; the stories of the savage bloodletting spreading throughout the Punjab grew from the isolated incidents of previous months. The whispers in Simla turned into shouts, concerning the gangs collecting at the only exit from the Simla valley, effectively controlling who came and went. No one remained untouched by the violence, even down to the three-year-old boy in the Nanda household who knew something terrible was happening. His friend Shaukat was suddenly not there for them to go playing on the hills together like they always did. On their last meeting, Shaukat had taken the young Nanda’s stuffed penguin toy called Kuka, but his parents wouldn’t tell him where either had gone. The whispers he heard still haunt him today; ‘They didn’t make it to the Railway Station.’
This town, the British Government’s summer retreat, was to feel the terror along with the rest of the Northern India. Mr Nanda senior, the Royal Rickshaw builder, climbed onto the roof of the family house where he was to stay night after night for several months; he had an armour plate hung around his neck and a shotgun by his side. This was a common enough occurrence throughout the region – men standing guard over their families for nights on end, living in perpetual fear of the marauding gangs. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims all turned against each other, the savagery by one side being magnified and handed back by the other. It was not an eye for an eye; it was a massacre for a massacre, a rape for a rape, and blind cruelty for the sake of blind cruelty.
The day after Independence, when the Pandora’s Box was opened, Mr Nanda’s prophecy about Lahore was confirmed. Mountbatten handed Nehru, and Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, a manila envelope each containing the fruits of Sir Cyril Radcliffe’s hurried labours. They went into separate rooms to open and digest the news. Mountbatten was reassured by one observation; both men looked outraged as they emerged, so he knew that Radcliffe had been truly impartial. It was true, Lahore was now in Pakistan, and Amritsar was in India. The city that took Harjinder into adulthood, trained the engineer in him and formed his views and his goals, was now in a different country. Radcliffe’s scalpel had also sliced through Jumbo’s Bengal creating the Muslim enclave of East Pakistan, separated from the rest of the country by 970 miles of Himalayan peaks and Indian Territory. As much as possible, he had separated Bengal based on religious beliefs, this however, had created a conundrum of a different sort. East Pakistan would have 85 per cent of the world’s jute growing within its borders, but not a single mill to process it with; they all lay in the city of Calcutta. The idea of complete religious separation was, of course, ridiculous. India still harboured 50 million Muslims spread throughout the country, leaving India still as the third-largest Muslim state in the world. The borders were now public, and so began the greatest migration in history.
For the next few months, there would be an unparalleled tide of misery flowing through Northern India, as people were ripped from homes held in the family for generations, forced to move because their religion differed from that of their neighbour. The Air Force flew from dawn to dusk to try and monitor the rivers of humanity. Flight Lieutenant Patwant Singh remembered seeing, ‘whole ant-like herds of human beings walking over open country spread out like cattle in the cattle drives of the westerns I’d seen, slipping in droves past fires of the villages burning all around them.’
One such surging caravan of people in Punjab was estimated to contain 800,000 souls, unwilling participants in a record-breaking feat.
The sweep of Radcliffe’s pencil was to cause a myriad of problems but there was one stroke that millions of Pakistanis would never forgive him for. Gurdaspur seemed inconsequential but despite being mainly Muslim, Radcliffe followed the natural boundary of the Ravi River to bring it under Indian control. To the North was Maharaja Hari Singh’s beautiful Kashmir. The Hindu Maharaja with his mainly Muslim population, desperately tried to remain neutral but, unintentionally, Radcliffe’s scalpel had offered India a hope of retaining Kashmir through this gateway; through Gurdaspur.
So Harjinder’s dream had come true, and suddenly he found himself in the Air Force of an Independent India. However, the Air Force he knew had been torn apart. All the permanent bases, bar one, were now in Pakistan. The majority of airstrips, hangars, offices, forts, barrack blocks and landing grounds were now in another country. A sizeable portion of his technical equipment was there, too. This was a twisted, butchered, version of the dream. Within the entire Indian military force, partition was an overwhelmingly sad experience for everyone, sapping away any euphoria of an independent
India. Old and trusted friendships were abruptly ended as so many of their comrades left for Pakistan. Some friends they would perhaps never see again, some they would see on the battlefield. Tension quickly rose between both the new countries as the two Air Forces were dragged towards conflict.
The power in Delhi now rested with Nehru’s Congress Party, but Nehru requested that Mountbatten remain as Governor-General. Krishna Menon was made the first Indian Ambassador to the UK. When criticised for the Rolls-Royces he kept as official vehicles, he retorted; ‘I can scarcely hire a bullock cart to call on 10 Downing Street.’
Menon was using the iconic British car as a signal to the British Government that India was to be taken seriously on the political stage. The reality was that he preferred to use London’s double-decker buses whenever possible, and his wage from the new Indian Government was a token one rupee. The handing over of power had caused a stir back at Air Force Headquarters. Air Vice-Marshal, Sir Thomas Elmhirst, RAF, was sent to India as the Commander-in-Chief of the RIAF. In Harjinder’s opinion, the RAF seemed to be carrying out a ‘scorched earth’ policy on their equipment in India. He believed that because Pakistan was retaining a large number of RAF personnel, and not trying to stand on its own two feet like the IAF, it was getting preferential treatment. Other accounts by senior Indian Officers cast Elmhirst in a very good light, but it is easy to see why Harjinder came to his conclusions. Certainly in Delhi, many files, records, maintenance and overhaul books, made a fine bonfire. Spitfires were having concrete blocks dropped on to them from a height to render them useless. The large 4-engine American-built Liberator bombers were dangled from a crane, the wheels retracted, then dropped on their noses. The only repair depot that would still be in the new India was Kanpur, and that was stripped of much of the equipment which was then sent to Pakistan. Some specialist tools were found five years later in the main domestic water tank when it was drained! To Harjinder it felt as if a huge portion of his life’s work was being torn apart in front of his eyes.
Knowing full well how the RAF had disposed of their Liberators, Elmhirst rang Harjinder up one day to demand his approval of the proposal to buy the famous, but very obsolete, RAF Lancaster bombers. Harjinder voiced the opinion that they were not suitable for the hot conditions in India. When he discovered they were proceeding with the deal despite his complete veto, he once again put in his resignation. When called up to the Elmhirst’s office and grilled by the man running the RIAF, Harjinder forcefully pointed out that they had 50 Liberators in Kanpur; they could overhaul them in the RIAF and so Elmhirst’s old Lancasters were not needed. A very bold statement!
Elmhirst was so sure that this was a flight of fancy that he challenged, oh yes, he challenged, Harjinder to go to Kanpur and do the job himself. Naturally, Harjinder did. Throughout India there were about 100 of these aircraft abandoned and packed into various airfields. Many had been damaged by the departing RAF, all had endured the hot temperatures and monsoon rains. Grass and shrubs had grown through them and birds and snakes had taken up residence in the crevices. However, as news of the IAF’s intensions became known, spare parts and engines started to flood in from around the country. Harjinder set up camp in Kanpur, working with the Government-run Hindustan Aircraft Company, and the first Liberator was flying by the end of 1947. Eventually, the IAF bomber force was formed with more than 40 aircraft returning to active service, assembled using salvageable parts from all the available broken and smashed hulks. It was the use of the tea urn, and Harjinder’s penchant for aircraft reconstruction, on an industrial scale. A few of the ‘Frankenstein’ Liberators were still going strong 20 years later.
There is no doubt Harjinder thought that Elmhirst had his own agenda, and not necessarily one for the benefit of the RIAF. Naturally, the British Government had an agenda of its own, but Harjinder’s view of Elmhirst seems a little harsh. He certainly helped the new Indian Air Force take a massive step forward in terms of re-equipping, much of it coming from one phone call. Elmhirst’s friend, Sam Elworthy, had been given the job of closing down an air base in Pakistan. Sam Elworthy called Elmhirst to ask him if he ‘had a use for fifty new Spitfires in shipping containers there?’
That is the phone call dreams are made of! Elmhirst needed no time to deliberate; ‘Pop them on the first ship to Bombay’. The Indian Air Force had just gained two squadrons and a flying school!
Harjinder felt that the RAF technical staff’s attitude towards their task of cultivating technical ability in the RIAF was neglectful and borderline dangerous; ‘not caring two hoots for our pilots’ lives’. Harjinder’s reactions were violent and bold. Pakistan was requesting many hundreds of RAF Technical Officers, but Harjinder decided not to retain a single RAF Officer or airman. It was a long cherished dream to see the RIAF as a complete unit without any outside help, and in this, he received the full moral support from Subroto Mukerjee and Aspy Engineer. In Engineer’s recollections, he remembers the conversation with the British Chairman of the restructuring committee. The Chairman started by asking Mukerjee how many RAF officers he wanted. The Chairman was taken aback when Aspy replied, ‘a few’. However, when he asked Aspy Engineer how many senior Airmen he wanted, the answer caused him to drop his pen, Aspy wanted none. The chairman was stunned, ‘Engineer, I suggest you go get a cold shower and come back.’ He paused and added, ‘This is a serious matter and I give you 3 months before the IAF collapses and asks for the infusion of a large number of RAF NCO’s.’
Aspy replied, ‘Sir, as a matter of fact, I had to take a cold shower this morning as the heater packed up!’
Partition saw Wing Commander Janjua become the most senior officer in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). He had been a great personal friend of Harjinder for some time, and despite the increasing hostility, it was still quite normal for Harjinder to pick up the phone that still linked the now HQ RIAF Delhi to the HQ PAF in Peshawar. Both sides had the 2,500 horsepower, single seat, brutish, Hawker Tempest fighter aircraft. The Tempest was the last word in piston engine aircraft, the fastest ever built, a development from the Typhoons Jumbo had flown, and capable of carrying large war loads. Harjinder’s problem was that he had absolutely no specialist tools to work on the very complex Bristol Centaurus engines. So Harjinder rang up Janjua, who very sportingly invited him to go to Lahore and collect whatever engine overhaul tools he required. Towards the end of October, Harjinder flew to Lahore in a twin engine Dakota transport aircraft, piloted by an Englishman and accompanied by Wing Commander Rup Chand, who wanted to retrieve whatever he could from his house in Lahore. All other displaced Indians didn’t have the option that Rup Chand did. The abandoned, looted city moved him deeply. Much of Lahore being placed under control of the authorities.
Small insurgent groups in Kashmir had been fighting since the partition, but they were becoming better organised, and better equipped, with the assistance of Pakistan. This three person team of Indians, landing in their Dakota aircraft, couldn’t know of the Pakistan Government’s plans to officially back and strengthen the forces with their own Army that very same day. The day Harjinder first stepped into Pakistan was the beginning of the First Kashmir war.
As soon as Harjinder landed at Lahore, Janjua ran towards him. His first words were a smack straight between the eyes, ‘Harjinder, I hold myself responsible for your safety. Our countries may be at war soon over Kashmir. Please send your Dakota out of Lahore and recall it when you have collected your Centaurus tools.’
The friendship still ran deep enough for a war not to come between them. There was no question of sending Harjinder away without his tools for warfare. As suggested, Harjinder sent his Dakota off to Amritsar to await the recall. He knew that if they didn’t collect the tools immediately, he would probably never be able to do so. Even though shots were being fired between the two armed forces, the PAF officers were extraordinarily generous and hospitable. Harjinder was locked inside the hangar, food was provided, and he was told to take half of what was there. They worked throug
h the night and into the following day. The Dakota was recalled and the precious cargo flown out to India. The engines on their front-line Tempest aircraft could be overhauled and not a day too soon. They were just about to go into action in Kashmir, against those very same Pakistani forces who had so graciously hosted Harjinder. India, just a few months old, was at war with her neighbour. Just five years earlier, in his last war, Harjinder had been a Sergeant, converting spotter aircraft into bombers, borrowing steam trains and rebuilding discarded RAF aircraft. Now he was the senior-most engineering officer, and was to start his first war in the Independent Indian Air Force, prowling around in ‘enemy territory’ collecting tools from their hangars to fix the aircraft that were to be at the forefront of combat operations.
The Hindu Maharaja, Hari Singh, still sat on the fence, refusing to accede Kashmir to either country. This ‘Standstill Agreement’ had held for the first few months after Partition, even when Pakistan started an economic squeeze on the state. Pakistan had certainly offered no resistance when the fierce Pathan tribesmen crossed into Kashmir and started the slaughter, but now they were officially backing the claim on Kashmir. When the Pakistani troops took part in a full-scale push into Kashmir, the frightened Maharaja fled from his palace on 26th October 1947. Without hesitation, he went straight to Delhi where he signed the accession to the Indian Government, simultaneously requesting military assistance. Kashmir would be part of India, but first, they would have to fight over it.
The Pakistan-backed tribesmen pushed through Kashmir with relative ease. Action was needed fast, and it was the RIAF that was flexible enough to do this. At Palam, in Delhi, and surrounding airfields, the engines of the RIAF Spitfires and Tempests spluttered, and then roared, to life. They formed up in pairs, took off with the snub noses of the Tempest and long elegant noses of the Spitfires heading North. They dropped into Amritsar to refuel, before arriving at the various dusty, makeshift strips that were to be used as temporary bases; after a quick briefing, the pilots took off again, this time into battle. The silver painted machines glinted in the sunlight as they came in low, levelling their wings before the guns rattled into action and rockets leapt from the rails under the wings. Initially, with only small numbers of aircraft, they merely tried to intimidate the men on the ground. It worked, as their former colleagues stopped in their tracks and took cover as the rockets and bullets rained down wave, after increasing wave. A group of 3 Spitfires headed towards the battle zone as ordered, but one pilot, Ram, was separated after problems in starting his aircraft in Amritsar. As the sun began its descent, the visibility worsened. Ram gave up on the straight line navigation, and tried to follow the foothills, but it is notoriously difficult to distinguish one hill from another, one valley from the next. Sure enough, Ram had picked up the wrong group of hills and ravines, so he was now crawling around the Murree Hills, in Pakistan. His fuel finally ran out just as he was contemplating a landing in a football field; he had to take to his parachute instead. On the ground he was captured immediately by regular Pakistani troops, if he had fallen into Tribal hands he would not have survived for more than a gruesome, agony-filled hour. Instead, such were the relations between the two services at this point, that he was flown back to Ambala, just North of Delhi to rejoin the fight!