Spitfire Singh

by Mike Edwards

  Numbers concerning the weeks and months following partition have been tossed around ever since the chaotic events unfolded. There is the very real danger of any meaning being lost in the uncertainty. It was impossible to paint an accurate picture of the carnage with unknown numbers left to die at the side of the road, thrown down wells, cremated in their own homes or abandoned in fields. To give some comparison to the figures, during World War II, India had lost 87,000 troops. Mountbatten preferred to use the figure of 250,000 killed during partition, most probably driven more by wishful thinking then actual fact. Some historians now place the figure as high as 2 million dead. However, a figure a figure of 500,000 is generally agreed on. The numbers of refugees was on a scale hitherto unseen, with three quarters of a million flowing across borders weekly. Eventually ten and a half million people would be displaced in the North with a further million, in slightly more peaceful circumstances, forced to relocate in the divided Bengal. Terrible as the price was, it was being paid by the northerly one tenth of India’s population. For their sacrifice India not only gained Independence, but was placed on a path to form a country that would come to epitomise tolerance. As the population spiralled up to 1.3 billion, the different religious, creeds and castes would live together with remarkably little friction. Harjinder’s beginnings of an Air Force as a team, irrespective of beliefs, would become central.

  Harjinder’s dream of Independence was complete, but it also brought him great sorrow to see the people he felt such affection for, turning against one another just because of the religion they followed. From the moment he could influence the happenings within the Air Force, he had preached religious tolerance and he had found the willingness of his men to respect all others beliefs and backgrounds. With sad eyes he looked North to see every organ, bone, muscle, sinew, artery and vein of his Punjab torn in two. The full realisation of the British departure had not fully hit home before he was called to fight his old comrades. Elmhirst had said there was nothing better for training and a test of leadership; Harjinder had brought together a maintenance organisation shredded by partition; he had successfully supported the entire Air Force campaign in a war just months after setting out on the road to self-reliance. With the conflict resolved against Pakistan, for the time being, it was clear that the Indian Air Force needed to rapidly build up the supporting network that sits behind the more glamorous front-line flying of the aircraft. This was to be Harjinder’s major challenge, and one he tackled with characteristic dedication. What had started as a visit to Kanpur to restore the Liberator bombers, soon became Harjinder’s life for the next 6 years. Kanpur was to be the home of the RIAF Engineering, and so Harjinder was the obvious choice as Station Commander. Harjinder accepted the post even though he had always hoped that he would avoid being made a Station Commander. He considered it a waste of a senior technician and also throughout the war he had seen Station Commanders weighed down with mundane matters of administration, supply, technical, medical, welfare, security and the whole paraphernalia that goes to build up an Air Force Unit. He still liked to get his hands dirty and working on aeroplanes. Kanpur gave Harjinder plenty of opportunities and, as usual, most of them far beyond the normal duties expected of him as a Station Commander!

  Thirteen

  Command!

  ‘Since when have I lost the confidence of the Air Force?!’

  Aristotle:

  ‘He who never learned to obey, cannot be a good commander.’

  Once Harjinder accepted the new post as the Station Commander of Kanpur, he was suddenly in-charge of hundreds, and soon, thousands, of men. Promotion, that seemed so slow to come in his initial years in the fledgling IAF, now came at a pace and Harjinder received another with his new job. From Sepoy to Group Captain in 16 years! When he had first joined the Air Force, any Officer seemed a man of great importance, but a Group Captain was a demigod. Suddenly it was Harjinder who had the lives of these people in his hands; he now knew that the Group Captains hadn’t been demigods, just men with far reaching responsibilities to cope with. Harjinder’s future was not assured because on his departure from Delhi, Air Marshal Sir Thomas Elmhirst made it clear that he would be sacked immediately if he failed to deliver on his promise to reclaim the Liberator bombers. Bringing damaged aircraft back to life was Harjinder’s forte, and this was a challenge he was more than ready for. The rebirth of the liberator bombers was just a fraction of the whole challenge, Harjinder intended to set up an entire self-sufficient Air Force maintenance facility.

  The challenge for the IAF was to restructure the Air Force so that it could serve their sovereign nation without dependence on any external source. The RAF had set up the IAF to quell the troublesome tribes in the North-West Frontier and force the Pushtun population to submit to their Imperial system; the irony was that more Pushtuns now lived in India than Afghanistan! The area, now called India, had mainly been seen by the RAF as a staging post in support of Singapore; that was until the Japanese charged through the region. As a result the majority of the permanent air bases were in the North, in Pakistan. The IAF may have been given a greater number of front-line aircraft squadrons at Partition, but very few bases to keep them or maintain them in. They had fought the war in Kashmir in true IAF style-making do with whatever was available; small tactical landing grounds, the private airfields belonging to the Maharajas, and tools that Harjinder took from the Pakistan Air Force at Lahore on the opening day of the war, or discarded equipment gathered in Kanpur.

  So Group Captain Harjinder Singh took command on 15th August 1948, as the war in Kashmir rumbled to a conclusion, with the border more or less restored to the original, drawn so hastily by Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Harjinder arrived at his new Command, but received a shock on his very first morning as he took a tour around the Base. He knew he had a large number of civilians working on the station, and that they would fall into his sphere of responsibility. However, when he found some of them lolling in the shade of a trailer, his first impressions were not encouraging. When he called to them, they ambled over and addressed him with the very informal ‘Babuji’ and while they seemed an intelligent enough lot, they always seemed to look slightly unkempt. So if this scruffy, ragtag bunch was going to be a part of his crew, part of his responsibility; he knew that something drastic was required to shake them all up.

  Harjinder took fifty of the most promising men to one side, told them that their grubby dhoti was unsuitable as work clothing, and pointed out to them that they would actually save money if they switched to military issue. He started with some basic military drill and discipline, to show them the difference between a civilian and an airman. Harjinder’s Warrant Officer, Mr Shirke, played a very significant role, never giving up on these men. The men took to their training, and over time they turned these fifty men into model workers.

  The military was already a profession that was held in high regard in India, but the prestige and glamour of the armed forces, when combined with the wondrous, futuristic aircraft of the IAF, left many in open-mouthed awe. It was an interesting sight to watch these men, who only a few short weeks ago had been of a slovenly sort, march smartly to the military band, looking determined, their faces shining. This nurtured a feeling of belonging, and soon, others volunteered to join in, until more and more men began to take pride in their work and in their appearance. It gave the participants a very different status amongst their fellow workers, earning them the respect of their peers. Harjinder insisted that these parades were purely voluntary and in no way compulsory, but it was not long before a request came from the civilian technicians asking to be given some type of training. This sense of pride and prestige was infectious. Soon, all the civilians became physically fit, mentally alert, and efficient. They obeyed their superiors with a smile. A sense of order and organisation pervaded their work. The Kanpur station began to work like a well-oiled machine, each of its workers overwhelmed with pride, working to the best of their abilities.

  The telephone girls and steno
graphers also volunteered. Within a matter of nine months, all civilians at the Air Force Station, Kanpur, numbering nearly a thousand, had been welded into one homogeneous organisation, even forming their own marching band. It was inevitable that onlookers would refer to the group as Group Captain Harjinder Singh’s private army. Even the sweepers wanted to be a part of the new order. They grouped together and, after their daily cleaning chores were completed, to a new, higher standard, they began operations to reclaim fallow lands on the periphery of the Station. Soon, they had their own vegetable gardens bursting into production. Not only did Harjinder have Kanpur turning out Liberator bombers from abandoned wrecks, to form the IAF Bomber Squadrons, but the personnel were providing their own food to keep their bellies full.

  Kanpur was a Heaven-sent for Harjinder. Not only could he lay the cornerstones of the IAF maintenance system, but he also had almost 100 wrecks of Liberator bombers to turn his attentions onto. The Government-run, HAL (then known as Hindustan Aircraft Ltd.), would do the refitting of the aircraft, but there was the small matter of getting these huge, damaged, bombers down to Bangalore from Kanpur, a distance of over a thousand miles. Road transport was out of the question, so the only solution was to fly them down. In two’s, or three’s, the aircraft were assembled by cherry picking the useable parts from all the available hulks. Harjinder’s first priority was to get two Liberators flying and fitted out as cargo aircraft, not as bombers. These soon started a regular route back forth between Kanpur and Bangalore, feeding parts to their sister airframes arriving at HAL after their own ferry flight from Kanpur. In less than a year, 40 aircraft went from scrap metal shells in Kanpur, to front-line bombers leaving the Bangalore workshop. It only took the combined teams until 2nd November 1948, to form the first IAF bomber Squadron; No. 5 Squadron took the name ‘The Tuskers,’ and adopted the Elephant, standing on its hind legs with its trunk raised, as their mascot. The logical place to base this first bomber squadron was at Kanpur, so Harjinder’s men would be on hand to help. Kanpur was soon throbbing with the sound of the four 1,200 horsepower Pratt and Whitney engines on each of the restored goliaths.

  As the number of aircraft increased, two more squadrons were formed. Harjinder’s experience of patching up individual Wapitis, had now led to squadrons of 4-engined bombers that were created from junk. The Americans actually suspected that the IAF had purchased these bombers clandestinely, but after a visit to Kanpur, they went away satisfied, and not a little impressed! The workmanship shown by Harjinder’s teams, and the HAL personnel, stood the test of time over the two decades of additional service these Liberators provided, before the jet bombers replaced them. Most of the Liberators couldn’t keep the scrap at bay any longer, but three did survive. The Royal Air Force, and the Royal Canadian Air Force, were both presented with an example of this aircraft from a different era, to display in their own museums where they can still be seen. The IAF’s final example still sits in Delhi, next to the hangar where the Vintage Flight’s Wapiti, Lysander, Tempest, Vampire, Hurricane and Spitfire are waiting for their own restoration process to start. It would be an enormous undertaking but could this old relic be rescued, a second time, to take to the air for a third reincarnation?

  On the 19th April 1949, Harjinder found himself back at the Delhi Gymkhana Club, with old, familiar faces. No. 1 Squadron RIAF had a wonderful reunion dinner. As expected Mukerjee, Engineer, Arjan Singh, Mehr ‘Baba’ Singh, Narendra, Nanda were present, but it was another six members of the original No. 1 Squadron members who made the evening so perfect; those who now flew, and fought, for the Pakistan Air Force. From friends, to foe, and back to comrades, in just two years! More than anyone in the room, Harjinder missed the obvious absentee; Jumbo Majumdar.

  News of the successes at Kanpur travelled to the very top of the political ladder in India. The bomber squadrons being formed from the scrap yards, after the departure of the RAF and USAF, had allowed what limited funds that were available, to be transferred to the acquisition of fighters. One day in 1950, Nehru, now Prime Minister, was invited to lunch in the Officers Mess at Kanpur. Mukerjee came with Nehru, and before the event he warned Harjinder not to lay out an elaborate lunch because the Prime Minister thought the armed forces were being overfed! So much for ‘An army marches on its stomach’! Harjinder had a plan, and arranged what he considered a reasonable menu befitting the occasion. Mukerjee knew his man well, and, as he’d predicted, the Prime Minister did remark at the spread before him, telling Harjinder that he was lucky to get such good food. Mukerjee’s eyes narrowed as he gave Harjinder a ‘told-you-so’ look over the meal table. Harjinder pounced; ‘Sir, I would request you to see our cooperative vegetable garden, our poultry farm and our piggery, which are run by our class IV employees in their spare time. All these items on the table are a product of their efforts from here on the station. I encourage people to work hard, produce more, and eat more. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the rest of this state. There is so much land lying uncultivated, so many rivers flowing, yet people remain semi-starved. They are not used to hard work.’

  The Prime Minister caught the twinkle in Harjinder’s eye and probably knew he had just walked into a carefully laid ambush. He replied; ‘Yes, I have visited the Punjab (Harjinder’s home state) and found that every inch of land is under the plough. So the peasants eat well, dress well, and they look cheerful. Here, the reverse is true. You must show my aides your Air Force food-growing schemes. I congratulate you.’

  Mukerjee’s eyes widened, and his face split into a smile that ran ear-to-ear. ‘Trust you to pull it off, Harjinder’ he said, when he had Harjinder to himself.

  Harjinder and his family settled into their new house outside the Air Force Compound. Harjinder’s wife, Beant Kaur, now had the opportunity to shine. Her husband may have been in-charge of all the men working on the Station but Beant Kaur leapt headlong into organising the welfare of all the families, both military and civilian, who had their lives intertwined with her husband’s Command. She introduced a Ladies’ Arts and Crafts School, where hundreds of ladies learnt stitching, tailoring, and embroidery. The course she structured was six months long with a certificate to show for their efforts. This resulted in children being always smartly dressed in well-tailored clothes. The Ladies’ Arts and Crafts School was so popular, that a double shift had to be organised. The ladies even adopted a sort of uniform of pink sarees, or pink shirts and white salwars. Much admiration was showered on Beant Kaur by visitors of ever-increasing importance, but her answer to their questions was the same to all; ‘This is a necessity for Airmen’s families. I should know, because I have passed through this stage – and I know where the shoe pinches.’

  Harjinder made a point of meeting every new officer, and their family, when they arrived at his station. In 2014, I had the pleasure of sitting in the front room of a delightful lady, Mrs Vera Albuquerque, the wife of the late Air Vice-Marshal Albuquerque. When he was a newly qualified Flight Lieutenant Engineer, they arrived with great trepidation at Kanpur; but there was Harjinder, on their first evening, to show them around and introduce them to the other officers. Harjinder was certainly thoughtful, and kind when it came to those under his care but that didn’t mean he had mellowed. When he walked into the room the men would stand to attention as etiquette demanded and the women found themselves hovering between sitting and standing. Etiquette said sit; but the aura that surrounded Harjinder said stand!

  There was more to occupy Harjinder and his wife beyond the families under their protection. They had their own son to nurture. The illness Beant Kaur had endured on her own, while Harjinder had been facing the Japanese in Burma, had left her unable to bear children. However, her brother’s family was suffering from a different problem, an ever-increasing family. So, together, they came up with the perfect solution. Harjinder and Beant Kaur adopted one of her brother’s sons as their own. The house in Kanpur finally became a family home with the arrival of Manmohan Singh Bains, or Mohini for short, their f
our-year-old son.

  Harjinder had a family, and was in command of his own growing station, but for the last few years there had been something gnawing at him constantly, even eclipsing his desire to form a successful Air Force. Since those first sneaky lessons in a Harvard on the North-West Frontier, he still yearned to be a pilot, and he would never forget Jumbo’s last words, ‘Harjinder, promise me you will propagate the spirit of flying even if I am killed in the next flight.’

  Harjinder had come to hear about a more modern, small, light aircraft available in India, a Beech Bonanza, which had crashed, but was in a repairable condition. The owner was tracked down and the offer of Harjinder’s little L5 light aircraft as a straight swap was accepted (this little L-5 now languishes as scrap at Mumbai’s Juhu Flying Club – would that Harjinder were alive to work his magic on it now!). This was not the only aircraft Harjinder was getting his hands dirty on. Scouting through the salvage of India had become second nature, to help build up the supply of Liberator bombers. However, when he spotted the sleek thoroughbred lines of a Spitfire, abandoned under a heap of broken aircraft in the salvage dump at his own Base, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Just as he had brooded over the semi-abandoned RAF Lysander he had seen on the way to Calcutta before the war, he now started to make plans for this Spitfire.

  That Calcutta Lysander was saved to become No. 1 Squadron’s 13th aircraft, and Harjinder knew that he could find a role for this Spitfire. He sent his men down to carefully dismantle the wreck, and bring it into one of his aircraft workshops. He worked alongside his men to nurse this aircraft back to life, and when Rolls Royce stepped in to arrange the overhaul of the Merlin engine, Harjinder knew he would see the Spitfire fly again. However, there was a minor problem, the Spitfire was a single seat fighter, and Harjinder was an Engineering Officer in the IAF, not a pilot. Technically he wasn’t allowed to take IAF aircraft up for a spin unless there was a pilot with him to officially Captain the machine. This Spitfire had been written off from the military inventory, but clearly, it wasn’t a civilian aeroplane either, so it fell between two stones. The answer for Harjinder was just to ignore both sides. After filling it with IAF fuel there was only one man to invite to Kanpur to fly it; Suranjan ‘Dasu’ Das. The Officer Cadet, who in 1946 had shown that his Engineering skills matched his flying ability while assisting Harjinder rebuild the Spitfire in Peshawar, was now a RIAF test pilot. He knew any aircraft that had been worked on by Harjinder would be safe as houses, and so the test flight was done; the Spitfire was cleared to fly again and handed over to Harjinder.