AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 100 of 332 There had been talk of equipping a Dakota in a similar fashion, but it was never done. Probably it would have taken a long time for the available pilots to build up the necessary skill levels. Also, none of the Bangladeshi pilots was trained to fly a Dakota at that time under the Kilo Flight banner. However, during the earlier part of the year, two Bangladeshis were trained at Dimapur on a civil registered Dakota which was handed over to Bangladesh for use in their airline, the Bangla Biman. The Dakota crashed in February 1972, killing Captain Shakeel and four others. Shakeel had been trained by Squadron Leader S K Chaudhary, who was flying with then Flying Officer Karandikar as part of the Kilo Force. "The ex-PAF guys used to tell us tales of the unique privileges enjoyed by military officers in Pakistan. "Apart from unbelievable salaries, unique privileges like duty-free import of whatever they wanted were the cause of some envy! Due to such privileges, they enjoyed the attention of celebrities and film stars and often were treated like them! "I remember, during a visit to Chittagong (in Bangladesh) after the war, I was talking to an old mess orderly like we usually do, enquiring about his well-being. As soon as I asked him, the man burst into tears. He told me that no officer had ever spoken to him except for ordering him around." AN-12s were not used in the Eastern theatre but Caribou aircraft were used to drop a few bombs over the Tezgaon airfield (Dhaka, Bangladesh) on one or two occasions, Air Commodore Karandikar remembers. "This was done at night after complete air superiority had been achieved." AN-12s were used with very good results in the Western theatre for the Changa Manga forests (Punjab, Pakistan), the SUI gas plants (Balochistan, Pakistan) and to bomb the Skardu airfield (Gilgit-Batlistan, Pakistan). Wing Commander V B Vasisht, the commanding officer, was awarded a Maha Vir Chakra and Flight Commander Squadron Leader Ahluwalia a Vir Chakra. A navigator, Squadron Leader P B Kalra, also got a Vir Chakra. Operations during the war "The monsoons came and went and so did the festival of Diwali. We kept waiting for the balloon to go up," he recalls.