AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 106 of 332 "Bunkers were being dug and camouflage painting coated the roofs. There was a flurry of construction activity all around, which signalled to us that something big was in the offing," he remembers. "In early May, Flying Officer K S Rajan, Flight Lieutenant P C Chopra (navigator), Flight Lieutenant Biswas (flight signaller) and I were selected by our commanding officer, Wing Commander K C Sharma to fly as a detachment for the Eastern Command for about 15 days. "We airlifted bridging and other equipment and army personnel wearing lungis to generally unused landing grounds like Ambari (Assam), Cooch Behar, Balurghat (both in West Bengal) on the border and also to Agartala (Tripura). "We were told to keep quiet about what we did or saw. These places were in proximity to training camps where the Indian Army was training the Mukti Bahini. "This entailed a lot of flying in the notorious pre-monsoon weather of that region. There were a few days when they flew with only lychees as sustenance during the entire day, resulting in achingly sour teeth and a rumbling stomach by evening." During those flights, Kandy Sir met then Brigadier Shuhbeg Singh, the mercurial commander of the Counter-Insurgency School at Vairengte (Mizoram) and Colonel M A G Osmani of the Mukti Bahini. The pilots of the squadron were soon sent to Agra to train for flying para-jump missions -- a very important requirement for the impending war. And how did they land at these short and unused landing strips? Well, that is another interesting story! These landing strips were just short kutcha (rough) runways that were unmarked. There was no Air Traffic Control and almost no one on the ground to ensure that it was safe to land. Also, the flat grassy runway surface offered good grazing for cattle which invariably blocked the runway! "We came in at a low level and then descended in a circuit pattern over the disused runway. Thereafter, it was mandated to do a couple of runs along the runway at very low levels to scare away the cattle after which we did a short circling approach to land," says the flying ace.