AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 61 of 332 helicopter in front. Every helicopter had a number, I was number one and so on. We were going to have only one helicopter on ground at Sylhet at any one time, so as not to give a bigger target to the enemy. From about 1500 to 1745, a total of 22 sorties were flown into the enemy held terrain and carried a total of 254 troops and 400 kgs of freight of 4/5 GR. For the first and second rotation we used 7 helicopters and for the third rotation we used 8 helicopters. We had enough fuel to do three rotations each. We couldn’t use all the helicopters because one was doing cas-evac from other battle fields ex Kailashahar. Cas-evac always had priority. By the time we went for the second rotation, Pakistan army had taken vantage positions at Sylhet railway station and began firing at us with small arms & LMGs. We could see hundreds of tracer bullets coming towards us. Due to the secrecy and surprise of our operation, the enemy did not try to hamper our operation from Kalura. Meanwhile, Flt Lt Singla and Chandan Singh were orbiting our landing zone in Sylhet in the armed Kilo Flight Alouette helicopter, keeping an eye on us at a higher altitude and also attacking enemy gun positions pointed out by Flt Lt Sharma, the FAC whom we had dropped with 4/5 GR in the first rotation. Around 1800, well after sunset, we returned to Kailashahar and shut down for refuelling. It was pitch dark by now. When the helicopters were being checked, one engineer came and told me that one helicopter had not come back. We called him on the radio and discovered he had got lost. We then fired a flare, the pilots saw it, came over and landed.