AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 67 of 332 Rajput, 311 Mtn Bde, 82 Lt Arty Rgt, followed by 59 Mtn Arty Rgt, and 65 Mtn Arty Rgt of 57 Mtn Arty Bde. The armour (Indp Armr Sqn with PT 76s) under Maj Shammi Mehta was to swim across Meghna and race forward to catch up at Narsingdi. 10 – 14 Dec 71 All our ten helicopters proceeded to Brahmanbaria with ground crew on 10 th evening and spent the night there. There was no accommodation. So we managed to find an empty hall near the stadium and all 60 of us, officers and airmen squeezed into it for the night. There was nothing to eat and so we slept on empty stomach. Two more helicopters joined us from 111 HU on the 11th. The task early on 11 th Dec morning was to airlift two battalions (10 Bihar and 18 Rajput) and balance of 311 Bde + an artillery regiment (65 Mtn Rgt) involving 110 sorties. The field guns were to be broken down to fit into the Mi-4s. Now there was no Pakistan Army in the area to worry about - so we were flying and landing together in pre- reconnoitred big paddy fields, just south west of Narsinghdi . The first wave of Mi-4s took off from Brahmanbaria at 0530 on 11 Dec and kept flying till 0720. We had ten helicopters and did three sorties each and we carried 321 troops and 7200 kgs of load to Narsinghdi. We then had little break and refuelled at Agartala. Our next rotation started at 0915 and continued till 1145. Again we had 10 helicopters - We lifted 252 troops and 16700 kgs of load. The load was mostly the Arty guns and its ammo. Miscellaneous logistics, including rations were being airdropped by Caribous at Narsinghdi with continuous top cover (close air support) by armed Otters & Chetak of Kilo Flight. Our third rotation started after we had refuelled at Agartala around 1330. Again we had 10 helicopters and we carried 190 troops and 24,500 kgs of load. The focus was on Arty Guns. After refuelling at Agartala our fourth rotation started around 1730 – we had 9 helicopters and each did one sortie, and carried 54 troops and 8600 kgs of load including infantry weapon’s ammunition. So total for 11 Dec 71 was 815 troops and 65,200 kgs load and we did 99 sorties. On 11 Dec 71, we also sent one helicopter back to Sylhet for casualty evacuation. Fg Offr BK Sharma and Fg Offr PVR Murthy did the evacuation at night because it was felt safer to land at night. Both pilots showed great skill and courage and evacuated 30 casualties in two sorties in spite of heavy ground fire. They also flew in urgently required ammunition required by troops. Z 349 helicopter came back with a number of bullet holes.